Modern Social Policy

Michael Sullivan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781317866800
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Social Policy

Considers a range of approaches to social policy provision and applies these to developments in the British welfare state. The author works from the basis that the theory and practice of social policy would benefit from a broader understanding of social, political and economic contexts.

PART 1
Contexts of social policy

CHAPTER 1
Social, economic and political contexts

The British Welfare State has a relatively short history and is now the subject of political debate and considerable restructuring. It was established in the 1940s with the implementation of a package of government policies that heralded state intervention on a much larger scale and in a more systematic way than ever before. A national health service (NHS) was created with the intention of providing a universal health care service free at the point of use. Compulsory secondary education, a key element of the 1944 Education Act, was introduced with the stated purpose of equalising the educational opportunities of children from different social classes. A system of social security, drawing largely on the philosophy outlined in the Beveridge Report (Beveridge, 1942), replaced the less significant social insurance schemes of the early twentieth-century Liberal governments, and was seen by many as the instrument by which poverty would be eradicated. The state replaced private charities as the main provider of personal social services, and intervened in the provision of housing in a way undreamed before the Second World War. (Useful factual summaries of the development of the welfare state can be found in Sked and Cook (1979), Marwick (1982), Morgan (1990) and Williamson (1990).)

For three post-war decades, increases in scope and momentum characterised government decisions about intervention in general and social policy intervention in particular. The foundations of the welfare state were built upon by succeeding governments. Welfare state expansion took place throughout the extended period of post-war economic growth in Britain and even in the early years of economic retrenchment. Welfare statism was seen as a reflection of a politics of consensus practised during this period by both major political parties (Marshall, 1965, pp. 180-1; 1975, p. 105; Sullivan, 1987, 1991, 1992; Hennessy, 1992; Hill, 1993).

Until the mid-1970s, large scale intervention by the state in so cial welfare formed part of the political orthodoxy of both major political parties. State welfare became woven into the fabric of everyday life to such an extent that Jones and Novak could claim that 'for large clusters of people ... life from the womb to the grave is monitored by, or is dependent upon, a vast network of state social legislation and provision' (Corrigan, 1980, p. 143).

During the 1980s and the early 1990s, however, significant changes have been wrought in the way in which state welfare is delivered and in the principles underlying its provision (Johnson, 1990; Mishra, 1990). Conservative governments headed by Margaret Thatcher and her successor, John Major, have set about deconstructing what they have regarded as the cosy political consensus that underpinned the development of the post-war welfare state. The politics of conflict and competition have replaced the politics of consensus in social policy as comprehensively as they have in other areas of social and economic life (Sullivan, 1989, 1991, 1992; Taylor-Gooby, 1991). Or so it has seemed.

The introduction of internal markets within the health and personal social services (Johnson, 1990; Plant and Barry, 1991; Leathard, 1991) has presumed the growth of competition in the provision of services to replace the previous welfare state monopolies. It has also had the effect of splitting previously homogeneous welfare organisations into purchasing and providing arms (Paton, 1991; Sullivan, 1991, 1992) and of creating a quasi-private provider sector within the NHS in the form of NHS trusts. Radical changes in education have seen the advance of the self-governing school, receiving its funding direct from the Secretary of State rather than from the local education authority, and the reintroduction of academic selection of pupils at pre-secondary school age. Apparently extensive changes have occurred in the social security system, where the expansion of selectivism is credited by some as creating a British underclass (Hill, 1990) and by others as being the response to its growth (Murray, 1990; see also Dean and Taylor-Gooby, 1991; Lawson and Wilson, 1991, on this debate).

That, at least, is one interpretation of the turbulent decade of the 1980s and the early years of the 1990s. Other interpretations point to the supposed failure of new Conservative governments in this period to effect the social policy changes that were intended. They point to a gulf between reality and rhetoric, between antistatist discourse and the creation of a strong state, to the difference between policy intention and policy outcome (O'Higgins, 1983a; Sullivan, 1984; Taylor-Gooby, 1985; Gamble, 1985, 1987). One of the objectives of this chapter is to evaluate the claim that fourteen years of Conservative government, following 1979, have led to the restructuring of ideas about welfare and the nature and ends of social policy. We will be asking whether there have been significant changes in social policy direction in the last decade and a half. We will be looking at whether it is plausible to hypothesise the end of the post-war welfare state. Of course, to understand and recognise the destination, we have to have followed the journey. It is that journey on which we now embark. As we undertake that journey a number of questions raise themselves. What was the post-war welfare state like? On what ideas was it based? What have been the major shifts in ideas and practices in social and economic policy and what accounts for them?

This chapter is devoted to constructing a sociological history of the post-war journey from the collectivism of the Attlee administration to the apparent market capitalism of the Major government. It highlights the rise and the alleged fall of welfare statism and seeks both to describe the scope of welfare state restructuring and to explain it.

Features of the post-war British state

Prelude: the war years

If most of the post-war period was characterised by large scale state intervention in civil society, then the war years themselves were forerunners of an interventionist future. The exigencies of war prompted a degree of central planning and control of industry and economy unusual in British society. The war effort was seen to require the central direction of production. A war economy severely curtailed the production of luxuries. Disruption of imports and of indigenous food and clothing production required the introduction of rationing and controls (Addison, 1982, pp. 130-1, 161-2; Morgan, 1990). The British state at war claimed to require economic sacrifices from all sections of the population. To effect such sacrifices required state intervention.

During wartime the state intervened in the control of industry in a way it had never done before. Under the Emergency Powers Act (1940), the government sought and got powers to regulate working hours and conditions, and to enforce the settlement of pay claims through a process of bipartite negotiation involving employer and employee representatives (Harris, 1984). Such was the change in levels of state intervention that one social historian has claimed that the 'direction and control of life and labour were probably more total (and more efficient) that in any other country save for Russia' (Marwick, 1974, p. 151).

The wartime coalition government also indicated its intention to intervene in the provision and control of social welfare more systematically than previous governments. The seeds of the welfare state germinated during this period.

Despite some parliamentary opposition from Conservatives, initial hostility from Prime Minister Churchill and the apparent indifference or timidity of senior Labour Ministers, the philosophy of full employment and social security enunciated in the Beveridge Report was largely accepted (Addison, 1982, pp. 223-4; Hennessy, 1992; Pimlott, 1992; Sullivan, 1992). Plans for a national health service were also developed at this time. Despite the initial lukewarm approach of the Conservative Minister, Willink, and the obstructive behaviour of the British Medical Association (BMA), the case for a national health system which was free at the point of use was made not only by the Beveridge Report but also by the evidence of semi-socialised medicine provided by the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) (Willcocks, 1967; Forsyth, 1968; Jones, 1991; see Sullivan (1992) for a full discussion of the wartime development of health policy). War also appears to have provided the final impetus for the introduction of compulsory secondary education. Though a coalition of forces had pushed for educational reform over the previous two decades, the wartime years saw the acceleration of the policy process by the President of the Board of Education and his Labour deputy (Rubinstein and Simon, 1973; Jones, 1991; Sullivan, 1992).

Consensus, for whatever reasons and however fragile, was forged around a package of interventionist policies during the war years. Whether such a consensus was one shared by all sections of British society or merely by political leaders and senior state personnel is, of course, an open question. Elsewhere (1992) I have argued that political consensus during this period was real, though the property of the parliamentary political parties rather than of the polity. Others, including Pimlott (1988), are unprepared to go even this far. Instead, they argue that the perception of political activists at this time was of political contention rather than of agreement. A consideration of the record, however, makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that political agreement existed, at least at the framework level of shared views about the direction of economic and social policy (Hennessy, 1992).

One thing is certain: interventionism in the war years set the scene for what was to follow.

1945-75: three decades of interventionism

State intervention in the social and economic life of British society was a constant and increasingly marked feature of the thirty years that followed Labour's landslide victory in the 1945 general election. Interventionism was accepted as an important feature in the management of the democratic socialism of the Attlee government, of Churchill's Tory democracy, of the 'age of affluence' associated with the Macmillan administrations, the technological revolution of the first two Wilson governments and the pre-Social Contract years of the early 1970s. Throughout this period Britain witnessed significant state activity in areas that had in earlier periods substantially, if not exclusively, escaped the guiding hand of state regulation and control. This more systematic intervention by the state can be illustrated by a consideration of economic and social policy between the mid-1940s and mid-1970s, to which we now turn.

Economic policy 1945-75

Despite changes of government in 1951, 1964 and 1970, continuities in economic policy can be clearly discerned during this period. These continuities seem particularly marked in three areas: the organisation and control of industry; the philosophy of economic management; and the practice of economic management.

The organisation and control of industry

In a significant speech marking the end of the Second World War on 15 August 1945, the new Labour Prime Minister - Clement Attlee - pledged his government to work for economic recovery and social justice. These goals were to be achieved through a process of transforming rather than destroying British capitalism. The organisation of industry was seen as a crucial arena for state action in the post-war transformation of British society and the British economy. Central state control of key industries was seen as essen tial if the government's twin aims were to be achieved. Consequently, the post-war Labour government set about creating a mixed economy where public and private enterprise coexisted alongside each other. Certain major industries were nationalised during this period: civil aviation in 1946, coal in 1947, cables and wireless and transport in 1947, electricity in 1948, gas in 1949, and steel in 1951. Although the Conservative governments of 1951-64 did not nationalise further industries, and indeed denationalised steel in 1953, little if any attempt was made to alter the balance of the mixed economy. Indeed the attitude of Conservative govern ments of the period to the organisation of industry may be sensed in the words of Macmillan - Prime Minister for part of the period as creating 'a capitalism which incorporated socialism' (Barker, 1978, p. 132). Further nationalisation occurred during Labour's occupancy of government, 1964-70. British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders were brought into public ownership during this period and steel was renationalised in 1967.

The nationalisation of key industries, the creation of a mixed economy and consequent administrative changes in this period represented major state intervention in an area of the economy where it had been almost wholly absent until the 1940s. This was however simply an important, rather than an exclusive, strategy for state intervention in the organisation and control of industry during this period. Especially in the middle and latter years of this thirty-year span, other methods of direct intervention were used. By the early 1960s it had become evident that, despite public ownership and other government interventions in the economy (which are discussed later), economic growth in Britain was proceeding at a slower pace than had been hoped or than pertained in other industrial societies.

Furthermore, a process of rapid technological advancement was occurring in the developed industrial world. With the stated aim of fuelling the fires of a technological revolution in British industry, other direct interventions by the state were introduced. Again, consensus between the political parties on state intervention in the economy in this period, spanning the 1960s and the early 1970s, was evident despite differences in political emphasis.

In 1966, the then Labour government introduced the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, which was empowered to use government capital to promote and develop industrial enterprise. It played a direct part in the modernisation and reorganisation of a number of industries including the nuclear industry, the electrical industry and the motor industry. In 1964 the same government had created a new Ministry of Technology, and its work was aided by the Industrial Expansion Act (1968), which aimed to encourage technical and scientific innovation in industry. Key aims here were the modernisation of the machine tool industry and the promotion of Britain's computer industry. The state at a central level, then, was involved in direct intervention in the control and organisation of British industry and its involvement during this later period was not limited to those public corporations which it or its predecessor Labour governments had created through nationalisation.

Although the 1970 Conservative government disbanded the Ministry of Technology and abolished the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, it none the less reinforced state involvement and intervention in industry. It created the Department of Trade and Industry to co-ordinate commercial and industrial policies, and introduced the Industry Act (1972). The Act gave government more extensive interventionist powers in industry than it had possessed before and was supplemented by the creation of an Industrial Development Unit to implement industry policies and by an Advisory Board.

The establishment of the National Enterprise Board (NEB) by a Labour government in 1975 and the concomitant passage of yet another Industry Act permitted further extensive and direct intervention in the private sector of British industry. The NEB (a government holding company) provided extensive financial incentives to private industry in part as inducement to rationalise, modernise and reorganise.

State intervention in the organisation and control of industry in the three decades following 1945 was, then, one feature of the state's involvement in areas hitherto regulated and controlled by the market. The evidence suggests that this interventionist activity was legitimated by a party political consensus. It was, as we shall see, grounded in a philosophy of economic management shared by both major political parties.

The philosophy of economic management

Until the Second World War the state played a comparatively small role in the management of the economy. Major manufacturing industries, like minor ones, operated within a capitalist market economy where the profit motive and the price mechanism more or less successfully regulated economic exchange. The economic depression of the inter-war years took place within the context of such a market economy, as did the economic recovery of the late 1930s, albeit aided by demand for arms and by cheap raw materials and privileged credit arrangements from the colonies and Sterling Area (Harris, 1984). From 1940 (and particularly from 1945), however, the market economy principle was replaced by a philosophy of economic management that presumed and encouraged the intervention of the British state in the control and management of the economy. This new philosophy was to guide government policy and intervention into the mid-1970s and was based on the idea of demand management of the economy. Some commentators see, in this development, a major transformation of the British State (Jessop, 1980, p. 28).

In simple terms, successive governments in the period 1945-75 made attempts at macroeconomic management of the economy to maintain it at an optimum level. Governments intervened to fine tune the economy so that the twin dangers of unemployment and inflation could be avoided and steady economic growth achieved.

So the 1945 settlement included a commitment to large scale state intervention in the economy, a commitment to use state apparatuses to regulate the level of aggregate demand in the economy. A number of instruments could be and were used by governments in the post-1945 period to achieve this end. In periods where the economy was in an apparently uncontrolled upward surge, governments acted to depress the economy. So, for example, at times when production levels were rising rapidly consequent difficulties of rising inflation and shortages of labour were also likely to occur. By macroeconomic intervention the state could and did act in such periods to reinstate equilibrium in the economy. Traditional features of the dampening down process included: increasing levels of taxation that would act to decrease demands for products and restrain economic acti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 Contexts of social policy
• Part 2 Understanding the state and social policy
• Part 3 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index