The government of

welfare in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is a unitary state in which central government
substantially directs most government activity. However, the structure of
services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland differs in certain respects.
Each region has both a Secretary of State and administrative department
situated in central government, and its own assembly and executive, which
take on the role in the region of certain central government ministries. The
laws which apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland are different from those
in England and Wales. The Scottish Parliament has in consequence very
much more influence than its Welsh counterpart, and the Scottish
Government (a name confusingly used for both government and executive)
has the role of a civil service for Scotland, with a social policy in its own
right. The administrative structure in Northern Ireland is significantly
different: personal social services are the responsibility of the Health Board
(as they are in the Republic of Ireland) and social security and housing fall
under the Department for Social Development.
This framework changes frequently. The most important changes in recent
years have been the reformation of the Department of Social Security into
the Department of Work and Pensions, the significant transfer of income
maintenance to the Inland Revenue (now HMRC, for Her Majesty's
Revenue and Customs), and the demolition of the Department of
Transport, the Regions and Local Government, whose key social policy
responsibilities were placed in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and
have now been relocated mainly into Communities and Local Government.
At Departmental level, there is a wide range of national 'agencies' - not
listed in the table which follows - which have specialist functions in relation
to issues like procurement, IT and finance; some have expert or advisory
roles.

The main government departments

dealing with social policy in the UK

External link: Index

of UK government
agencies

CENTRAL
Responsibilities
NATIONAL
LOCAL
GOVERNMENT
ORGANISATIONS GOVERNMENT
Parliament
Primary
The Scottish
Local authorities
legislation
Parliament;
London boroughs
National Assembly for
Wales (the 'Welsh
Parliament');
the Northern Ireland
Assembly
Cabinet Office
Public service
reform
The Treasury
Economic
Her Majesty's Revenue
policy
and Customs (taxation;
Government
tax credits and social
finance
security contributions)
Department of
Health care
National Health Service Social care
Health
Social Services
Department for
National
Pension Service
Housing Benefit
Work and Pensions Insurance
Disability and Carers
Council Tax
Social
Service
Support
Assistance
Jobcentre Plus
Local welfare
Employment
provision
Department for
Local
Planning; housing;
Communities and government;
environmental
Local Government Urban policy;
health
Housing
Ministry of Justice Law
Probation service;
prison service
Home Office
Public order
UK Visas and
Police
Immigration
Fire
Department for
Education
Schools; Education
Education
welfare; Learning

disability (5-18);
children's services

The administration of welfare in the UK

The administration of the welfare state has undergone two major reforms
since its inception. The first phase, covering the 1960s and 1970s, saw
central government reformed in order to allow the planning and control of
public expenditure by the Treasury. The aims of this reform were
managerial efficiency and economic planning. The effect was to create a
system in which the Treasury allocated resources to departments, and
departments to services.
The second phase, which has led in the 1980s and 1990s to restructuring
of the civil service and the administration of welfare, was called the "new
public management". It has three main elements:

the breakup of the administration into agencies, so that the efficiency

of each part of the administration can be assessed individually.
Examples are NHS trusts and the administrative agencies
responsible for Social Security.
the introduction of 'management', with managers being responsible
for running agencies in a business-like fashion; this is widespread in
health and personal social services.
quasi markets. Public services are required to act more like economic
markets, with the separation of purchasing and provision of services
and the introduction of competition. The trend is strongest in health
and social care.

In recent years, the work of many central government agencies serving

government, like the DWP's information technology services or the DoH's
laboratories, have been privatised or contracted out; the main role of the
agencies that remain is direct service provision to the public. The National
Health Service in England was reformed in 2012 to permit a higher level of
'commissioning', or purchase of external services.

Scotland

The powers of the Scottish Government are devolved from Westminster.

There are devolved powers, which are delegated to the Scottish
Government, and reserved powers, which are retained by Westminster.
Devolved powers include health, housing, social care, education, local
government and civil law. Reserved powers include social security and
nearly all taxation.
Currently the responsibilities of Scottish Ministers are divided between

The Office of the First Minister

Finance and sustainable growth
Education and lifelong learning
Health and well-being
Justice, and
Rural affairs and the environment

The civil service - also, confusingly, known as the Scottish Government has been reorganised into "directorates" which do not correspond closely to
these briefs.
Despite the nominal division of labour, policy in Scotland is still strongly
influenced by Westminster. Economic development is the responsibility of
the Scottish government, but individualised employability provisions
currently being introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions have
been done without engaging the Scottish Government. Although education
has been independent throughout the history of the Union, Scotland now
has a national curriculum directly comparable to the English system. In
many instances, such as the introduction of civil partnerships, the Scottish
Parliament has referred decisions to Westminster to legislate under the
provisions of the "Sewel convention".

Local government
Local government grew, in England and Wales, from the administration of
the Poor Laws. When local services for health, social assistance and
education were established during the 19th century, someone had to be
responsible for their delivery; the powers were given to the Poor Law
guardians, and subsequently this became the core of a reformed local
government system. In Scotland, the local administration was more

developed, being based on the police burghs, but many of the reforms in
the 19th and 20th centuries were driven by English approaches.
Local government lost many of its powers after the war - including
responsibility for health, social security and public utilities - and has
progressively declined in influence since. The structure of local government
was reformed in the 1970s, to form two main tiers (county and district) in
most of Britain; in 1996 local government was focused in a single
administrative tier, though some two-tier authorities have been retained.
The UK has a highly centralised system of government, and the powers of
local government are very limited. Central government exercises
considerable controls over local action: they include

legal restraints. Local authorities have long been forbidden by law to

do anything which is not expressly permitted by Parliament; local
authorities which wanted to undertake any special initiative outside
their existing powers ('ultra vires') had to promote a private Act of
Parliament. Recently both England and Scotland have introduced a
general power for local authorities to further the welfare of the
population, but this is a new provision and it has not yet led to radical
change.
advice - the work of local government is increasingly regimented by
central government instructions;
inspection and audit - councillors can be personally fined for
breaching audit rules, a situation which would not be tolerated by
national politicians; and
financial controls. Despite the existence of a "council tax", local
government has very limited discretion in its ability to raise money,
and it is not permitted to exceed central government limits. Loans
cannot be taken without express sanction. Central governments can
make the availability of grants conditional on compliance with their
policy.

The main power local government has is one of conservative resistance,

usually in the form of a failure to put central government policies
immediately into effect. Political scientists refer to this kind of institutional
obstacle as 'veto points'.

The Poor Law

British social policy was dominated by the Poor Laws, first passed in 1598
and continuing till 1948. The Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 provided for

a compulsory poor rate

the creation of 'overseers' of relief
provision for 'setting the poor on work'.

The parish was the basic unit of administration. There was, however, no
general mechanism through which this could be enforced, and the Poor
Law's operation was
inconsistent between areas.
The changes of the industrial
revolution led to the
development of the towns, rapid
population growth, and the first
experience of modern
unemployment and the trade
cycle. All this caused increasing
poor rates. The Poor Law
Commission of 1834
emphasised two principles:

Men in the St Marylebone workhouse, c.

1903.
Image in the public domain

less eligibility: the position

of the pauper must be 'less eligible' than that of the labourer
the workhouse test: no relief outside the workhouse.

The Poor Laws were much hated, and much of the development of social
services in the 20th century - including national insurance, means tests and
health care - were framed to avoid having to rely on them.
Further
material: British
social policy 16011948

The Welfare State in

Britain
The Beveridge Report of 1942 proposed a system of
National Insurance, based on three 'assumptions':

family allowances,
a national health service, and
full employment.

The report became a major propaganda weapon,

with both major parties committed to its introduction.
During the war, the coalition government also
committed itself to full employment
through Keynesian policies, free universal
secondary education, and the introduction of family
allowances. The Labour Government was elected in
1945, and introduced three key acts:

William Beveridge,
the architect of the
UK social security
system.
(c) Hulton-Getty
collection.

the 1946 National Insurance Act, which

implemented the Beveridge scheme for social security;
the National Health Service Act 1946; and
the 1948 National Assistance Act, which abolished the Poor Law
while making provision for welfare services.

These Acts were timed to come into force on the same day, 7th June 1948.
The 1948 Children Act was another important element.
External
links: Beveridge
report; Sir William
Beveridge talks to
Pathe Gazette
(Youtube
video); Pathe News
celebrates full

employment
(Youtube Video)

The welfare state after 1948

he key elements of the "Welfare State" were
understood as being

Social Security
Health
Housing
Education, and
Welfare and children (the 'personal social
services').

Contemporary arguments emphasised the interrelated nature of these services, and the
importance of each for the others. However, the
administrative division between services was
reinforced by reactions against the unifying and
all-embracing nature of the Poor Law, which led
to a strong distinction being made between
income maintenance, health and welfare services.

"And when it gets really

cold, just remember
we're the envy of
Europe."

Cartoon (c) Bill

McArthur; reproduced
The 'Welfare State' was not intended to respond by permission.
to poverty; that was what the Poor Law had done. The main purpose was
to encourage the provision of the social services on the same basis as the
public services - roads, libraries and so forth - an'institutional' model of
welfare. Criticisms of the Welfare State in later years, however, were to
concentrate increasingly on the problem of poverty, and debates in the UK
are increasingly residual in tone.
Further material: The
UK welfare state

Economic policy
British economic policy 1944-79

In 1944, the coalition government formally committed itself to the

maintenance of full employment through Keynesian policies. The economy
was seen as vulnerable to the trade cycle, fluctuations in economic
development which arose because different sectors of industry were out of
phase with each other. To achieve stable growth, governments had to
encourage spending during slumps, and discourage it during booms. This
stabilisation was not particularly successful. In part, this was because
governments lacked the ability to respond precisely and at the appropriate
times; in part, too, no government wished to damp down a boom. The
problem was known in the 1950s as 'stop go'. However, virtually full
employment was maintained, with little inflation, throughout the period
when Keynesian policies were operated.
Perhaps more important, certain problems in the British economy were
obvious by the late 1950s. Britain was growing more slowly than any of its
competitors. It was over reliant on the 'old staples' - coal, cotton and heavy
engineering - which were inefficient, outdated, and producing goods with
little appeal to consumers. The Wilson government, 1964-1970, attempted
to change the balance through economic planning. The Heath government,
in 1970, proposed a programme which contained many of the elements of
what is now called 'Thatcherism', including a refusal to support industries
that were 'lame ducks'. The problems of manufacturing industry - in
particular, Rolls Royce, which was essential for defence as well as for the
economy - led the government to make a 'U turn' and to support
manufacturing industry. However, convinced that traditional Keynesianism
did not work, the government attempted a "rush for growth" and flooded the
economy with money. The idea was to stimulate growth and to crash
through all the barriers at one bound. The conventional Keynesian analysis
suggested that this would stimulate the economy to some degree, but
production would not be able to keep up causing inflation and the money
would be spent abroad, on consumer goods. That is precisely what
happened. Without the oil crisis, there would still have been the largest
balance of payments deficit to that date.
The mid-1970s were consequence marked by retrenchment and "cuts",
though those were cuts in expected growth rather than in actual
expenditure. The government apparatus for control, devised during a
period of expansion, was turned to the reduction of expenditure.
Unemployment grew by the end of the period to one million.

The reformed economy

The Conservative government elected in 1979 undertook to deal with
Britain's fundamental economic problem - its over-reliance on outdated
industry. The decision was taken to accept the consequences of
restructuring, exacerbating the depression, rather than moderating and
slowing its effects through counter-cyclical measures. Unemployment
more than trebled, from one million to over three million on the official
figures, and there was a major shift away from manufacturing industry.
Many local economies have never recovered.
More than thirty years later, the British economy looks very different.
Manufacturing, and primary production in particular, have shrivelled.
Unemployment has seemed to reduce, but this disguises long-term
changes in the workforce - for example, the release from the labour market
of people designated as having incapacity or disability, and single parents.
There has been a casualisation of a large section of the labour market,
sometimes referred to as a 'dual labour market' , but equally involving a
growth of marginal employment, characterised by low-paid, insecure and
short term employment.
The recession of 2008 emphasised Britain's dependence on the financial
sector, and its vulnerability. The claims of government notwithstanding, the
UK's economic performance has been sluggish, and inferior to other
developed economies such as Germany, Canada, Australia or Sweden.
Cuts in public spending were followed by a lengthy period of limited or zero
growth. The economic statistics in the chart are produced courtesy of the
Trades Union Congress.

Further reading
N Timmins, The five giants, Fontana 1996.
P Alcock, Social policy in Britain, Macmillan 2008.
J Baldock et al (eds), Social Policy, Oxford University Press, 2011
H Glennerster, Understanding the finance of welfare, Policy Press 2009.
The main academic journal focusing mainly on British social policy is
the Journal of Social Policy.