• Chapter 1 sets the scene, and introduces the context and contents of the book.

• Chapter 2 provides a brief historical account of the development of EU cooperation in social policy from the Treaty of Rome to the re-focused Lisbon Strategy post-March 2005 and the adoption of new working arrangements and revised objectives for the Open Method of Coordination on social protection and social inclusion in March 2006, leading up to the proposed designation of 2010 as the “European Year of combating poverty and social exclusion”.

• Chapter 3 examines what can be learned about poverty and social exclusion from the rich body of evidence provided by the social indicators that have been commonly agreed at EU level, investigating the impact of Enlargement and the inter-relation between income and other dimensions of deprivation.

• Chapter 4 suggests how policy analysis in the Social Inclusion Process can be deepened, to help learn “what works”, using model families analysis and micro-simulation modelling to develop a “common analytical framework” to accompany the common indicators.

• Chapter 5 contributes to the dynamic process of developing the common social indicators, in the context of Enlargement, a new EU data source (EU-SILC) with a new income concept, a streamlined OMC on social protection and social inclusion, and new policy concerns. It emphasises the development of non-income-related indicators on deprivation, housing quality/adequacy and homelessness. It discusses the need to balance the development of indicators to cover several areas currently not adequately covered against the dilution that might ensue if there were to be a proliferation of indicators.

• Children mainstreaming, in the sense of viewing social inclusion from a child's perspective, is a theme linking Chapters 3, 4 and 5, and suggests new approaches to both analysis and indicators.

• Chapter 6 considers the challenge of advancing the Social Inclusion Process in the context of the re-focused Lisbon Strategy, and of embedding the Process in domestic policies and implementing a social inclusion mainstreaming through establishing a scheme of systematic (ex ante and ex post) policy assessments at EU, national and sub-national levels. It proposes the setting of targets, fundamentally restructured NAPs/inclusion, and working towards more “joined-up” Government, on the basis of committed administrative and political leadership, and parliamentary scrutiny.