Social Affairs Unit

Background

Social Affairs Unit is a group of 'independent' individuals that study various cultural, social and economic issues, with an "emphasis on the value of personal responsibility" [1]. They are compiled of a group of educated individuals, namely historians, sociologists, philosophers, doctors and 'hard scientists' who according to their website "identify research with a potential to inform public policy and translate it from academic discourse into public debate".

It was founded in 1980 by Julius Gould (professor and director) and Digby Anderson (doctor and chairman).

In its early years it was interested in 'critical evaluation' of the welfare state and it boasts how many of the ideas such a parental accountability and local autonomy within education have made their mark on policy today. Ironically these issues are the 'hot' issues today!

SAU version

According to the SAU in 2002:

The SAU is an independent research and educational trust committed to the promotion of lively and wide-ranging debate on social affairs. Its authors, (over 200), have analyzed the factors which make for a free and orderly society in which enterprise can flourish. It is committed to international co-operation in ideas: e.g. Health Lifestyle and Environment: Countering the Panic with the Manhattan Institute, a forthcoming Anglo-French project on food and alcohol policy, and The Loss of Virtue: Moral Confusion and Social Disorder in Britain and America, also published as a National Review book in the USA, which won the 1994 Sir Antony Fisher Memorial Award for the best book from a think-tank. Current areas of work include consumer affairs, the critical appraisal of welfare and public spending and problems of freedom and personal responsibility. [2]

Staff

Director

• Michael Mosbacher

Trustees

• Professor Julius Gould
• John Greenwood
• Professor Anthony O'Hear
• Frank Sharratt

International Advisory Council

Dr. Digby Anderson Dr. Alejandro Chafuen Professor Christie Davies Professor Adrian Furnham Professor Jacques Garello Professor Nathan Glazer Dr. Simon Green Professor Leonard Liggio Dr. Theodore Malloch Professor David Martin Professor Antonio Martino Professor Michael Novak John O'Sullivan Dr. Geoffrey Partington Dr. Arthur Seldon CBE

Other contributors and authors

Jeremy Black Lilian Pizzichini Myles Harris Richard D North Harry Phibbs Douglas Murray Peter Mullen

Contact

The Social Affairs Unit 314-322 Regent St London, W1B 5SA Tel: 020 7637 4356 Fax: 020 7436 8530

Funding

Apparently an independent organisation and corporate intervention free, it was originally founded and encouraged by the neo-liberal Institute of Economic Affairs and remained linked to it until 2005 in the form of the recently deceased Arthur Seldon, former joint founding president of the Institute.

Website

Social Affairs Unit website is organised by a blogging company called 'tbbc: the Big Blog' that manages blogging sites for Ideal Government, Stephen Pollard, Economics UK and Adam Smith Institute as well as the Social Affairs Unit.

Articles

Examples of their articles can be viewed [3] and tend to contradict their wish to talk about issues that can be translated to all since they are on rather obscure political and scientific research. Furthermore, their very name suggests a slightly elitist membership since its not so easy to research a social affairs unit!