ASSIGNMENT: History of Social

Policy in UK

Subject: Social Policy

Submitted By: RAZZAQ ULHAQ

Roll No: 01

Submitted To: Dr. Beenish Ijaz

Dated: 07-06-2021

Session: MA-SOW (II-Reg.) 2020/22

 HISTORY OF SOCIAL POLICY IN UK OR BRITAIN
Definitions:
“Social policy is a term which is applied in various areas of policy, usually within a governmental or
political setting (such as the welfare state and study of social services)”.

It can refers to guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive to
human welfare, such as a person’s quality of life.

The Department of Social Policy at London School of Economics defines social policy as,

“an interdisciplinary and applied subject concern with the analysis of societies responses to social need”,
which seeks to foster in its student capacity to understand theory and evidence drawn from a wide range of
social science disciplines including economics, sociology, psychology, geography, history, law, philosophy and
political science.

The Malcolm wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard University describes social policy as,

“Public policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services, criminal justice, inequality ,
education and labor.”

Social policy might also be described as actions that affect the well being of members of a society through
shaping the distribution of and access to goods and resources in that society. Social policy often deals with
wicked problems.

British Social Policy, 1601-1948

This is a mainly chronological outline of developments in British social policy up to 1948. The Poor
Law lasted, in one form or another, for 350 years, and accounts of British social policy tend in consequence to
be dominated by the role of government. This was not the experience of other countries, where welfare more
typically developed through a combination of voluntary and mutual provision, later supplemented by
government action.  Many European sources emphasize the role of working-class movements, which are still of
considerable importance in some national systems; but this is one strand of many, along with religious,
voluntary and civic initiatives.

Before The Old Poor Law:

During the middle Ages, support for the poor was provided in much of Europe through Christian charity.
The main formal organizations were the Church and the monasteries. The operation of charity made it
possible for some poor people to survive if they left the land and came to the cities.

Poor vagabonds were often seen as dangerous, beggars and thieves who could spread disease - and that
could all have been true. The practice of indiscriminate charity was one of the key issues which the Protestant
reformers objected to. Several northern European cities introduced systems of organized poor relief, intended to
limit the amount they had to pay for charity, to keep out strangers, and to control the poor. Martin Luther
himself wrote ordinances about the organization of welfare in Leisneck in 1523.

This kind of scheme was not confined to Protestant communities. In 1531, to protect themselves from
the accusations of heresy, the city of Ypres submitted its scheme for approval by the religious authorities of the
Sorbonne. Ypres offered relief for poor people, backed up by a process of inspection and control; they provided
education, employment and free medical care.[2] The Ypres scheme was approved by Charles V, whose
Spanish empire was responsible for the Low Countries. The historian Geoffrey Elton suggests that William
Marshall, who translated a report on the Ypres scheme into English, may also have been the author of the Tudor
Act of 1536, one of the first English Poor Laws.[3]
 While this was happening, England was also undergoing its Reformation. Henry VIII declared himself
supreme head of the Church in 1534, and the dissolution of the monasteries took place between 1536 and 1541.

Book Reference:  The Ypres Scheme Of Poor Relief, 1531  

The Old Poor Law:

The movement of people continued throughout Tudor times, but it began in the first half of the sixteenth
century to be noticed, with increasing population and movement of people. Elizabethan Acts in 1563 and 1572
made provision for the punishment of sturdy beggars and the relief of the impotent poor. The 1574 Act in
Scotland followed England's lead, supplemented in 1595 by 'buttock mail', a Scottish poor rate. In England, the
law of 1572 was superseded in 1598, but the 1574 Act remained in force in Scotland till 1845.

1601 The Elizabethan Poor Law was a national Act for England and Wales. (The system became law in 1597/8,
but the Act that consolidated the system dates from 1601). It 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.

Settlement And Removal:

The principle of a 'settlement' in a particular parish relates to feudal ideas; people were tied to particular
locations. If people tried to draw relief outside the parish of their birth, they could be removed. this meant that
they could be rejected, or physically transported to another parish. Contemporary examples were given of
pregnant women being physically removed so that they did not give birth to a child in the parish. This prevented
the child from gaining a settlement in the parish where they would otherwise have been born.

 1586 In Scotland, poor people are marked with the town's mark.
 1662 A Poor Relief Act introduces the laws of settlement and removal.
 1795 Paupers became removable only if they were chargeable to another parish. (In 1846, the period
after which a pauper could be removed was limited.)

Workhouses under the old poor law:

The development of workhouses under the Old Poor Law was not representative of the system which
followed after the 1834 reforms, and this is not how the system is now remembered.

The 1601 Act made provision for "setting the poor on work". This did not generally include accommodation,
but in 1631 there was a workhouse was established in Abingdon. In 1697 the Bristol Workhouse was
established by private Act of Parliament.

 Scotland had "houses of correction" established in the burghs, by an Act of 1672.

 1723 Knatch bull's Act allowed English and Welsh parishes to build workhouses without first taking out
private Acts of Parliament.
 1740 A workhouse was established at Edinburgh. Most Scottish workhouses were closed after a little
time.
 1782 Gilbert's Act stated that workhouses should become poorhouses, relieving only those who were not
able-bodied (a principle increasingly disregarded in later years). It allowed parishes to form Poor Law
Unions in order to build poorhouses.

This approach was increasingly criticized in the years that followed. Joseph Townsend wrote in 1788: "the
workhouses operate like the figures which we set to scare the birds, till they have learnt first to despise them
then to perch upon the objects of their terror."[4]

Out-relief:
The rules at the time did not confine relief to people in the workhouse or the poorhouse; this was a later rule.
The idea that people could receive out-relief - that is, benefits or cash outside the poorhouse - was a new idea to
the Poor Law in the 18th century, though of course it reflected the practice of long-established charity.
  1774 Out-relief is made available in Glasgow.
 Gilbert's Act also made provision for 'out-relief'. This was further encouraged by an Act of 1795.
 1795 The Speenhamland system. A formal code for out-relief was drawn up by magistrates in
Speenhamland, Berkshire. The Speenhamland system acquired some notoriety in the following years; it
was believed to lead employers to pay unduly low wages while workers were forced to claim relief.

The Poor Law Of 1834:

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
reform movement centered on three main doctrines:

 Malthus. He argued that population was increasing beyond the ability of the country to feed it. The Poor
Law was seen as an encouragement to illegitimacy, and this would lead in turn to mass starvation.
 Ricardo. His 'iron law of wages' was believed to show that the Poor Law was undermining the wages of
independent workers. Together with the "rounds man system", where paupers were hired out at cheap
rates to local employers, the Speenhamland system was thought to depress wages. The advocates of
reform thought they were helping independent workers.
 Bentham. He argued that people did what was pleasant and would not do what was unpleasant - so that if
people were not to claim relief, it had to be unpleasant. This was the core of the argument for
"stigmatizing" relief - making it, in the happy phrase of the time, "an object of wholesome horror". [5]

1832-1834 The Poor Law Commission emphasized two principles:

 less eligibility: the position of the pauper must be 'less eligible', or less to be chosen, than that of the
independent laborer.
 the workhouse test: there was to be no relief outside the workhouse.

1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. This established a national Commission for England and Wales. The Scottish
Poor Law was not introduced till 1845.

The Workhouse Under The New Poor Law:

The principles of the New Poor Law were never fully enforced. Old people in many areas did continue
to receive relief outside the workhouse. Workhouses could be appalling: in 1845, there was a scandal at
Andover Workhouse, where starving paupers were found to be chewing the gristle of bones they were supposed
to be crushing. It was not for want of trying, but there was no way that the conditions of many people inside the
workhouses - sometimes called 'pauper palaces' - could be much worse than conditions outside.

Nicholls wrote:

"the workhouse inmate is better off than the ordinary laborer. He is better fed, better clothed, better attended in sickness,
better care for in health, and far more lightly worked; and were it not for the restraints imposed as the condition of his reception, the
workhouse would too probably become an incentive to pauperism, instead of being a check or preventive.”

Public health:
The time-lines in this discussion start to narrow at this point, but that can be deceptive; it took decades to go
from political resistance to the idea of public works to general legislation to prevent nuisances. Those who were
against the new sewers were referred to by their opponents, in Palmerston's choice phrase, as "the dirty party".

 1839-1840 A Poor Law Commission enquiry identified disease as a major cause of pauperism.
 1842 Edwin Chadwick, the secretary of the Poor Law Commission, and one of the main authors of the
1834 report, wrote a Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain,
identifying sanitation as a principal issue.
 1848  Public Health Act. This was permissive - i.e., a law which allowed authorities to do something,
rather than compelling them - which made it possible to build sewers. The Act excluded London
altogether. The construction of sewers was opposed on the grounds of cost; the General Board of Health
was abolished in 1853, and the Act was repealed in 1858.

Local government:
 English local government developed around the Poor Law; Scottish local government, about the 'police
burghs' introduced in 1833 and 1847. Existing authorities accrued increasing responsibility by default; there was
no-one else there to take it.

 1871 The creation of the Local Government Board.

 1885 Scottish Office
 1888 County Councils formed.
 1894 District Councils formed.
 1897 Local Government Board for Scotland.

By the 1930s, local government was responsible for a very wide range of activities: their responsibilities
typically included hospitals, social assistance, police, fire, gas, electricity supply, water, roads, housing,
education and public health. Most of these roles were subsequently removed or diluted.

Education:
Scotland had free schooling from 1691, organized since 1803 on a parochial basis. It was criticized in
Victorian times because it failed to meet needs adequately - there were 90,000 children out of 500,000 who did
not attend school. But in England, by contrast, before 1870, the only main state provision for education was
under the Poor Law.

 1870 Education Act (1872 in Scotland). This provided free compulsory elementary education for all, up
to the age of 12 at first, later to 14. (The secondary system, 11+, was private or voluntary, and based on
fees).
 1863. Payment by results. Following the recommendations of the Newcastle Commission, schools were
to be funded in ways that reflected their results, judged by attendance and an examination covering
reading, writing and arithmetic. The system was widely disliked: it created paperwork, it was thought to
discriminate against the church schools and it entrenched inequalities in funding. It fell into disuse by
the 1890s and was formally abolished in 1904.
 1902  Local Education Authorities were formed, based in the new local government system. This was
extended to Scotland in 1908.

The 20th century

The Liberal Government:

The Liberal government laid the foundations of contemporary social services. Concerns with "national
efficiency" fuelled the desire to provide an infrastructure of public services: these services were deliberately
provided outside the Poor Law, to avoid the stigma associated with pauperism. The Liberal Government did not
introduce the 'welfare state', but it has been seen as the foundations of a "social service state".

 1905 Unemployed Workmen Act: This made grants available to businesses or local authorities to hire
more workers.
 1906 Education Act: free school meals. 1907 School Medical Service.
 1908 Old Age Pensions: these were non-contributory, but denied to paupers. 
 1909 Labor exchanges: this introduced labour exchanges (now called job centers).
 1911 National Insurance Act: this covered medical care and unemployment.

Social Security between The Wars:

This became a period of mass unemployment. Services continued to be introduced outside the Poor Law.
They included the 'means test', initially intended to offer out-relief without the stigma of pauperism, but the
harsh administration and limiting rules made it burdensome to claim. It became as hated as the Poor Law itself.

 1918-1921 Means-tested 'out-of work donations' were given to unemployed people.

 1919  Addison Act: the first major finance for council housing.
 1925 Widows, Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act. The 1908 Act was abolished and
replaced by an insurance system.
  1927 'Transitional' payments for the unemployed.
 1930-1932 Royal Commission on Unemployment. This led to the 1934 Unemployment Act. The
Unemployment Assistance Board was set up, and the household means test was introduced.  The
household means test  was abolished in 1941, but many of the other rules of the UAB were carried
forward into the 1948 system of National Assistance.

The End Of The Poor Law:

In view of provision for pensions, unemployment benefits and health insurance, the influence of the
Poor Law had been greatly reduced since the time of the Liberal Government. The 1929 Local Government Act
abolished the Boards of Guardians, and put public hospitals, out-relief and the operation of the Poor Law under
the management of local authority committees. The workhouses were renamed as Public Assistance institutions.
Local authorities could in principle have stopped implementing some of the Poor Laws at this point. From 1919
to 1925 the Guardians at Poplar in London had refused to levy the high rates needed to pay for their extensive
out-relief, and s.5 of the 1929 Local Government Act permitted local authorities, subject to ministerial approval,
to introduce alternative schemes of poor relief; but the exemption was little used.

The remains of the Poor Law continued until 1948.  The 1930 Poor Law Act codified the remaining
poor law legislation; there were further Poor Law Acts in 1934 and 1938. The Poor Laws and public assistance,
and then unemployment assistance, operated side by side, working to different rules. The 1948 National
Assistance Act abolished the poor laws, declaring in section 1 that "The existing poor law shall cease to have
effect", and the schedule of repeals removed more than twenty Poor Law Acts that were still in force.

The 'welfare state' inherited many physical resources from the Poor Law - along with responsibilities for
the people they had previously provided for. Some residential institutions were still in use thirty years later.

The Welfare State:

The welfare state was, in Beverage’s famous phrase, a "British revolution" - an attempt to break away
from the legacy of the Poor Law and to establish a new, universal system on completely different principles.
The Poor Law had been a "residual" system or safety net, responding to poverty; the Welfare State was going to
offer support for everyone, as of right.

1942 Beverage Report.
Beverage proposed a system of National Insurance, based on three 'assumptions': [7]

 Family allowances. Beverage accepted the principle of a 'family wage', but wages could be only
adequate to support a family if more was made available for families with children. However, Beverage
did not accept the principle of a minimum wage, which would also be necessary for a 'family wage' to be
adequate.
 a national health service. Beverage took for granted a principle that had been obvious to administrators
since Chadwick: that provision for health and unemployment had both to be made, because otherwise
one set of needs would spill over into the provision made for the other.
 Full employment. Mass unemployment would make the scheme unaffordable.

Several measures were introduced before the foundation of the 'welfare state':

 1944 The wartime coalition government committed itself to full employment by Keynesian methods,
which had been shown to work by the New Deal in the USA.
 1944  Education Act: free universal secondary education
 1945  Family Allowance Act.

The Labor Government was elected later in 1945. The timing of key legislation was set to come into force on
the same day, 5th July 1948 - a process which emphasized that, from that point on, everything was supposed to
be different. The key measures were:

 1946 National Insurance Act

 1946 National Health Service Act.
 1948 National Assistance Act. This contained the abolition of the Poor Law, and set out a new
legislative framework for provision for people in need, including residential care.
  1948 Children Act, which established local authority departments to receive children into care.

References:
1. M Luther, 1523, Ordinance on a common chest, in F Salter (ed), 1926. Some early tracts on poor relief, London: Methuen
2. P Spicker (ed) 2010, The origins of modern welfare, Oxford: Peter Lang.
3. G Elton, 1953, An early Tudor Poor Law, Economic History Review 6 1953-4 pp 55-67.
4. J Townsend, 1788, Observations on various plans offered to the public for the relief of the poor, London: C. Dilly.
5. J Poynter, 1960, Society and pauperism, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
6. G Nicholls, 1853, A history of the English Poor Law, vol 2 p 311.
7. W Beveridge, 1942, Social insurance and allied services, Cmd. 6404, London: HMSO

The Changing Position of the Voluntary Sector in the United Kingdom

In different classifications of varieties in state–church relations, the United Kingdom has been
categorized as being nonracist by Barbier (1995), as a state church system by Robbers (2005), and as having a
close relationship between state power and church by Minkenberg(2003). Historically, religious organizations
worked in partnership with the state to provide for those in need in the United Kingdom. The nation state
formation period saw no hostile relationship between the religious forces and the liberal ones as it had been the
case in some continental welfare states like France. In contrast, religious forces have been part of the supporter
groups for liberalization and, in exchange for this support; liberals assured programs for their religiously
motivated supporters (Bentley, 1987, p. 15; Breuilly, 1992; De Ruggiero, 1959; Gould, 1999). This peaceful
settlement in state–religion relations during the period of nation-state formation and the state’s relatively
tolerant approach toward different faiths resulted in the establishment of a balance between religious and
secular agencies in the early 20th century (McLeod, 1996).
The evolution of the social policy sphere was also one of a gradual secularization and formalization of
the voluntary organizations (Kendall & Knapp, 1993). The role of churches and other forms of religious
organizations have not been institutionalized as main partners of social provision as it has been in the case in of
Germany. Yet, they were also not excluded from social welfare as it has been in the case of France. As a result,
the United Kingdom has kept alive its long tradition of charity as a support to the state provision of social
welfare, up to the present day
(Fraser, 1973; Jones, 2000; Kramer, 1981; Thane, 1978).

Faith Based Organizations (FBOs):

The increasing policy interest in FBOs in the last decades is an outcome of the major transformations
taking place in the social welfare realm of the country. Emerging ideologies in the post-1980s gave increasing
importance to individual freedoms and a lesser role to state intervention in the economy. As the state redefined
its new role in social welfare as a steered of social welfare provision, voluntary associations moved from the
periphery to the center (Billis & Harris, 1992; Harris et al., 2001; Johnson, 1992). The shifts in social welfare,
encouraging moves away from the state as the primary agency for social insurance, mainly turned the focus to
the voluntary sector as the oldest actor in social assistance. Different approaches emphasizing the
responsibilities of citizens and the importance of having plural actors in social welfare gained significance.
Scholars interpret the name change of the National Council of Social Service to the National Council for
Voluntary Organizations in 1980 as signaling a major shift (Harris et al., 2001). The voluntary sector was no
longer seen as complementary or supporting the state as the main provider, which had been the case in the
1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. From the late 1970s onward, voluntary organizations became the main provider
in many areas of social policy.
I interpret contemporary transformations in the welfare state as the main reason for the increasing policy interest
in FBOs in the United Kingdom. Faith-based organizations such as churches and religious charities have always
played an important role in social welfare provisioning in the United Kingdom. Yet in recent decades there has
been a rise of political interest in them accompanied by a growth in their significance in shaping social policy.
Scholars refer to the increasing engagement between local governments and health services and voluntary and
community associations in the delivery of public services (Hogg & Baines). Similarly, scholars point to the
growing cross-party interest in religious organizations in the United Kingdom, especially in the past two
decades (Harris et al., 2003). The launch of the Conservative Party’s social policy initiative “Renewing One
Nation” was a groundbreaking event, mentioning
faith groups as innovators in solving persistent social problems and creating “compassionate communities”
(Harris et al., 2001).
One can argue that since the 1980s a new social policy consensus has arisen, characterized by an
emphasis on voluntary actors— especially religious ones—as one of the main providers of social welfare.
Following the Conservative Party, the New Labor government of Tony Blair also showed great interest in the
capacity of faith-based organizations in contributing to social welfare, providing social provision, and
regenerating communities (Harris et al., 2003; Philpot, 2001).

The increasing interest in the competence of FBOs as partners in policy making and implementation should be
assessed in light of neoliberal reforms. In a period when the welfare state experienced financial problems,
existing FBO resources became attractive to the governments in power. Various scholars have pointed out how
governments made use of these religious organizations to support their platform of social welfare and cohesion.

In the words of Dinham and Lowndes,

“Since the mid-1990s and from 1997 in particular, governments have identified the potential for building on the
traditional service role of faith bodies (for instance in education, housing, fostering and adaptation) and extending this into
new areas (including urban and rural regeneration, community safety, childcare and health promotion). (Dinham &
Lowndes,
2009, p. 5) “

Reference: Corresponding Author:

I
pek Göçmen, Social Policy Forum, Bog˘aziçi University, Kuzey Kampüs, Otopark Binasi, Kat 1, Bebek
34342 Istanbul, Turkey.
Email: ipek.gocmen@boun.edu.tr