CHAPTER 24: CASES OF SPECIAL DIFFICULTY

There were numerous provisions under which, if an applicants conduct was considered unsatisfactory, an allowance could be refused, reduced or awarded subject to conditions. Under section 36, a person could be treated as not capable of or not available for work, and therefore out of scope. Under section 41, an applicant could be deemed to be out of scope for persistent failure to maintain him/herself or his/her family or failure to comply with a work centre or workhouse condition under section 40. Under section 38, an allowance could be refused on the grounds that the person was not in need. Under section 40, in a case of special difficulty, the allowance could be paid to another member of the household or in kind, or the applicant could be required to attend a work centre or enter the workhouse as a condition of receiving it. Finally, under the regulations, an allowance could be reduced where special circumstances existed. The ways in which these powers were used are the subject of this chapter. Sections 36 and 41: Out of scope The significance of section 36 in defining the borderline between the board and the public assistance authorities was shown in chapter 18. Though not overtly penal, an out of scope decision could have penal implications, forcing the applicant to seek relief under the poor law. Section 41, on the other hand, was overtly penal. It involved a report to an appeal tribunal, an oral hearing and a direction by the tribunal that the applicant was to be deemed out of scope for a specified period. If an application for public assistance resulted, the public assistance authority could ask the tribunal to reconsider the direction. For the boards officers, it was much simpler to make use of section 36. Section 41, therefore, remained virtually a dead letter. Up to the end of 1939, it is known to have been used in only one case.
1

The requirement to be capable of and available for work applied to both unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance. But while unemployment benefit was awarded on a daily basis and a person who failed the availability test on one day might receive benefit for the rest of the week, availability was a fundamental condition for coming within the scope of the Unemployment Assistance Act. By the end of 1935, there was concern about the number of cases where refusal of a single job had resulted in an out-of-scope decision under section 36. One such case was that of a Bermondsey (south-east London) man who had refused a job on the grounds that the wages, 28s. a week - precisely the amount he was receiving from the board - were too low to meet his familys needs. The London County Councils chief public assistance officer, Edward Blight, complained that the use of section 36 in these circumstances was not in accordance with the intentions of the Act: persons refusing employment should be dealt with under section 40,
24/1

and those persistently failing to maintain themselves under section 41. The case resulted in a circular to district officers in February 1936, intended to stem the flow of not available decisions. The availability requirement, it warned,
2 3

cannot be used as if it had the same effect as the genuinely seeking work condition which applied between 1924 and 1930 ... To possess the availability qualification an applicant does not need to show that he is making active search for work: availability is a passive state in which a man is ready to take work and is subject to no continuing obstacles in the way of accepting it if offered. The circular gave examples of such obstacles, including the woman who is required to remain at home to look after young children, lodgers or sick parents (the extent to which non-availability was a womens problem was noted in chapter 18), the man who keeps himself in so filthy a condition that no employer would be likely to engage him and the man who is in fact unwilling to accept any work at all. Refusals of offers of employment were not to be regarded as, in themselves, evidence of non-availability: They simply create a presumption that external circumstances or a mental attitude may exist giving rise to non-availability.
4

The effectiveness of this guidance was diminished by the fact that the board had hardly begun to implement the penal provisions of section 40. An out-of-scope ruling remained the simplest way of dealing with suspected unwillingness to work, at least until the adoption in April 1937 of the policy of making discretionary reductions for voluntary unemployment. District offices reported about 50 controversial nonavailability decisions per month in 1936, and public assistance authorities continued to complain of the misuse of section 36 in cases of job refusal.
5 6

A belated attempt was made in 1939 to encourage action under section 41 in appropriate cases. Stuart King had criticised a proposal to treat a woman who had persistently refused employment as unavailable under section 36. This, he suggested, was precisely the type of case envisaged by section 41, where an applicant had persistently refused or neglected to maintain himself or his family. District officers were instructed that exclusion for a limited period under section 41 was generally to be preferred to permanent exclusion on grounds of nonavailability. The declaration of war shortly after, however, removed any scruples that the board or its officers might have felt about withholding allowances from job refusers, and there is no evidence that the new policy of using section 41 was ever implemented.
7 8 9

Section 38: Not in need Under section 38(1)(c) of the Act, applicants had to show that they were in need of an allowance. Normally, this was simply a question of satisfying the means test, but during the war it became an additional
24/2

weapon against the workshy. A note prepared for the Beveridge committee at the end of 1941 explained: Since the urgent demand for man power, which has been occasioned by the present war, the Board have developed another method of treating unemployed applicants who unreasonably refuse to accept offers of suitable employment or abandon such work without good cause. So long as the offer of employment remains open, the applicant is deemed not to be in need of an allowance since he can satisfy his needs by taking the work that is waiting for him.
10

While applicants turned down under sections 36 or 41 could apply for outdoor relief, a person judged not in need under section 38 remained within the boards scope and was debarred from outdoor relief except on grounds of sudden or urgent need. The Durham district officer expressed her concern (apparently to no avail): It is very undesirable that any applicant should be sent to and from the Relieving Office and our offices, dealt with by neither. In the event of a tragedy the Relieving Offices with a statutory duty of relieving any need in the last resort would be liable but I feel that the Board would not escape justifiable criticism.
11

Despite such doubts, not in need decisions were used from 1939 on as a means of cutting off the allowances of considerable numbers of applicants of both sexes whose attitude to work was considered unsatisfactory and, in some cases, conscripting them into unpleasant and possibly dangerous work far from home. Two examples can be cited. The boards 1939 annual report described the action taken in the cases of 272 applicants in the Merthyr (South Wales) area: 41 had accepted jobs after being interviewed, 113 had their allowances reduced, 35 were ruled out of scope and 83 not in need. Towards the end of 1940, 74 young women in Glasgow who had refused to move to munitions factories in the Midlands had their allowances cut off as not in need.
11a 12

Voluntary unemployment: discretionary deductions One of the most difficult questions for the board was how to deal with applicants who left a job voluntarily, were sacked for misconduct or refused a suitable offer of employment, thus incurring up to six weeks disqualification for unemployment benefit. Until the second appointed day, 1 April 1937, the question arose only where a person already receiving an allowance from the board refused an offer of employment. In the absence of instructions to the contrary, the normal allowance continued in payment. The number of applicants who realise that they can refuse work with impunity, a district officer wrote in September 1935, is steadily growing; and in January 1937 the South Shields area officer reported a definite attempt on the part of applicants registered as seamen to refuse employment on deep sea vessels and lamented
13

24/3

the fact that, while unemployment benefit could be disallowed, no similar action could be taken against those receiving allowances.
14

In April 1937, the problem became more serious. A person who, on becoming unemployed, was refused benefit on grounds of voluntary unemployment could now apply immediately for an allowance from the board. The boards training and welfare sub-committee was told that in December 1936 unemployment benefit had been disallowed in about 16,000 cases. In the past, about one-third of those affected would have applied for public assistance, but the proportion applying to the board was expected to be higher. A definite policy was needed.
15

The sub-committee first considered the case of a single man in lodgings, where only the interests of the applicant were involved. They agreed that a case could not be treated as of special difficulty under section 40 after a single instance of voluntary leaving, dismissal or refusal of work, and that the only practical alternative to ignoring the offence was a discretionary reduction of the allowance for the period of benefit disqualification (up to six weeks), the reduction being sufficient to cut off most, if not all, of the minor amenities which the full allowance would provide. The treatment of household cases was more problematic: The difficulty of inflicting a sentence on an individual but of being unable to secure that it fell on him alone and not on the whole household (or even on the whole household except the guilty party) was clearly envisaged. It was appreciated that the application of a financial cut in these cases raised points of extreme difficulty and delicacy - more especially where there were children in the household ... One possibility considered was that no sanction should be applied in the ordinary mild and isolated case, in the hope that drastic treatment of bad cases would have a deterrent effect on the rest. But this would mean that a man refused benefit would walk into the same Exchange, join the same queue and receive at the hands of the same pay clerk the same amount of money as if no disallowance had been imposed. Unable to resolve the dilemma, the sub-committee decided that the ministry should be consulted. A meeting of board and ministry officials followed, resulting in an agreed policy: the applicants needs were to be assessed without any additions for special circumstances and, if the resulting allowance was not at least 2s. below the benefit rate, it was to be reduced to that level unless there were extenuating circumstances or hardship would result. For a family with three or more children, where the benefit rate would be 35s. or more, a larger reduction, of 3s. or 3s.6d., could be made. Where the reduction was waived on hardship grounds, at least half the allowance (excluding the rent element) was to be paid in kind - but this sanction was not to be applied while an appeal against disallowance was pending. Similar reductions were to be made in cases where the question of disallowance of unemployment benefit had not arisen because the other conditions of entitlement were not

24/4

satisfied. In these cases, however, the deduction of 2s. or more was to be made from the normal allowance, not from the benefit rate.
16

All this rested on the assumption that the power to reduce an allowance where special circumstances existed could legally be used in cases of voluntary unemployment. The training and welfare sub-committee was assured in January 1937 that this had never been in doubt. In fact, however, serious doubts had arisen as early as January 1934, when the Duchess of Atholl (who, in 1924, had become the first woman minister in a Conservative government) drew attention to the absence from the Unemployment Bill of any requirement that an applicant for assistance should be seeking work or should not have refused it. Her letter led to an exchange of views - in writing, happily for posterity - among Ministry of Labour officials. Eady suggested that the boards officers might use their discretionary powers to limit the amount payable to an applicant who refused a job, or the regulations might prescribe a minimum scale for such cases. A. F. Harrison, the official responsible for UAB matters in the solicitors department, questioned the legality of this suggestion. The bill, he argued, required that the allowance be determined by reference to the applicants needs, which were not affected by the job refusal. The ministrys solicitor, Sir Bertram Bircham, admitted that he did not quite see the answer to this. Perhaps, he suggested, the local advisory committees could help, or the applicant could be harried by having his allowance awarded for a week at a time; but, he admitted, this probably is rather petty and would involve more administrative difficulties than it would be worth. Eady still felt that a solution could be found within the officers discretion, perhaps by resorting to the argument that an applicant who refused a job was not in need. But in any case, he wrote, is not this a matter for solvitur ambulando - or walking round it?! Summing up the debate, Phillips expressed grave doubt about the use of a nebulous discretionary power. The board would not be able to explain a reduction to an appeal tribunal without demonstrating that it had acted illegally. If the bill remained as drafted, he concluded, the board would either have to make much more use of section 40 than had been contemplated or allow applicants to refuse employment with impunity.
17 18

In the event, the bill did remain as drafted, the Duchess received a discreet personal note from the minister instead of an official reply, and the board was encouraged to use its nebulous discretionary power to make what came to be known as voluntary unemployment deductions, apparently unaware of their questionable legality. The risks involved were small, since the only legal remedy available to the applicant was an appeal to the local tribunal, whose decision did not constitute a legally binding precedent. A report in September 1937 that in nearly all cases of appeal ... the Tribunal have restored the cuts suggests that the tribunals disliked the policy but does not necessarily imply that they objected on legal grounds. Some certainly did: the chairman of the Norwich tribunal, in 1938, questioned its legality in terms very similar to those used by Harrison in 1934. The regulation permitting discretionary reductions, he noted, was concerned with the
19

24/5

calculation of needs, and a mans need was not affected by the circumstances which made his case one of special difficulty. The headquarters official concerned, W.A.H. Hepburn, plainly aware of the 1934 correspondence, passed this report up to the assistant secretary, Fieldhouse, with the comment: Presumably ... we have walked around the problem all this time and will continue to do so as long as we can? Fieldhouse, however, insisted that the Norwich tribunal should be told that refusing or leaving a job could be a special circumstance enabling the board to adjust the allowance. In the absence of any record of further difficulties, it can be assumed that the tribunal followed this guidance in subsequent appeals.
20

Section 40(2)(a): payment to another person The power to pay an allowance to a member of the household other than the applicant was the first of the boards powers under section 40 to be used. An instruction in May 1935 authorised its use where the area officer was satisfied, after very careful investigation, that the applicant is not to be trusted to make satisfactory provision for his dependants out of his allowance. There were also cases where the allowances of irresponsible young applicants were paid to their parents. But the number of allowances paid to another member of the household was never large. In April 1936 there were believed to be only 70 or 80. At the end of 1938 there were 477.
21 22 23 24

Section 40(2)(b): payment in kind More use was made of the power to pay allowances otherwise than in cash. The practice was introduced cautiously in September 1935, headquarters approval being required in each case until May 1937. Payment in kind was to be considered if payment to another member of the household had failed (or it was obvious that it would fail) to ensure satisfactory provision for the applicants dependants. Vouchers were to be issued on tradesmen nominated by the applicant, leaving enough of the allowance in cash to cover rent and other reasonable cash expenditure. The vouchers were of two types. The first authorised the supply of goods up to a specified value from the following list: Bread; flour; oatmeal; soap; sugar; tea; coffee; cocoa; peas or lentils; carrots; potatoes; onions; other vegetables; fruit; rice, sago, tapioca, etc.; jam or treacle; condensed milk; butter; margarine; cheese; lard; eggs; bacon; tinned meat or fish; yeast, candles, matches and other necessities (not exceeding 1s. altogether). The second type of voucher was for a stated quantity of coal or other fuel, or of foods not included in the above list, such as butchers meat, fish or milk, which were essential to the welfare of the household.
25

By April 1936 payments in kind had been made in only 37 cases, but the number increased rapidly from 1937 on. Payment in kind ceased to be mainly a welfare measure and acquired two other purposes: to act as
26

24/6

a mild penalty, notably in voluntary unemployment cases, and to discourage certain types of applications. An example of the latter is the instruction issued in May 1937 authorising the use of vouchers for urgent needs where unemployment benefit was not immediately available either because of delays or because of the waiting days situations in which public assistance authorities would in the past have made payments in kind. The consequences of this instruction are described in chapter 20: a rapid growth of payments in kind, especially in London.
27

Another use of payment in kind to which regional officers were asked to draw attention in April 1938 was where the wage stop could not be rigorously applied without causing hardship. The idea was taken up with more enthusiasm than discretion by A. M. Anderson, the Newport district officer whose hard-line views on the wage stop were noted in chapter 21. He suggested to the local advisory committees that applicants whose allowances approximated to their normal earnings should receive a substantial part of them in kind. The advisory committees reacted negatively. The Ebbw Vale committee noted that, while the applicant would hardly be affected, his wife was bound to feel a certain loss of self respect; that there was a risk of shop-keepers abusing the system; and that part payment in kind would quite definitely ... not be likely to improve an applicants attitude to work. Anderson was reprimanded by headquarters for putting the proposal forward as one of general principle rather than on a case by case basis.
28

29

Vouchers were also issued for hostel or lodging house accommodation, especially to itinerant applicants, sometimes suspected of obtaining allowances from more than one office. A particular problem for the London offices was the number of migrants arriving in the capital, ranging from obviously genuine work-seekers to the sometimes truculent vagrant of no settled abode. In two weeks in August 1938, 372 lorry-jumpers, mainly young men from Scotland and the north of England, arrived and applied for urgent assistance. Apart from those regarded as genuinely seeking work, they received vouchers for a few days board and lodging at a Salvation Army or other hostel. It is significant, the London regional officer commented, that allowances in kind are sometimes refused, or not used, and that if used, the applicant does not apply again. Payment in kind occurred mainly in London, whether in the form of accommodation vouchers for recent arrivals or food vouchers for waiting day applicants. In one week of October 1938, 1,567 food vouchers were issued, 1,078 of them in London.
30 31

During the House of Commons debate on the boards annual report in July 1938, George Buchanan complained that payment in kind was being extended for every kind of almost trivial reason. Ernest Brown replied that the number of cases was only about 800 a week (almost certainly an understatement) and that these were very special cases of a very difficult and doubtful nature. The truth probably lay somewhere between these two statements, but it is doubtful whether most of the cases could legitimately be regarded as cases of special difficulty of a kind envisaged by section 40(2)(b).
32

24/7

Section 40(2)(d): the workhouse Of the four measures prescribed for cases of special difficulty, granting an allowance on condition that the applicant entered a workhouse was the most extreme. Although board members were told that the workhouse order must remain at the back of any deterrent apparatus, it was not intended to be used in more than a handful of cases. Before it could be used at all, agreement had to be reached with the public assistance authority. Many authorities were reluctant to assist in compelling unemployed men to enter the workhouse. Some refused outright, while others, including the London County Council, at first refused but later relented. By the end of 1938, arrangements had been made with only about one-third of over 200 authorities in Great Britain. Once agreement had been reached, however, the decision to require an applicant to enter the workhouse was a matter for the board, and it was considered outrageous and an offence against the decencies when a local authority official proposed to appear on behalf of an applicant appealing against the boards decision.
33 34 35 36 37

By October 1936, arrangements had been made for only five applicants to enter a workhouse and only one had actually done so. In four of the five cases, the special difficulty was of a moral rather than industrial nature. A typical description was: Objectionable habits. Always in a filthy condition. Dissipates his allowance in drink. Constantly changing his address as no one will tolerate him. The fifth case was that of a young man who had not worked since 1930 and had repeatedly refused offers of work or training. He did not enter the workhouse and was believed to be supporting himself as a member of a dance band.
38

From around the end of 1937 the numbers increased. By then the local advisory committees were in operation and section 40(2)(d) cases were referred to them before a determination was issued. Nearly 200 had been issued by October 1938, more than half in the Birmingham and Hanley districts, and about 30 applicants had entered workhouses. About half the applicants appealed but hardly any of the appeals (two out of 80 in 1938) succeeded.
39 40

The procedure used in Birmingham was based on that of the PAC, described by the district officer as follows: When the Committee dealt with a case in which doubt arose as to whether the man was really trying to get work, he was given a final order for Outdoor Relief, generally of 4 weeks duration, and warned that if at the end of that period he still remained an applicant further assistance would be given to him in the House. This decision was strictly adhered to, and at the end of 4 weeks, if the man still remained on the books, he was given a workhouse order.
41

A later echo of this procedure was to be found in the four week rule introduced by the Supplementary Benefits Commission in July 1968,

24/8

under which certain categories of unemployed people were told that payments would cease if they remained unemployed four weeks later.

42

As a means of getting rid of difficult applicants, section 40(2)(d) was undeniably effective. The Hanley district officer reported that, up to September 1938, 21 workhouse determinations had been issued in the district, none of the applicants had entered the workhouse, nine had found work after long periods of unemployment or very casual employment, and most of the rest had ceased to sign on at the employment exchange. For the few who entered the workhouse, the experience is unlikely to have had much positive value. Requiring attendance at a work centre under section 40(2)(c) would have been a more constructive way of dealing with applicants on the margins of employability, had that option been available; but in most cases it was not.
43

Section 40(2)(c): the work centre The power to require attendance at a work centre, though penal in intention, was potentially the most constructive of the four options available under section 40. The board came under increasing pressure to make use of it, especially between 1937 and 1939 as the local advisory committees concentrated their efforts on interviewing young applicants and became concerned about the large numbers who, they believed, preferred living on an allowance from the board to the alternatives of training or employment. Despite these pressures, the board moved slowly; plans for setting up its own work centres had hardly begun to bear fruit when they were abandoned on the outbreak of war. Although the National Assistance Board was to have power to provide re-establishment centres for similar purposes from 1948 on, it did not begin to do so until 1951 and no non-residential centres comparable to those existing for a brief period in 1939 were opened until 1961, when an experimental centre was opened in east London.
44 45

Until 1930, outdoor relief to the able-bodied in England and Wales had been conditional on performance of a task of work and the poor law authority was required to report any case where the condition was not imposed. Article 6 of the Relief Regulation Order 1930, recognising that the work test was no longer enforceable, replaced it with a duty to make such arrangements as were practicable for the provision of work and training for unemployed men on outdoor relief. There was no suggestion in article 6 that local authority work centres should be penal in character or available only to men whose conduct was in some way unsatisfactory. The boards powers were more limited. It could set up its own work centres for applicants dealt with under section 40 as cases of special difficulty, or it could require them to attend a local authority work centre or similar place; but it could not offer other applicants the opportunity of attending a centre on a voluntary basis. During the Commons debate on what was to be section 40, criticism focussed on the proposed use of public assistance work centres. A Labour MP and
24/9

trade union general secretary, John Banfield, recalled visiting the London County Council centre at Belmont as a poor law guardian and seeing men carrying earth in sacks from one place to another. He called for a more constructive approach: Given the right sort of training under the right sort of men in the right atmosphere; given the kind of direction which will not treat them as criminals merely because they are unemployed; given a sympathy with their weaknesses, a capacity to see their point of view and a desire to raise them in the social scale, and I believe that many of these men could be turned into very good citizens. ... Branding them as paupers will make them feel ... that everybodys hands are against them. Betterton endorsed this positive view of the purpose of work centres, but defended the proposal to use local authority centres on the grounds that the numbers sent to them by the local authorities would be much diminished and it seemed absurd for the board to set up new centres to perform the same function.
46

The fact was that, if the board was to make any use of work centres in the first few months of its operations, they would have to be local authority centres. Enquiries were put in hand as to the facilities available. Major authorities, including Liverpool and Newcastle, were found to have made no provision. A number of others provided work on a low wage or varied the hours in proportion to the relief paid. Visits to a number of areas by Osmond, the regional officer attached to the boards training division, revealed that few had work centres as such. More commonly, men were engaged in laying out playing fields or on work in parks and public assistance institutions. In Bradford the poor law work test remained in full vigour in the form of a wood-chopping factory for 630 men (I doubt, Osmond wrote, whether much serious work is accomplished although 630 men must show some results!). A memorandum for discussion by the board in January 1935, in which Bradford was described as one of the most go ahead Authorities in this respect, concluded that very few of the schemes would be of any use:
47

It is on the whole more demoralising for a grown-up man to do some futile work under conditions of slack supervision than to do no work at all. The value of these schemes ... is largely deterrent and the deterrence consists in the loss of liberty ...
48

The exceptions fell into two categories: authorities like Bristol and Hull where work was provided in market gardens and on a derelict farm, and those like Manchester and Norwich where handicraft and other training and general education were provided, as well as physical work. At these places, Osmond reported, the men showed no resentment at being compelled to work; indeed, where handicraft classes were offered, there seemed to be sincere pleasure at having something to do.
49

The authority which had done most to implement article 6 was the London County Council, with training centres where crafts were taught and three residential work centres outside London. Osmond dismissed the training centres as mere occupational centres with one instructor to
24/10

about fifty men. The residential work centre and farm at Hollesley Bay, Suffolk, under different management, might, he thought, serve as a work centre for the board; but an undated note recording Eadys impressions of the Hollesley Bay and Belmont centres describes the former as a failure ... a home for the homeless poor of certain type, and the latter as a place where young stiffs are tackled which did not kick the devil out because the soil was overtilled. The fundamental sanction, he declared, was nine inches of good thick clay.
50 51

The board accepted at an early stage that it would have to set up its own work centres, but it was not easy to find suitable work in a convenient location. Coast protection and land reclamation work might have been suitable but was mainly to be found in the area of the Wash which, Osmond reported, seems to be the special perquisite of the Home Office for Borstal boys. Another possibility was to copy the Ministry of Labour instructional centres, creating work centres on Forestry Commission land, but the Forestry Commission was expected to be uncooperative. Moreover, any of these expedients would have involved the creation of residential centres. The board decided that it was safer to start with non-residential centres, preferably in premises not associated with the poor law.
52 53

Before any progress had been made, the standstill intervened. The question was shelved for two years, and two more years elapsed before the first centre was opened. By 1938 there was growing pressure for penal action against young men who refused training. This came in part from the boards local advisory committees, but there was also a widespread belief that, despite improvements in the job market, many of the boards applicants had settled down on their allowances and needed both encouragement and the threat of penal sanctions to induce them to take more active steps to find work. This belief was reflected in a series of articles in and letters to newspapers at the beginning of 1938, well documented by Harrington, including suggestions that Britain should follow the example of Nazi Germany in setting up compulsory labour camps.
54

Despite doubts as to their suitability, therefore, the board agreed to the use of local authority centres subject to certain safeguards. The men were not to be set to work in parks, on the roads, or in other ways which amounted to cheap labour and involved the humiliation of test work performed under the public gaze; they were not to work side by side with casuals or mental defectives; and the work was to be appropriate (wood chopping, which had been found to be a very usual task in these centres, was not excluded). The approval of both the local advisory committee and the boards headquarters was to be obtained in each case.
55

Even with these safeguards, board members expressed misgivings about the use of centres which, they felt, had little regenerative value, but they allowed themselves to be swayed by fear of public criticism. By the end of 1938, arrangements had been made with a number of authorities and 75 determinations had been issued. As in the
24/11

case of workhouse orders, most were in the midlands: 59 in the Hanley district. The requirement of headquarters approval was waived for the Hanley and Birmingham districts in November 1938. The Hanley district officer reported enthusiastically:
56 57

The improvement in the condition of some of the applicants is marked. In many cases the Masters of the Institutions speak well of their industry and regularity. Some applicants to whom the Section has not been applied have asked that they might go and work at the Institutions although it was explained clearly to them that the work done was test work and that no increase in the allowances followed.
58

It would be unwise, however, to place too much reliance on this report. Nothing is known about the type of work done at the centres, but the reference to institutions indicates that they were generally located in the workhouses. For that reason alone, it is unlikely that anyone would have attended voluntarily, though some of those compelled to attend may have found some satisfaction in the work. Plans for the boards own work centres progressed slowly. In March 1937, Eady was authorised to discuss with the ministry the setting up of three experimental centres in London, Liverpool and Glasgow. A clear distinction was drawn between the deterrent and regenerative purposes of the centres. The London centre was intended mainly as a deterrent to men suspected of having means of self-support who, it was hoped, would disappear from the register on being required to attend. Since there was no point in putting substantial resources into a centre which, if it succeeded in its deterrent aims, would remain half empty, it was proposed that the board should lease one of the LCC centres.
59

The Liverpool and Glasgow centres, on the other hand, were to be mainly regenerative. They would, in effect, be compulsory training centres for men who refused voluntary training. Some of the boards officials were strongly opposed to this concept. Apart from the unfairness of singling out Liverpool and Glasgow, they feared that compulsory training at work centres might undermine the whole voluntary training policy.
60

In view of these doubts, the political sensitivity of the whole subject and the need to assess the results of the boards recent involvement in recruitment for instructional centres, further delay was inevitable. To add to the confusion, in November 1937, in a memorandum entitled The problem of recalcitrance and demoralisation, Owen advocated a quite different policy. Noting that, of the 66,000 refusals of training since March, 23 per cent had been assessed as unreasonable and another 22 per cent as clearly unreasonable, he argued that most of these men were not antisocial but had reached a stage in demoralisation when pressure is necessary to induce them to bestir themselves. Compulsion was needed, therefore, in the mens own interests; but they should be compelled to attend a training centre, not segregated in a work centre where all the men would be demoralised and from which they would emerge with little chance of obtaining
24/12

employment. To enable this to be done under section 40, the instructional centres might have to be treated, for this purpose, as work centres. The Ministry of Labour might object that the proposal was contrary to the voluntary training principle but, Owen argued, training would anyway cease to be voluntary if the alternative was compulsory attendance at a work centre.
61

Owens views were at first well received but soon ran into difficulties. It became clear that the ministry was unlikely to agree to ICs being used as work centres, there were doubts as to the legality of doing so, and Brown was reported to be unwilling to consider legislation. In March 1938, therefore, the board reverted to the proposal to set up three work centres in London, Liverpool and Glasgow. The training and welfare sub-committee laid down broad guidelines. Each centre was to have only 25-50 places, instead of the 150-200 previously suggested. Men aged 21-55 would attend for three months. The sub-committee was assured that supervisors of sufficient experience, tact and discretion could be found amongst the boards staff. Striking the right balance between the penal and regenerative aims, however, was a source of great anxiety. Violet Markham described to Tom Jones a discussion with Reid and Ure (the ex-Ministry of Health official now responsible for both welfare and cases of special difficulty):
62 63 64

... said I was uneasy about the penal atmosphere which crept into our discussion of the Work Centre. Ure has the jitters over the whole business but I dont think his outlook is amiss. He spoke very definitely about the evils of the sergeant major type of superintendent and the importance of quietness and confidence in the management. Also he wants to cheer up the [workers?] with copious draughts of tea and on this Read [sic] frowns. I shall certainly promote the flow of tea. Read is I think sterner than Ure. But I agree the heavy weather they are making over the job is absurd. Read is haunted by the fear of Smart Alicks who will dance rings round the Superintendent and the Board. I should like to have a woman on the staff if we could get the right one. I am sure you and I could have got the place started without all this fuss. Ure is like a maternity nurse approaching the first birth ever known in the world!
65

The board was in an ambiguous position. Ure, supported by Markham, might wish to emphasise the positive aspects of the centres but, to justify the cost, it was necessary to stress their value as a deterrent. Seeking Treasury approval, the officials pointed out that 81 out of 133 persons so far given workhouse or work centre determinations had ceased to apply for allowances. The Treasury was impressed: It may be said, Tribe wrote to Barlow, that the best work centre is a centre which is empty but it is necessary to have one or two centres in order to secure this happy result! Consistently with this view, he opposed the provision of any unnecessary comforts. He agreed to payment of travelling expenses for men living more than a mile from the London centre, but only because this was the practice of the London County Council. He questioned the need for afternoon tea and, on being told
66 67

24/13

that the LCC provided not only tea but bread and butter and jam with cake as an alternative to the jam on certain days, he grudgingly agreed to a mug of tea - but no cake or jam!.
68

The location of the centres depended in part on the relative importance attached to the two aims of deterrence and rehabilitation. By the end of 1938, partly due to pressure from local advisory committees, the emphasis had shifted towards areas where jobs were available and long-term dependence on the board could be regarded as evidence of workshyness or undisclosed resources. Birmingham and Tyneside were added to the list of proposed sites, Liverpool was dropped, and it was decided that London should have not one centre but three. Glasgow, where the advisory committees were said to regard work centres as essentially a penal measure designed to check the activities of surreptitious earners, hawkers, bookmakers, and the like, remained on the list.
69

In the event, only two work centres were opened, one at Gospel Oak in north London which opened on 29 June 1939 and closed on 30 August, four days before war was declared, the other in Newcastle which opened on 17 August and closed the following week. The Gospel Oak centre was a disused church with a hall and meeting room, where the work was initially to consist mainly of repair and decoration of the premises and reprocessing the church pews to provide furniture and equipment. A few men were to do boot-repairing and there were to be daily physical training periods. The centre was staffed by an officer-incharge, a clerk and three work supervisors.
70 71

In a report on the operation of the centres during their brief period of existence, the first officer-in-charge, C. Plumb, wrote: Generally I found the men at first resentful and hostile because in their view they had been picked out as the real bad lads of the Unemployed Class. Slave camp and prison were commonplace terms in their vocabulary. Generally, hostility was overcome after I had explained that all the staff were specially chosen for their human understanding and outlook and that far from being unfortunate in being selected for attendance they were, in my opinion, a privileged class. ... I had no difficulty in making them see that after a period at the Centre they would be able to compete equally in the labour market with other men ... There were very few instances of idling. The majority of the men worked with such zeal and enthusiasm that one wondered what gave rise to the work-shy classification. My own view is that these men were handling tools and doing jobs which had never come their way before and the constructive nature of the tasks appealed to them. At both centres, one or two men had been used by outside influences to spread discontent and disaffection, but attempts to organise strikes had been frustrated by assembling all the men and warning them that their allowances would cease if they left the centre without permission.

24/14

Plumb stressed the importance of choosing staff with the right personality: a genial countenance went far in producing and maintaining the desired atmosphere of the Centre. He had insisted that applicants must be addressed as Mr except in class. ... It is surprising what an effect this rule had - it gave the men a feeling of individuality and, in their eyes, a degree of importance. In the absence of cooking facilities, the men were given a packed lunch, on which Plumb commented: I found that a common standard of lunch-packet for all Centres is not practicable as tastes vary in different parts of the country. For example, Londoners accepted the fruit tarts as a sweet without question, whereas the Tynesiders scoffed at the idea and asked for minced-meat pasties in lieu.
72

One wonders whether the Treasury was aware that public money was being spent on fruit tarts and pasties for the workshy. Since no-one attended either of the centres for the intended three months, it is impossible to say how successful they would have been in getting long unemployed men back into paid work, but there is persuasive evidence of their deterrent effect. According to a note attached to Plumbs report, 42 men found work after being warned that they were likely to be sent to the Gospel Oak centre and, of the 82 who received a determination requiring attendance there, 30 found work instead, another 12 did so after a short spell at the centre, and 12 ceased to draw an allowance without the board having any knowledge of their subsequent history. Some of those who did not attend the centre may have had undisclosed earnings; according to the boards annual report for 1939, enquiries about the non-attenders made it difficult to resist the conclusion that their previous failure to obtain employment was due to the fact that they had resources from which they could live in reasonable comfort. But it seems reasonable to assume that at least the 12 (increased to 15 in the boards annual report) who found work after attending were genuinely unemployed and had remained so for a considerable period. Making due allowance for the favourable employment situation, it is at least possible that their attendance at the centre contributed to their return to employment. Since the total number who attended the Gospel Oak centre was only 40, these 12-15 men might have been the beginning of a success story for the board, with important policy implications for the treatment of the long-term unemployed and the use of compulsion. The circumstances were so abnormal, however, and the centres existence so short, that it would be unwise to draw any such conclusions from this brief experiment.
73

The advisory committees review Towards the end of 1937 the boards local advisory committees, having discharged their initial functions under the 1936 regulations, embarked on a massive project involving the interviewing of some 40,000
24/15

applicants aged 30 and under. The purpose, as explained in the boards annual report for 1937, was to ascertain the relative importance of various causes of unemployment among the boards applicants, other than general economic causes, as a prerequisite to consideration of any general remedies or correctives: For example, it is known that ... some men are unemployed for reasons that are capable of immediate remedy, such as attention to eyesight or guidance as to the direction in which work should be sought; others because of apathy, wrong upbringing or general physical defects; others again because of disinclination to work. ... It has already become clear that there is a considerable number of men and women who have lost interest and are content to remain on unemployment allowances. There are those whose unemployment is due to wilful idleness, who avoid or refuse work when it is obtainable, or throw up jobs upon some flimsy pretext. The percentage of such cases to the total dealt with by the Board is small, but the number is sufficiently large to cause the Board much concern. It is clearly not right that allowances of the normal amount should be paid in such cases free of any condition, and the Board have under earnest consideration the manner in which they can exercise the powers conferred on them by the Act so as to meet the situation.
74

While the board undoubtedly intended that the interviews would enable practical help, such as optical and dental treatment or advice on training and jobs, to be offered, the dominant motive was concern about the work-shy and those not genuinely seeking work. In particular, the board needed evidence to justify its plans to set up work centres. Some of the advisory committees had already embarked on a programme of interviewing. District officers were now told to extend the exercise throughout Great Britain. Each applicant under 30 was to be interviewed by an officer of the board together with a local advisory committee or sub-committee panel member and, if possible, an officer from the employment exchange. Advisory committee members opinions on applicants desire for work and mental attitude would be of particular value, as would their help in persuading unresponsive applicants towards a better state of mind. Applicants were to be classified in terms of fitness and willingness to work; need for and willingness to accept training, or the validity of their reasons for unwillingness; need for dental, optical or other treatment; willingness, if necessary, to move to another district; and mental or physical defects affecting employability. The last two headings in the suggested classification were persons who appear to have settled down to a life of unemployment at the public expense and persons who appear to be in possession of undisclosed resources and do not propose to accept normal employment.
75

In February 1938, the board was told that the reaction of the advisory committees, except in the Newport and Middlesbrough districts, had been favourable to the point of enthusiasm. The three committees in
24/16

the Newport district had been suspicious that they might be led toward recommending compulsory training or something of the sort, but eventually agreed to co-operate. Preliminary reports showed that the number of applicants to be interviewed was over 100,000. Interviews took about 20 minutes each. In most areas the task was expected to be completed by the end of the year, but in some it was likely to continue until summer 1939.
76

A table circulated to board members in November 1938 classified most of the 31,150 applicants interviewed up to that point, with a warning that too much importance should not be attached to the statistics. The number of interviews, as a proportion of the number of applicants in the age group, varied from 6.8 per cent in the London I district (mainly comprising the East London area offices) to 90.3 per cent in Birmingham. The boards annual report admitted that the number of women interviewed was comparatively small and it seems likely that in many areas they were excluded entirely. Even among the men, although the instructions to district officers stressed that those interviewed should be a fully representative sample, there was probably an element of pre-selection, which could help to explain some otherwise improbable variations in the results: for example, only 18.3 per cent of those interviewed in the Cardiff district were classified as fit and willing to work, compared with 81.8 per cent in the neighbouring Swansea district.
77

The account of the committees findings in the boards annual report for 1938 should be assessed in the light of these facts. Among the statements made are that the proportion of applicants who appeared to be content with their position or to have resigned themselves to it, including those suspected of having undisclosed resources, might be as much as 25 to 30 per cent; that about one-third of applicants needing to leave their own districts to find work showed marked unwillingness to do so; and that the employability of some eight to nine per cent of the applicants interviewed was seriously impaired by mental or physical defects, about a quarter of which appeared to be remediable. All these statements rested on very shaky statistical foundations, and those involving judgments of applicants state of mind were particularly questionable.
78

Not surprisingly, the committees recommendations were coloured by the political views of their members. As Violet Markham commented, Where there is a strong Labour element the idleness of the young men is watered down. When that element is absent there are vigorous comments. Among the more general comments and recommendations, the annual report mentioned the evils of blind alley employment which left so many young men at the age of 18 without jobs, skills or qualifications, and the recommendation by some committees that payment of allowances should be made conditional, in certain cases, on the acceptance of training. The report noted that the steps taken to set up work centres were in line with the recommendations of most of the committees, but omitted to mention that a number of them had linked their approval of work centres with
79 80

24/17

demands for public works or subsidised local authority employment schemes of the Whipsnade type and would not necessarily support one without the other.
81

By August 1938, the board had decided that the mass interviewing programme should be gradually brought to an end, officers themselves being encouraged to continue classifying younger applicants and bringing before the advisory committees those classified as unwilling to accept training or transfer to another area, as having settled down or as possessing undisclosed resources. How much good had been done by the interviewing of some 40,000 applicants remains uncertain. Although it was claimed that some applicants responded to the interviews by finding work or accepting training, while others received dental or optical services which improved both their employability and their general wellbeing, these results were not quantified. On the negative side, thousands of applicants were subjected to unsympathetic questioning of their attitudes to work and training with no positive results, the statistical findings were unreliable, and the committees policy recommendations were of limited value and, in any case, were probably influenced only to a small extent by the 40,000 interviews.
82

In May 1939, a new and much more hopeful initiative (which, strictly speaking, has no place in this chapter) was proposed, involving the interviewing of all new applicants, of all ages and both sexes, other than those applying for supplementation of insurance benefit or expected to receive allowances for only a short time. As before, the interviewing panels were to include an officer of the board, an advisory committee member and, if possible, an employment exchange officer. Women applicants were, as far as possible, to be interviewed by women. The underlying assumption, explained in a circular to area offices in June 1939, was that the best time to conduct such interviews was before the progressive deterioration both in physique and morale which is apt to set in from the earliest stages of unemployment had gone too far though it was recognised that most of those interviewed would have applied for assistance when their benefit entitlement ran out and would thus already have been unemployed for six months. The interviews were to be carefully and sympathetically conducted, concentrating on the steps which can be taken to facilitate re-entry into employment direct, the opportunities of enhancing employment prospects indirectly through the various training schemes, and the general value of the services provided by local authorities and voluntary agencies as a means of resisting the effects of unemployment. The tone of the circular was entirely positive. There were no references to applicants mental attitude or their willingness or unwillingness to work or undergo training; it was simply assumed that whatever information or advice the interviewing panel could offer would be welcomed by them. But, in the end, nothing came of the proposal. Officers were told to await a further circular on procedure before taking any action, and war then intervened, temporarily putting an end to the activities of the advisory committees.
83

24/18

Reinventing the dole: a history of the Unemployment Assistance Board 1934-1940 by Tony Lynes is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

24/19