Government responces to Poverty and Forms of welfare provision

• Taxes are high
• government should intervene in lives
• free market can be bad
• strong should look after the weak
• poverty is the fault of society
• state should provide comprehensive welfare systems
• benefits should be universal

• taxes should be low
• government should be hands off
• free markets are a very good idea
• people should look after themselves
• poverty is the fault of the poor
• state should provide minimal welfare systems
• benefits should be means tested

• Individuals should be responsible
• focus on social exclusion rather than material deprevation
• favours free markets
• focuse on child poverty
• giver people a "hand up not a hand out"

All individuals pay a portion of the wage into a national insurance fund. Benefits are paid out of this fund.

Poverty was seen as the key social problem which affected all others. In 1946 the National Insurance Act was passed which extended the Liberal Act of 1911 to include all adults. This provided comprehensive insurance against most eventualities.

It provided sickness and unemployment benefit, retirement pension and widow and maternity benefit.

The scheme was criticised for the large number of officials needed to operate it and others argued that the Act did not go far enough as the benefit was restricted to those citizens who had made 156 weekly contributions

In 1946 the National Health Service Act was passed and for the first time every British citizen could receive medical, dental and optical services free of charge. Treatment by GPs and in hospitals was free also. These benefits were free at point of use, no patient being asked to pay for any treatment.

However, the development of the NHS was hampered by the number of old and out of date hospitals. Costs were high and by 1950 the idea of free treatment for all was undermined when charges were introduced for spectacles and dental treatment.

Services that are provided as a matter of right to citizens. e.g/ child benefits/ pension/ widon benefits/ disability benefits/ unemployment benefits.

(the national assistance act)- benefits targeted towards those who need them.

Throughout World War II, the country was run by a government formed from a coalition of Labour, Conservative and Liberal politicians.

During the war, the government became much more involved in people's lives. As part of the war effort, the government organised the rationing of foodstuffs, clothing and fuel and gave extra milk and meals to expectant mothers and children.

Far from being resented, most people welcomed this government intervention and wanted it to go further. The government was seen to be taking an active interest in providing for the welfare of the people.

More than any other person, William Beveridge's name is associated with the setting up of a blueprint for the post war Welfare State.

His Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in December 1942 and it created much public interest at the time. It was this report that had such a large influence on Labour's reforms after 1945. In essence, Beveridge advocated that all people in work would pay a single weekly flat rate contribution into the state insurance fund.

This would cover all possible contingencies that might befall people throughout their lives. In return for these contributions, a new Ministry of Social Security would provide people with subsistence in the form of sickness, medical, maternity, old age, unemployment, widows, orphans, industrial injury and funeral benefits.

The main points of the Beveridge Report were as follows.

• The appointment of a minister to control all the insurance schemes.
• A standard weekly payment by people in work as a contribution to the insurance fund.
• The right to payments for an indefinite period of time for the unemployed.
• Old age pensions, maternity grants, funeral grants, pensions for widows and for people injured at work.
• Payments at a standard rate, the same for all citizens whatever private means they had, paid without a means test.
• The introduction of family allowances.
• A new national health service to be established.

state provision= set up by the government

informal provision= relatives, neighbours, friends

voluntary provisin= often charities

private provision= profit-making buisnesses.

The New right wanted to liberate Britain from the tax burden of social democratic welfare principles. M. Friedman argued that the state should not be used to bring about any social objectives, no matter how laudably such objectives might be.

The New Right argued that:

1. The capitalist system is capable of providing wealth and happiness for all.
2. The market system ensures that prices and wages find their 'correct' level so that there is full employment and a match between supply and demand.
3. Governments are mistaken if they interfere in the market through taxation, welfare measures and artificial restraints on business activity.
4. Government interference leads to wages that are too high, unemployment and lack of initiative.

this report identifies the 5 GIANT EVILS of society

• squalor
• ignorance
• want
• idleness
• disease