The notion of the welfare state refers to the state's provision of public measures and support to achieve basic living standards and help those in need across society. Ideally, the welfare state aims to alleviate poverty, reduce inequality, and accomplish greater social integration and solidarity.
Beveridge recommended the establishment of a National Health Service, national insurance and assistance, family allowances, and stressed the importance of full-employment. The Beveridge Report of 1942 proposed a system of National Insurance, based on three 'assumptions' – family allowances, a National Health Service, and full employment. This 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 – 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. The key elements of the “Welfare State” after 1948 were understood as being Social Security, Health, Housing, Education, and, Welfare and children (the 'personal social services'). Contemporary arguments emphasized the inter-related 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.
Although not entirely as Beveridge wished, the measures were adopted and formed the basis of the British post-war Welfare State. Family allowances were enacted in 1945, and National Insurance and the National Health Service in 1946; full employment became government policy. Together, these developments created the welfare state, a system of social security guaranteeing a minimum level of health and social services.
The main legislations and acts that have been put in place because of the Beveridge report are:
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The national insurance act (1946) created an integrated universal system of social insurance. The goal was to cover all major personal risks (such as sickness and unemployment) and pay out benefits that would support people when they had no income from paid work.
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The national assistance act (1948) established a a mean tested allowance for unemployed people who were unable to contribute to the national insurance scheme because there income was to low.
In this task I have been asked to critically evaluate historical developments since 1945 and there effects on the welfare provision today this should will be mainly from a political perspective D1
Modern social welfare provision in the UK has its roots in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The beginning of organised social welfare provision is linked to the changes in British society over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This period saw the massive social changes and upheaval in British society that resulted in the difficult social conditions, new kinds of social relationships and the emergence of new political institution.
Between 1948 and the late 1970s, there was a general agreement between the main political parties in the UK that the ‘welfare state’ was a good thing that should be supported and maintained by governments. This political consensus first begun to break down in the late 1960s when economic problems began to affect the UK. These problems caused people to ask questions about government’s ability to pay for the welfare state. The services being offered by the welfare state were founded through income tax. Because the welfare state was now so large and costly, full employment of the population was required to produce the amount of income tax required to fund the welfare system. Increasingly economic problems of the 1970s and the growing levels unemployment meant that high levels of government welfare spending could not be sustained. As a result the political consensus on welfare gradually broke down.
New ideas began to emerge about the role of state and peoples rights in health and welfare provision.
The conservative party, lead by Margaret Thatcher, challenged the consensus view that the government should found universally available and free welfare services. When they were elected to government in 1979, the Thatcher-led conservative party set about rethinking the role of the state in the provision of health and welfare services.
One of the aims of the conservative government of the 1980s a nd early 1990s was to reduce the direct involvement of the state in the founding and provision of welfare services. The aim was to shift some of the responsibility onto private and voluntary sector providers as well as placing greater responsibility on the individual and their family for meeting personal welfare needs. The conservative governments of this period felt that the state had gone to far in providing welfare and had in fact, trapped some sections of the population in welfare dependency.
Welfare provisions during the 1980s was ‘reformed’ through the reduction in the range of service available, the introduction of means-testing and eligibility criteria and by increasing the use of the voluntary and private sector organisations as providers of specialist forms of social and health care.
