My longstanding research interest is in one of the central concerns of social policy: how societies provide for the needs, welfare and well-being of their members by the redistribution of resources through taxes and benefit schemes.

In particular, I have worked on the problem that whilst means testing social care can target cash and services at the people that need them most, it can have many unintended consequences. For example, recipients of income-related benefits might change their behaviour in unexpected ways. I have investigated both the underlying principles of means-testing, and how such policies can be operationalised in practice by government departments and grant-making organisations.