Anti-exclusion plans are too narrow

The government's plans to end social exclusion may not work, according to the president of the Royal Economic Society. The key thrust of the government's Social Exclusion Unit is the welfare-to-work programme. But, said Tony Atkinson, warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, "social exclusion is not just about jobs and the labour market". Speaking at a meeting organised by the RES and the Economic and Social Research Council this week, he said that people can be socially excluded without being poor. People without telephones, for example, "find it difficult to participate in society".