This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Sally Baldwin, who was killed in an accident in Rome on 28 October 2003 at the age of 62, after a career at the University of York that spanned over 30 years.

The eldest daughter in a large West of Scotland family, Sally carried caring responsibilities at an early age as a result of her parents’ illness and early death. After obtaining a first-class degree in English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow, she worked briefly in Bruges and Edinburgh before moving to the University of York for postgraduate study. She took the Diploma in Social Administration with distinction in 1973 and was almost immediately appointed as the first research fellow in a group created at the University of York to evaluate the work of the Family Fund. This group later became the Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU).

Sally became Director of SPRU in 1987 and was made Professor in 1990. Under her leadership, the Unit doubled in size and established its reputation as a national centre of excellence for research on social security, disablement and policies for carers. Her own research encompassed all these fields and she was one of the first to articulate the links between social security policy and community care. Sally’s doctoral research was a pioneering study of the financial costs to parents of a severely disabled child, published as The costs of caring: Families with disabled children (Routledge, 1985). Eventually this work contributed to the introduction of enhanced rates for disabled children in our current social security benefits and tax credits systems. This is a remarkable example of the impact of research evidence on policy and an important legacy of her work.

While Sally was Director, SPRU initiated a programme of research on the outcomes of social care, especially in relation to older people, disabled adults and their carers. This innovative work identified the outcomes that individuals themselves hoped to gain from care services, as well as the outcomes that professionals considered important. This emphasis on the needs, views and preferences of beneficiaries and recipients of service provision was arguably the defining interest and concern of her research.