On 20 October, 2010 U.K Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne unveiled in outline a Comprehensive Spending Review, (CSR) announcing deep, wide-ranging cuts in public expenditure. The coalition government has defended the CSR as a necessary, appropriate and ‘fair’ response to a crisis in which the British people are ‘all in this together.’ Detractors claim that it represents a litany of changes which collectively signal the demise of public services, the growth of unemployment and poverty, further economic and social polarisation and the effective end of the welfare state. These different perspectives and responses notwithstanding, the CSR represents the most significant shake up of public and welfare expenditure since the instigation of the British welfare state in the post-war period and heralds a significant shift in state/civil society relations. Taking as its starting point that poverty, social inequality and social exclusion are forms of violence and, moreover, violence that is gendered, this paper attempts to do three things. First, to provide an overview of the major gendered impacts of public sector cuts and related austerity measures, particularly in relation to single headed households and families living in poverty in specific locales in the UK; second, to contextualise these issues within broader feminist debates about the impact of neoliberal economics and public/state ‘roll back’ in regard to social reproduction and care work especially; third, to interrogate the ‘Big Society’ as an ideologically driven agenda.
