‘What about the poor people's rights?’ The dismantling of social citizenship through access to justice and welfare reform policy
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | JENNIFER SIGAFOOS,JAMES ORGAN |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12312 |
DOI: ./j ols.
ARTICLE
‘What about the poor people’s rights?’ The
dismantling of social citizenship through access
to justice and welfare reform policy
JENNIFER SIGAFOOS JAMES ORGAN
School of Law and Social Justice,
University of Liverpool, Chatham Street,
Liverpool, L ZR, England
Correspondingauthor
JenniferSigafoos, School of Law and Social
Justice,University of Liverpool, Chatham
Street,Liverpool, L ZR, England
Email:jennifer.sigafoos@liverpool.ac.uk
Abstract
Recent extensive reforms to the welfare system and con-
current reduction in the provision of free legal advice
have had a major impact on the meaning of social cit-
izenship. This article examines this changed meaning,
drawing mainly on the findings of a study funded by
the Equality and Human Rights Commission into the
impact of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of
Offenders Act . The study provides evidence of the
interrelationship between civil and social rights, and of
how the changes to legal advice provision have had a
negative impact on the ability of citizens to establish or
enforce welfare rights. The effect is a perception that the
state is failing to uphold its end of a reciprocal bargain
with its citizens. We argue that limited reciprocity and
inclusion, along with distrust in the system, have pro-
found implications for social and civil rights, undermine
the state’s political legitimacy, and are causing the dis-
mantling of social citizenship.
1 INTRODUCTION
After the financial crisis, the United Kingdom (UK) entered a new period of austerity politics
that reinvigorated neoliberal policiesand emboldened claims for the residualization of civil and
C. Crouch, The Strange Non-Deathof Neoliberalism (); D. Edmiston, Welfare, Inequality and Social Citizenship ();
H. Sommerlad, ‘Access to Justice in Hard Times and the Deconstruction of DemocraticCitizenship’ in Delivering Family
Justice in the 21st Century, eds M. Maclean et al. () .
© The Authors. Journal of Law and Society © CardiffUniversity Law School
362 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jols J.Law Soc. ;:–.
363
social rights.The Coalition Government’s access to justice policy, particularly the cuts to legal
aid and other sources of free legal advice, and extensive welfare reforms were an integral part of
this agenda.The profound negative impact of these policies on civil and social rights, and on
the nature of social citizenship, is analysed in this article. These policies have generated distrust
in the welfare system and a perception of unfairness, which undermine the state’s political legiti-
macy.Theyrepresent a fundamental break from social citizenship, which Marshall defined as the
twentieth-century addition of social rights, such as welfare benefits, to the pre-existing political
and civil rights. Social citizenship ensures at least ‘a modicum of economic welfare and security’,
and can extend to enabling full participation in society.The access to justice and welfare bene-
fits policy decisions reflect a governmental vision that no longer guarantees social citizenship for
many citizens.
Against the backdropof these seismic shifts in access to justice and welfare policy, we undertook
a large-scale qualitative study in on behalf of the Equality and Human Rights Commission
(EHRC).The study assessed the impact of cuts to civil legal aid in employment, family,and wel-
fare rights law that followed the controversialLegal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders
Act (LASPO) on routes to justiceand on individuals’ lives in England and Wales.This is
the only large-scale investigation of the lived experiences of individuals trying to navigate their
civil legal problems post-LASPO. The study findings paint a stark picture of the multiple impacts
of the almost complete removal of legal aid from these three areas of law, at a time of extensive
welfare reform and limited availability of alternative sources of free legaladvice.
This article uses the study findings related to welfare rights law to explore the continuing
decline of social citizenship. Taking cuts to freelegal advice as our starting point, we examine the
combined impact, at the intersection of civil and social rights, of reduced access to legal advice
and of welfare reforms .In welfare rights law, citizens now have a severely restricted ability to
K. Farnsworth and Z. M. Irving, ‘Austerity:Neoliberal Dreams Come True?’ () Critical Social Policy .
The Ministry of Justice suffered a per cent budget cut and the Legal Aid Agency a per cent budget cut between
/ and /: G. Sturge et al., The Spending of the Ministry of Justice (), at <https://commonslibrary.
parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp--/>. Welfarereforms cut £ billion from Personal Independence Payment
and Employment and Support Allowance alone: Disability Rights UK, ‘Disability Benefit Spending Reduced by £Bil-
lion over the Last Decade’ Disability Rights UK, September , at <https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news//
september/disability-benefit-spending-reduced-%C%A-billion-over-last-decade>.
For a widely accepted definition of political legitimacy, see D.Beetham, The Legitimation of Power (); D. Beetham
and C. Lord, Legitimacy and the EU ().
T. H. Marshall, ‘Citizenshipand Social Class’ in Citizenship and Social Class, eds T. H. Marshall and T. Bottomore ()
; C. Fitzpatrick et al., ‘Conditionality,Discretion and T. H. Marshall’s “Right to Welfare”’() J.of Social Welfare and
Family Law . Social citizenship is defined in detail below.
J. Organ and J.Sigafoos, The Impacts of LASPO on Routes to Justice ().
In her seminal work, Genn referred to people’s approachesto solving legal problems as ‘paths’ to justice: H. Genn, Paths
to Justice: What People Do and Think about Going to Law (). The EHRC chose to term these ‘routes’ to justice, which
we have followed here.
Conclusions in this article may be relevant to the UK as a whole. However, as legal aid is the starting point for the
empirical evidence, we only draw conclusions for England and Wales.
There is extensiveresearch on welfare reforms alone: Fitzpatrick et al., op. cit., n. ; R. Patrick, ‘Wither Social Citizenship?
Lived Experiences of Citizenship In/Exclusion for Recipients of Out-of-WorkBenefits’ () Social Policy and Society
; D. Edmiston, ‘Welfare,Austerity and Social Citizenship in the UK’ () Social Policy and Society ; Edmiston,
op. cit., n. ; P.Larkin, ‘Universal Credit, “Positive Citizenship”, and the WorkingPoor: Squaring the Eternal Circle’ ()
Modern Law Rev. ; R. Patrick,For Whose Benefit? The Everyday Realities of Welfare Reforms ().
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