April 2017 but is now not expected to be fully operational until December 2023’ (Buchanan, 2018). Following the recent public decision to exit the European Union in 2016, many social policy implementations have not been placed in positions of priority. This therefore demonstrates how external pressures can work as a factor of influencing the making of social policy as they have the power to delay the implementation, or in some cases, completely stop them being implemented at all; regardless of the potential repercussions.

The way that a social problem is framed, and how much support it receives, is often dependent on how the media reports it. If a social problem is framed as a fault of an individual it has a significantly reduced chance of being resolved, than those that are framed as the fault of society not looking after their peers. In the past the issue of poverty was generally targeted as a fault of the individual, with the idea that people were taking advantage of the benefits scheme that the government was offering and that being ‘poor’ is the fault of the individual. Although this stigma can still be seen, it is not as common as it used to be; especially with research being made in the last decade that has shown that ‘for 2011-12 it is estimated that 0.8%, or £1.2bn, of total benefit expenditure was overpaid as a result of fraud. This is far lower than the figures widely believed by the public, as revealed repeatedly in opinion polls’ (Reporter, 2013). This evidence not only disproved the common thought that a large number of the public on benefits do not actually need them, but also proved that the majority of those who are on benefits depend on them. Additional evidence has also shown that the cause of poverty is down to a number of factors including; ‘low wages, insecure jobs and unemployment, lack of skills, ineffective benefit system, high costs including housing, and family problems’ (Foundation, 2016), instead of the conservative idea that it is purely down to the individual being lazy. This common view, of course, is not helped by the way in which the media publishes these sorts of issues. In 2008, The Mail Online published an article in which they wrote ‘David Cameron has unveiled a tough new stance by declaring people who are fat, poor or addicted to drugs could only have themselves to blame’ (Boden, 2008), and then proceeded to follow the line of thoug