Introduction

Since the establishment of devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1999, a major feature has been the prominence of social policy in terms of the nature of devolved powers and in terms of devolved expenditure (Chaney and Drakeford, 2004; Mooney et al, 2006; Birrell, 2009). This was again demonstrated in the various programmes for government published following the 2011 elections for the devolved assemblies and the Scottish Parliament. There was originally a degree of policy continuity from the previous administrations, produced by rather similar electoral outcomes. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) moved from a position as a minority government to forming the government with a majority (Cairney, 2011). In Wales, a Labour–Plaid Cymru coalition changed to a Labour administration, but with only 50% of the Assembly members. Northern Ireland continued with its form of compulsory coalition or power-sharing, consisting of a four-party executive, later a five-party executive, although with two parties, the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, in a dominant position. The establishment of a UK Conservative–Liberal Democratic coalition brought an incongruence to the party and ideological alignments between the UK and the devolved governments and the increased possibility of major policy divergence. Three other debates were to have an important influence on the development of social policy. First, there was a debate on the future of devolution under the coalition government: this was to mean that a settled direction for the future of devolved policies and the meaning of the union was not clear (Jeffery et al, 2010). Second, there was a debate on the enhancements and changes in devolved powers: in Scotland, the debate on the powers of a Scottish government related to the campaign for independence for Scotland and the referendum; a major debate also commenced in Wales on the extension of legislative powers; while completing the devolution of justice and policing and some other limited extensions dominated the Northern Ireland debate. Third, there was an extensive debate on the financial arrangements and increasing fiscal devolution and responsibilities.

Context for proposals and action on financial and constitutional powers

A number of contextual factors were important for the operation of devolution under the coalition government in relation to social policy.