A Survey of Public and Private Some Recent Developments Servicein Socias l Service in Great Britain National Insurance The National Insurance Act, 1946, By John S. Morgan* accepts and gives effect to most of the essential principles of the Beveridge report. It provides insurance cash "Subject to the provisions of this service are examined in some detail in benefits, that is, benefits receivable Act, every person who, on or after the the BULLETIN for February 19472 and by right of previous contribution, for appointed day, being over school leav• need not be repeated here. In addi• all periods in which there is interrup• ing age and under pensionable age, is tion to this legislation, note must be tion of livelihood earning; and it pro• in Great Britain, and fulfills such con• taken of the Education Acts of 1944 vides them on the principle that the ditions as may be prescribed as to resi• and 19463 and of some of the impor• need is the same and therefore the dence in Great Britain, shall become tant inquiries which have been re- cash benefit should be the same, insured under this Act, and thereafter ported, such as the Rushcliffe report whether the need arises from unem• continue throughout his life to be so on legal aid and advice,4 the report of ployment, sickness, or retirement. insured."1 the Lord Chancellor's Committee of In place of an administrative jungle Enquiry on Justices of the Peace, the that has hitherto involved no less than In that one clause of a single act of Curtis report on the care of children,5 seven Central Government depart• Parliament can be found some of the and the Report of the Committee on ments and a host of local government main elements of Britain's new statu• Procedure in Matrimonial Causes.6 authorities, there is now to be a single tory social services. It draws atten• These and other Government papers department, the Ministry of National tion by implication to the raising of serve to show that most, if not all, of Insurance, with its own regional and the school-leaving age to 15 and later the needs of the common man are the local offices. As viewed by the citizen, to 16 years of age. It makes clear this administrative change in the pub• the dominant motive of the social subject of study and of action. Ex• lic social services will be perhaps more legislation enacted or proposed by the amination of some of these measures noticeable than many of the increased Labor Government of Britain. The and proposals will show that if Sir benefit rates and more generous reg• idea that all should share the dangers William (now Lord) Beveridge could ulations. For him it means one in• and difficulties of modern industrial write in his report of. 1942 that "pro• surance card, one weekly stamp, and civilization on an equitable basis, vision for most of the many varieties one office for the receipt of cash bene• whatever their age, sex, rank, or eco• of need through interruptions of fits other than assistance. Provisions nomic status, was particularly promi• earnings and other causes that may for the assistance program are not yet nent in wartime, when "fair shares for arise in modern industrial communi• announced, but its administration will all" was the established pattern of ties has already been made in Britain most probably be closely related to the conduct. It is now to be found as a on a scale not surpassed and hardly Ministry of National Insurance. major principle of social change in rivaled in any other country in the It would be wrong to imagine that postwar Britain. world,"7 then in 1947, only 5 years the National Insurance Act satisfies The principle of all-inclusive shar• later, it can truly be said that there everyone or that it covers adequately ing is not confined to the persons to has been a great improvement in cov• the real needs of all persons to whom be covered by the social services; it erage, and there is promise that the it applies. Without going into the is also applied to the needs which are aim of all-inclusive coverage for all details of benefit rates, it can be said to be met. The predominant aim is men is being held. that the principle of a "minimum in• that all citizens shall have the right come sufficient for his subsistence, to receive all the services they require needs and responsibilities," which to meet the unpredictable social, med• 2 Carl Parman and Catherine Perrins, Beveridge claimed had been "aban• "The New British System of Social Se• doned"8 by the Coalition Government ical, and economic problems that be• curity," Social Security Bulletin, Febru• devil the lives of so many in the com• ary 1947, pp. 9-19. in its proposals of 1943, has not been plex pattern of living that is now the 3 7 and 8 Geo. 6, ch. 31; and 9 and 10 fully restored by the Labor Govern• inheritance and the problem of civil• Geo. 6, ch. 50. ment in its 1946 legislation. The old ized mankind. 4 Report of the Committee on Legal Aid people have received the most gener• and Legal Advice, London, 1945. (Cmd. ous treatment,9 getting immediately The major items of the British Gov• 6641.) ernment's legislative program for so• 5Report of the Care of Children Com• much more substantial benefits than cial insurance and a national health mittee, London, 1946. (Cmd. 6922.) Beveridge had proposed. Unemploy• 6 Cmd. 7024, London, 1947. ment and disability benefits are sub- 7 Social Insurance and Allied Services, London, 1942. (Cmd. 6404.) For a full * Lecturer and Research Associate, account of the report see Martha D. Ring, 8 Sir William H. Beveridge, The Pillars School of Social Work, University of "Social Security for Great Britain—A Re• of Security, London, 1942, p. 132. Toronto; author and formerly social view of the Beveridge Report," Social Se• 9 For details see Increases in. Old-Age, worker in Great Britain. curity Bulletin, January 1943, pp. 3-30. Widows' and Blind Persons' Pensions, Lon• don, 1946. (Cmd. 6878.) 1 National Insurance Act, 1946, sec. 1. ject to time limits; and the children's National Health Service British social services. The Ministry's allowances, under the Family Allow• services for the veteran, for the dis• ances Act, of 5s. a week for every child The National Health Service Act, abled, for those in need of vocational under school-leaving age, except the 1946, represents a major change in training and redirection, allied to its first, are well below the minimum sub• Britain's provision of social services. responsibilities for a constructive em• sistence level, even allowing for sub• The legislation has been, and still is, a ployment service, make it an essential stantial improvements in the provi• source of major controversy within partner in the provision of construc• sion of benefits in kind. Another the medical profession, but it would be tive social service. weakness is that mothers of families wrong to permit the very vocal opposi• The Education Act, 1944 (with some engaged in their vital task of running tion of a part of the medical profes• comparatively minor amendments in the home are classified as "not gain• sion, and of some sections of the popu• 1946), not only recast the educational fully occupied persons" and as such lation partly on political grounds, to system on more democratic lines, but are ineligible for sick benefits. This overshadow the very real welcome the also made provision for greatly im• provision may be administratively proposals have received from a large proved educational services for handi• sound, but it does not do away with proportion of the general public. capped children, for milk in school the social consequences, so well known There are many significant features and school meals as an essential part to social workers, of the fact that in the national health service, but for of education, and for the development "mother cannot afford to be ill." The the student of the social services there of "recreational and physical train• transfer of all cash-benefit payments are two which are perhaps of particu• ing" services for adults as well as to the Ministry of National Insurance lar interest. The provision of a free young people as an obligatory duty has many virtues, but it also raises medical service for all is a construc• of local education authorities. This some awkward questions about serv• tive measure that should do much in act is notable also for the abolition ices which should be closely integrated future decades to remove thousands, of smaller local education authorities with and related to cash payments; and perhaps tens of thousands, from and the concentration of administra• this is a general feature that will be the rolls of those in need of economic tion and policy in the hands of the discussed later in this paper. assistance. The creation of a national counties and county boroughs. hospital service shows a new trend in Housing is a third area of public ac• Workmen's Compensation public administration, because it in• tivity which has peculiar interest for volves taking away from the major social workers and administrators. The new and revolutionary treat• local authorities a service, in many Between the two World Wars, some• ment of workmen's compensation in cases assumed only recently as a re• thing like a million houses for rental the National Insurance (Industrial sult of the reforms in the Local Gov• by the lower-income groups were Injuries) Act, 1946,10 has its critics, ernment Act, 1929, and placing the built in Britain by the local municipal though few can be found to deny the management of a state service on a authorities, with financial aid, policy advantages of exchanging the laby• national basis with regional boards. direction, and technical services from rinthine complexities of the old order It is hoped that the new service will the Ministry of Health which, as the for a single and relatively simple expand and develop the work of the successor of the Local Government state insurance scheme. By estab• hospital almoners.11 They are fully Board, is the Central Government de• lishing somewhat higher rates of trained social workers, who provide partment generally responsible for re• benefit than those under the National the essential link between the medi• lations with local authorities. This Insurance Act for sickness benefit, for cal care provided by the hospital and major contribution to the solution of example, the new act leaves room for the sdcial and family conditions of the Britain's housing problem has given anomalies and also invites the natural patient. rise to a number of social services. suggestion that the benefits under the Slum clearance and the correction of general act are, as indeed they are, overcrowding are social policies. Dif• below an adequate minimum rate. Other Areas of Public Activity ferential rent systems relating the The whole question of medical treat• In surveying recent developments rent of a municipal house to the in• ment and rehabilitation is assumed to in social service in Great Britain it is come of the family, rather than to the be properly within the competence of impossible to omit four other major cost of the house, are social policies, the new national health service and areas of activity that have far-reach• requiring in their administration the the rehabilitation services of the Min• ing social implications for the people application of social service tech• istry of Labor; thus, again, the cash of Britain. niques. These policies have led to benefits are divorced in administra• Some reference will be made later a marked growth of professional hous• tion from their complementary serv• to the important place which the ing management, one of the special• ices. There are some who would pre• Ministry of Labor and National Serv• ized fields of the social work profes• fer them to be more nearly related ice now plays in the pattern of the sion which has achieved recognized within the same organization, as they status in Great Britain. are, for example, under the Ontario 11Further information on the training The creation of the planned new system of workmen's compensation. and work of the hospital almoners can he obtained from the Institute of Hospital towns, exemplified in Welwyn Gar• Almoners, B. M. A. House, Tavistock den City and Letchworth, has had Square, London, W. C. 1, England. 10 9 and 10 Geo. 6, ch. 62. added impetus since the publication of Private Social Services In the past 5 years the National the Barlow report12 and has become, Council of Social Service has taken a with the New Towns Act, part of na• Turning now to the private social more active part in social service on tional policy, with profound social services or, as they are more generally the international level. It has been implications. It is particularly rele• known in Britain, the voluntary social responsible particularly for promoting vant that the development of these services, a number of significant de• the interchange of social workers and new towns, two or more of which are velopments can be noted. In this administrators, for which there are already in progress, Is to be placed in field, however, the changes are more now committees in Britain, the United the hands of specifically designated, subtle and less easily defined than States, France, Czechoslovakia, and centrally appointed organizations and are those in the area of the public or possibly other European countries. not of the local municipal authorities statutory social services. The council has acted as the coordi• already on the ground. Provision is The report issued in 1909 by the nating center of Britain's participa• made, however, for the transference Royal Commission on the Poor Laws 13 tion in the International Conference of the town to the existing or an ap• referred to the need for increased of Social Work, and its general secre• propriate local government authority cooperation among the private social tary was recently appointed Treasurer when it has been created. service agencies. The First World of the International Conference The fourth area of social change, War emphasized this need, and in 1919 scheduled for 1949. one that is still in the stage of inquiry the National Council of Social Service The tendency to joint or coopera• rather than of action, is that of child was created. This organization, par• tive action by the private agencies care and protection. The Curtis re• ticularly in the present decade, has may be illustrated from other areas port on the care of children shows made a remarkable contribution to the of social work. The Council for Vol• only too clearly that two major faults social services in promoting coopera• untary War Work was established in of the present provision are the al• tion among private agencies and also most complete lack of adequately between public and private agencies 1939 under the auspices of the War trained social workers for this work engaged in the same fields of social Office and brought together the pri• and the administrative confusion that service. Particular mention may be vate agencies engaged in providing invariably arises from piecemeal made here of the Standing Conference comforts and welfare for the armed legislation. of National Voluntary Youth Organ• forces, to ensure adequate coordina• It is interesting to find that the izations, created in 1937, the Stand• tion and the most economical use of Curtis committee, while it recom• ing Conference of Voluntary Organ• the available manpower. The Provi• mends that one central department izations, created in 1938, the Women's sional National Council for Mental should be "ultimately responsible" Group on Public Welfare, created in Health14 incorporates all the major for the care of children, believes the 1940, and the National Old People's private agencies engaged in this type actual provision "should remain a Welfare Committee, created in 1943. of work. The council, which had its matter for the local authorities and Each of these conferences represents origin in the thorough investigation the voluntary organizations." The joint consultative machinery, pro• and report of the Feversham commit- committee strongly favors, however, vided with secretarial services by the tee,15 provides an excellent example of a single, fully responsible committee National Council of Social Service and private agency action based on con• of the local council to be responsible drawing together the private agen• sidered inquiry rather than on the for all the authority's duties in con• cies, the public services, and inter• urges and pressures of a passing emer• nection with the care of children, ested individuals engaged in the same gency. In quite another type of so• with a highly qualified "children's or similar fields of social service. cial work, the Council of British So• officer" as its chief executive. These The National Council of Social cieties for Relief Abroad represents proposals indicate an effort at coor• Service has also been engaged, among cooperative action on the internation• dination without centralization, many other activities, in a sustained al level. which is a somewhat unusual ap• and growing effort to improve the The Second World War created for proach to the administrative prob• quality of social life in the rural and many of the British people problems lems of the social services in present- urban areas of Britain. This phase of individual and family need that day Britain.12a of community organization is reflected far outstripped any previous expe• in the Rural Community Councils rience. The effects of intensive bom• movement, with its closely related pol• bardment, of mass evacuation, of icies in respect of village halls, and 12 Report of the Royal Commission on transferred industries, of billeting the Distribution of the Industrial Popu• the Community Centers and Associa• lation, London, 1940. (Comd. 6153.) tions movements, both centering in 14 Now established as the National As• 12a Since this article went to press the the council and both representing a sociation for Mental Health, incorporat- British Government has announced its very substantial program of coopera• ing the Central Association for Mental acceptance ot the main thesis of the tive effort at the local level. Welfare, the Child Guidance Council, the Curtis report and its intention to center National Council for Mental Hygiene, and child-care work in the Children's Branch the Mental Health Emergency Committee. of the Home Office and to encourage local 13 Report of the Royal Commission on 15 The committee's report was published authorities to appoint children's com• the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress in 1939, and the Provisional National mittees served by competent children's (Part VII of the Majority Report, England Council for Mental Health was estab• officers. and Wales), London, 1909. lished in 1943. huge armies from other countries,16 the Dominions and colonies; and the ices also need the facts and figures on and of general conscription, were to British War Relief Fund of the United which to base their thinking. The strain the bonds of family life, and in States. Government has made many valuable many cases, of family economics, be• One of the most interesting social contributions to social thinking dur• yond the breaking point. The statu• phenomena of the war was the urgent ing the past 5 or 6 years. Some of the tory schemes for the Prevention and need of the ordinary citizen for ac• more important reports, to which ref• Relief of Distress, War Service curate information and skilled advice. erence is made throughout this ar• Grants,17 War Damage Compensation, The inevitable complexities of pro• ticle, constitute the necessary prelimi• War Injuries Compensation, and other grams designed to serve millions of nary thought and investigation from programs, such as School Feeding, people often made their intricacies in• which the new social code of Britain Emergency Feeding, and Emergency comprehensible to and their opera• is being written into law. Housing, took the major economic tions unmanageable by the ordinary The contribution of the private shocks. As always, however, there citizen whom the restrictions were agencies to this essential process of remained a wide area of residual intended to protect and the schemes skilled inquiry and careful thought is problems that fell particularly to the were intended to serve. From this beginning to grow. The work of Po• private agencies to resolve. need there came the creation of the litical and Economic Planning (P E P) The British Red Cross Society and Citizens' Advice Bureaus,18 established is well known, and its authoritative the Order of St. John, in the Second, in 1939 by the National Council of bulletins and reports constitute some as in the First, World War, set up a Social Service in cooperation with the of the clearest statements on social joint organization through which case-work agencies and the local and economic issues of the day. The were mobilized immense resources of councils of social service ail over Great Fabian Society continues its work of voluntary help, skilled service, and Britain. It was found that a central educating the British people, for sorely needed aid over a wide range" service of accurate information,19 com• which it has become famous. Other of social services. Particular mention bined with skilled interviewing and research organizations, such as the may perhaps be made of their services sympathetic interpretation, provided National Institute of Economic and for prisoners of war, their work in an essential lubricant to the complex Social Research, the Institute of So• maintaining medical and ambulance machinery of social welfare. So ciology, and Nuffield College, have all services for bombed areas, and the clearly was this fact established that made significant additions to the auxiliary medical services they pro• it is now recognized that public au• study of the social services. Among vided for the armed forces and civil• thorities have a responsibility not only the agencies actually engaged in so• ians both at home and overseas. to provide social services but also to cial work, the National Council of explain and interpret those services Social Service during the later years Residual financial needs, after the to the people whose needs they are of the Second World War made or statutory schemes had been used to intended to meet; local authorities are encouraged a number of particularly the full, were particularly the respon• today being urged by the Central Gov• valuable studies of social questions of sibility of the family case-work agen• ernment to make provision for this immediate practical, significance. The cies, led by the Charity Organization vital new social service, while the Cen• most important of these studies was Society of London, which thus added tral Government has itself retained a Our Tovms—A Close-Up,21 made un• another chapter to its long history of Central Office of Information from der the auspices of the Women's service since its foundation in 1869. the wartime Ministry of Information.20 Group on Public Welfare. This study Very large sums were collected from Not only does the general public became a best seller and is known to the public in Britain and overseas need information, but social workers have had profound effects on social upon which these agencies drew heav• and administrators of the social serv• legislation, being quoted, for example, ily for the special needs of a long war. in the Government's introductory The three most notable funds raised 18National Council of Social Service, White Paper on Educational Needs, for these purposes were the Red Cross Citizens' Advice Bureaux in Great Britain which preceded the Education Act of and St. John War Fund (especially its and Advice Centres in Liberated Europe, 1944. These beginnings of research penny-a-week scheme, which drew London, 1944. 19 The central key of this information and study within the social work contributions from a wide constitu• service is a regular digest of all social agencies are significant, since the ency of ordinary citizens); the Lord legislation and information entitled Citi• agencies have the accumulated ex• Mayor's Air Raid Distress Fund, which zens' Advice Notes, which is. published by the National Council of Social Service perience which, allied to theory, may received, in addition to its home sup• and is recognized as a standard reference well contribute a new and vital ele• port, substantial contributions from for social workers and administrators. ment to social study. 20 The need for legal advice, long known The need for information and to social workers, became very clear dur• skilled guidance has shown itself in 16At one time or another, Britain ing the war, and one consequence was the housed the armies of the United States, foundation of legal advice services for quite another form. The great in• Canada, Norway, Holland, the Free the armed forces. Subsequently a Gov• crease in the number of broken mar• French, and other allied nations, and ernment committee, headed by Lord Rush- riages, evident during and after the must have been the base for literally cliffe, investigated the whole subject and millions of allied troops. published in 1945 a report, commonly First World War, became even more 17 Supplementary grants to meet excep• known as the Rushcliffe Report on Legal tional needs of the families of members Aid, containing proposals that the Gov• of the armed forces. ernment is expected to implement. 21 Oxford University Press, 1942. acute during the Second World War some of the other cooperative group• cording to the type of need. Since and was accompanied, as always, by ings already discussed, is to provide a the whole population is covered by the an increase in cases of social malad• common ground for consultation and National Insurance Act, and since justment, delinquency, and other so• joint effort in making new advances all the main causes of economic want cial disorders. Accepting as a basic in adult education. are included in the benefit categories, social fact the role of the family as the number of residual cases outside the essential unit of the community, the provisions of the social security and successful marriage as the foun• Postwar Trends legislation as a whole should be rela• dation of the family, a Marriage Within this brief survey of the so• tively small. Soon the last fragments Guidance Council was started in Lon• cial services in Great Britain it is of the old Poor Law will disappear don in 1943 as an experiment. The possible to discern a number of im• within the new scheme of national as• object was to provide a team of ex• portant tendencies, which need to be sistance, which will, so to speak, put a pert consultants—doctors, psycholo• examined more closely and made more floor beneath social insurance. gists, clergymen, social workers, law• explicit. It is significant of British experi• yers, and others—who would be avail• ence in the 1930's that every effort able to give advice and treatment to should have been made to avoid any people whose marriages were on the A Fixed Scale of Cash Benefits suggestion of a "means test," in rocks and who sought their aid. The The first of these tendencies is in marked contrast to the Congress of scheme has been widely accepted, and the area of cash relief. It will be the United States, which in 1935 and similar councils are now being formed noted that economic assistance to pre• 1939 wrote the word "needy" into the in many towns and cities of Britain. vent want is, in every case, based on various assistance titles of the Social During the years between the wars flat-rate payments on fixed scales. Security Act. So anxious indeed is the there were some exciting and inter• This is a marked feature of British present British Government to avoid esting experiments in education. thought and is clearly brought out in any suggestion of a means test that it Many of them, such as school camps the Beveridge report. Whatever the has written into the National Insur• for children from the "depressed cause of "want," whether it be sick• ance Act a temporary provision, valid areas" and adult education stressing ness, unemployment, or retirement, for 5 years from the commencement the practical or involving extended the cash benefits are essentially re• of the new scheme, under which regu• use of the "discussion-group" tech• lated to the same scales in the Na• lations "may authorize the Minister niques, were carried on with funds tional Insurance Act. It is even more to pay unemployment benefit to in• supplied, not by the Board of Educa• significant that, whereas workmen's sured persons, on the recommenda• tion, but by the Commissioners for compensation was related to the pre• tion of a local tribunal, for such num• the Special Areas. The Army Bureau vious earnings of the injured person, ber of days of unemployment as may of Current Affairs (ABCA) further the National Insurance (Industrial be specified in the recommendation, developed the discussion-group meth• Injuries) Act meets this form of being days for which they are not en• ods of adult education, and their work want, too, on a fixed scale of flat- titled to such benefit by reason only was paralleled in the civilian world rate benefit. This trend is in marked of having exhausted their right there• by organizations like the Workers Ed• contrast to the general acceptance to." 22 As they are not insurance pay• ucational Association, the great na• in Canada and the United States ments, these "out-of-benefit" pay• tional voluntary youth organizations, of the concept of benefits related ments will be made from national and other similar bodies. The pro• to previous earnings and of relief revenue and not from the insurance motion in 1940 of the Council for the assistance based primarily on a budg• fund. This approach is an expedient Encouragement of Music and Arts etary deficiency basis. The accept• to make provision for the unemployed (CEMA) by the Pilgrim Trust brought ance of the principle of a uniform "employable" person without impos• music, painting, and drama of high flat rate should involve acceptance of ing a means test and putting him on quality within the reach of the com• the principle that the rates are at or general relief. It does not solve this mon man. These wartime advances above minimum subsistence levels. It awkward question, but at least it is in have been consolidated in the first is by no means agreed that the rates favorable contrast to the position of years since the allied victory. The. currently fixed under the British pro• many State governments in the Education Act of 1944 makes "recrea• grams are in fact adequate on this United States and also of Canada,23 tion and physical education" an ob• basis. where the unemployed "employable" ligatory duty of the public education It is true that the new British so• seems likely to have a thin time be• authorities for the first time; ABCA cial insurance schemes do include the tween an unemployment insurance has become the Bureau of Current whole population, that there are uni• scheme, which limits the duration of Affairs with a civilian framework; form contribution rates for all and benefit strictly according to contribu• CEMA has become the Arts Council uniform benefits for all. It should, tions paid, and a system of general of Great Britain, fully supported by however, be observed that this uni• public funds; and the whole move• formity does not mean that "cate• ment of adult education has been gories" have been abandoned within pointed up by the creation of a Na• the framework of social insurance. 22 National Insurance Act, clause 64. 23 See the Canadian Unemployment In• tional Foundation of Adult Education, The various benefits are still based on surance Act, 1940, and the 1944 Regula• which, in a fashion reminiscent of the classification of the applicant ac• tions made under the Unemployment Relief Act of the Province of Ontario. assistance which takes account only of sideration of the matter.26 Nonethe• advanced than that of other kinds of "unemployable" persons.24 less, this remains an important ques• social work; other areas where some tion which has profound implications substantial recognition has been for the future social structure and the achieved in the public service are in Some Dangers in Administrative future administration of English so• housing management, medical social Centralization cial services. work ("hospital almoners"), psychi• It will be observed that one major atric social work, probation work, and consequence of social security legis• Separation of Cash Benefits and the most recently in the care of chil• lation in Britain will be to remove Social Services dren.27 In group-work techniques and large areas of public social service in the practice of community organ• from the cognizance of the local au• Another administrative feature of ization, the position is that, while thorities. The responsibility of reliev• the new British public services is the many private agencies have long had ing "want" is taken wholly by the na• separation of the payments of cash their own training schemes, some of tional administration, thus finally benefits from the social services to these have been both excellent and breaching the age-long tradition of the beneficiaries. In the future, adequate, but others have been lim• local responsibility enshrined in the nearly all cash payments will be made ited in scope and uneven in quality. "Forty-third of Elizabeth" and there• by the Ministry of National. Insur• There is some Government recogni• after an axiom of Poor Law policy. ance. As these payments are flat- tion of the need, but no adequate Health services, too, become the con• rate benefits in an insurance system, provision for supply. It should not, cern of a national department, with this Ministry must inevitably become however, be thought that because the the interesting and important admin• primarily a vast calculating and filing formal position appears bad the situ• istrative device of regional boards machine, which will be able to oper• ation is quite so unsatisfactory as it which will be outside and not neces• ate almost entirely on the paper evi• looks. There are in fact many hun• sarily related to local government au• dence of contributions made and the dreds, if not thousands, of social thorities. Other examples of strength• evidence presented of unemployment, workers in Britain with substantial ened ministerial powers have already maternity, sickness, retirement, or qualifications and long years of ex• been noted, as in the creation of spe• death. It will necessarily have a large perience, and the development of the cial authorities for the new towns, for investigating staff, and it is to be country's social services owes much example; while the replacement of hoped that there will be a much of its present surge forward to their the Board of Education by the Min• greater realization than there has untiring efforts. What is needed now istry of Education and the concentra• been hitherto in Britain of the need is the proper organization of the pro• tion of educational administration in for skilled social workers in this field. fession, adequate provision for train• the hands of the larger local educa• Without skilled professional workers ing, and suitable recognition, espe• tion authorities are pointed in the there is a grave danger that the ad• cially in the public services', of the same direction. vantages of administrative simplicity functions and importance of skilled This tendency will unquestionably will be more than outweighed by the social work. have a marked effect on the structure failure to relate essential social serv• and character of English local govern• ices to the relief of economic diffi• This discussion of the need for ments.25 For one thing the whole com• culties. skilled social work has occasioned a plex question of grants-in-aid will This is only one example of a lam• diversion, albeit an essential diver• now have to be reviewed in the light entable lack of recognition in the sion, from the theme that in the sep• of the direct assumption by the Cen• British social services of the need for aration of cash payments from social tral Government of many of the fi• (rained professional workers in social services there is some danger that nancial burdens hitherto the respon• welfare administration. There are, Britain will achieve administrative sibilities of the local authorities. Lo• however, some grounds for hope. simplicity at the cost of adequate at• cal government in England is in any Provision of training for social work• tention to the social needs of the case long overdue for reform, but the ers is beginning to come into its own, beneficiary. If there is danger in this Government has so far taken the view but only beginning, and their recogni• separation, there may also be oppor• that the time is not yet ripe for con• tion as qualified technicians in the tunities, because a service that is not civil service and in local government hampered by having to "look over its service, though perceptible during the shoulder" at the cash-benefit con• 24 For a view quite contrary to that war, has not yet been anything like sequences of its actions can attack commonly held in Britain, compare Lewis adequate. The acceptance of case• its problems in a constructive and Merlam, Belief and Social Security work techniques is perhaps further total way that in other circumstances (Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C., might be awkward if not impossible. 1946): "Unless the state is to pay bene• fits to persons regardless of their need, Thus those engaged in the national a means test is an essential part of a 26See, for example, the reply of the health service might well concentrate relief and social security system." Minister of Health to the recent confer• 25 No reference is made in this connec• ence of the Association of Municipal Cor• tion to the position in Scotland, which porations, which expressed "concern over 27 Recognition of the need for social has a somewhat different local govern• piecemeal legislation which is removing workers is one thing. The training and ment structure, but there can be little the powers and responsibilities of mu• employment of them is another, as the doubt that here, too, the new legislation nicipal authorities." (New York Times, reports of the Curtis Care of Children will have some interesting results. Nov. 17, 1946). Committee clearly show. on the constructive and positive du• opportunities will arise for skilled cies, with much concentration of ties of preserving health.28 Perhaps work and for skillful administration power and policy-making at national the best illustration of the construc• in the organization of each of the headquarters, makes local operation tive results which may follow this other partners. Adequate adminis• of a community chest difficult if not policy may be observed in the postwar trative liaison may well be the great• impossible. concept of the functions of the Minis• est test of Britain's new pattern of Three specific developments in the try of Labor. public welfare. last 10 years, however, have set the pattern for more cooperation in fund- Ministry of Labor as a Social Service New Paths for the Private raising. The London Metropolitan Agency Police indicated some years ago that Agencies they would not authorize tag days The experience of the Ministry of So great a reorganization and ex• under the Street Collections Act un• Labor during the years of heavy un• pansion of the public social services less organizations engaged in the same employment was that its function as must inevitably have deep and last• kind of work could arrange for joint an "exchange" for employment was ing effects on the organization and collections for the whole metropolitan overwhelmed by its obligations to functions of the private agencies. area on the same day. The conse• register and pay cash benefits to the The private social services are alive quence has been a marked diminution unemployed. Today, with unem• to the changes which are taking place, in the number of tag days and a sub• ployment benefits the responsibility and they recognize that these changes stantial rise in the total contributed of the Ministry of National Insurance, present an immense challenge. There the British Ministry of Labor, en• are some, though few, who believe by a gratefully less harassed public. larged and fortified by its multifari• that, with so much responsibility ac• The British Broadcasting Corporation ous wartime experience, is occupied cepted by the public authorities, the made a similar regulation in allotting with a constructive task. To it fall proper functions of the private its appeal time, and here again private the duties not only of finding em• agencies are diminishing. Prom most agencies engaged in similar work have ployment, but of training men and there is a recognition that, as State joined together for the purpose of women for the most suitable employ• responsibility grows, so also do the raising money. Less successful were ment, of protecting them at work, and opportunity and responsibility of the a number of attempts, based on coun• of mobilizing the whole productive private agency, not necessarily in the ties or on large cities, to coordinate manpower of the country. It is in old ways, but in new ways, in order the raising of "war charity funds." this context that this Ministry now that the individual citizen may get full The financial bases of private agen• directs veterans' affairs, the rehabili• value from the new social plan as it cies, however, are likely to cause the tation and reemployment of disabled comes into effect. agencies much anxious thought in the persons, the vocational training of ex- Practical examples of this line of next few years. The changing income soldiers and civilians, the study of thought among the private agencies structure, resulting from increasingly executive and administrative employ• are not far to seek. It is significant progressive29 taxation, must inevi• ment, and the deployment of British that the Charity Organization Society tably reduce the amounts which can manpower. Because it has this all- has now changed its name to the be expected from large donors. inclusive function, and also because Family Welfare Association, indicat• Means must be found to increase the its assignments include such matters ing that its future work lies primarily amounts received from the ordinary as industrial welfare, the Ministry of in the area of personal adjustment citizen, not by getting more from a Labor must be reckoned as one of rather than in its hitherto traditional small number of wealthy individuals Britain's major social service organi• practice of "organizing charity." The but by increasing in a very substantial zations. widespread growth of community or• measure the number of individuals If it is true in military affairs that ganization of many kinds, in the vil• who contribute small sums. The suc• the weakest place in any front is lage halls movement, in neighborhood cess of the penny-a-week funds for usually where two units are linked, it groups, in a variety of women's clubs, hospitals, and during the war for the is also true in the public services. The shows how much this type of social Red Cross and St. John War Fund, Ministry of Labor will show its work has progressed in the past 10 or suggests that this method might be• strength or its weakness by the skill 15 years. come the backbone of private agency with which it creates essential links Another interesting development financing in the future. The trans• with the Ministry of Education, the has been the growing tendency to co• fer of the hospitals into the national Ministry of National Insurance, the operate in raising money. Although health service may release substan• national health service, and the other the idea of the community chest tra• tial funds for private agencies, but partners in social security. The same ditionally derives from ideas and ex• this is a potential rather than an ac• periments in Liverpool, always in the tual source of revenue. The finance forefront of private social service in 28 A task in which they have much to of private social agencies, however, is learn from the Peckham Health Center Britain, it has never been adopted in a subject that greatly needs investi• experiment. See Biologists in Search of Britain on the scale or with the cov• gating, especially in Britain. Material, London, 1937; The Peckham erage that it has now attained on the Experiment, London, 1943; and other ac• North American Continent. The counts by Dr. G. Scott Williamson, Dr. Innes Pearse, and their colleagues of the structure of many of the private agen• 29 Used here in the technical sense as Peckham Health Center. opposed to "regressive" taxation. The function of private agencies to In the first place they represent a vic• lem of disablement. The administra• pioneer in developing new social serv• tory for the Fabian philosophy of tion by the Assistance Board of ices is firmly established in the British gradualism. The minority report of schemes for the prevention and relief tradition. Practically all her present the Poor Law Commission of 1905-09 of distress caused by the war, of sup• social services derive from past vol• was the first sign of the break-up of plementary pensions for old people, untary effort. In this work they the Poor Law. The pioneers of adult and of war service grants for the fam• have in the recent past been able to education, among them the Fabians, ilies of members of the armed forces secure powerful support from some of the Workers' Educational Association, showed that the national civil service the great trusts, such as the Carnegie the settlement movements, and oth• could operate national public assist• United Kingdom Trust, the Pilgrim ers, have led the way to a genuine un• ance programs with sympathy and Trust, and the King George V Jubilee derstanding of social issues by the flexibility. Evacuation taught Britain Trust. These resources remain avail• common man. It was this fact that some sharp lessons in education and a able. In the development of music made the Beveridge report a political widespread respect for the techniques and drama, in which the emphasis is force that no party in Britain could of social work. The management of on the active participation of the or• afford to ignore. limited food resources has developed dinary members of the community, in Secondly, the course of events be• into a new pattern of public care, in the establishment of new and more tween the wars set the pattern for which those in need of nourishment widespread schemes of adult educa• the future. The false economies of have priority over those who can tion, and in the creation of new com• the early 1930's, the long, grim his• afford to pay for extra foodstuffs. munity organizations, much pioneer tory of failure in the coal-mining in• The mobilization of a greater propor• work is already in progress. Another dustry, the human, wastage of the tion of its population, men and fruitful field of private agency activ• "rationalization of industry," and the women, than any other people in the ity lies in what might be called inter• sore places left by persistent unem• world has set the pace for the con• pretation, that is to say, in relating ployment were accompanied by ad• structive tasks of peace. individual needs to the available so• ministrative expedients such as the The object of this article has been cial services. This is a type of work Unemployment Assistance Board and to sketch in bold outline Britain's particularly developed in the Citizens' the Special Areas Commissioners rapidly developing system of social Advice Bureaus during the war years which brought the National Govern• services and to direct attention to that has many applications today. ment into the arena of public assist• some of the more significant patterns Perhaps it is most needed at the pres• ance. Drastic reorganization of the which, for good or ill, are now being ent time in the field of old age, where industrial scene became a major po• inextricably woven into the fabric of so many pensioners may soon cease to litical demand. her social life. To achieve propor• get more from the public services than Lastly, the experiences of the Sec• tion in any synthesis of this kind their cash benefits. ond World War have molded and there has had to be much omission of In a word, it might be said with a marked the British social structure to pertinent detail and even ruthless ex• substantial measure of truth that the a degree which is not yet fully clusion of much that is of importance. work of the private agencies in Britain appreciated. A progressive system of It is hoped, however, that enough has will be found more and more in the taxation which in 1942-43 left only 80 been said to indicate that the British area of human relations. In the com• persons in the whole country with people are not looking back to the plex and difficult world of today, there incomes of more than $24,000 after past but forward into the future. is much to be done in that field, and taxation, as compared with 7,000 such They have learned not a few of the as the state takes on the heavier share persons in 1938-39,30 marks the bitter social lessons of the years be• of the social services, which need all- triumph of economic egalitarianism. tween the wars. Amid the cruel har• inclusive coverage for their further The creation of an Emergency Medi• vests of the Second World War, they growth, the private agencies have a cal Service brought modern hospital have gleaned at least some construc• great responsibility and a supreme service into every corner of the Brit• tive ideas on the management of their opportunity to go out in front and ish Isles, and the preventive medical affairs. In spite of all the difficulties lead, as they have led before, in the service in the armed forces taught the which beset them today, they have pioneer work in these new fields of lessons of universal medical and den• plotted a new course on the chart of human need. tal care. The application of modern human affairs. They know that mis• methods of psychiatry and rehabili• takes will be made, that their present Out of the Past and on Into the tation in the armed forces has led the plans are not perfect, and that they Future way to a new approach to the prob• have many problems yet to face; but Social service developments in they will go on with courage, for 30 British Information Services, Taxa• "Happiness is freedom, and freedom Great Britain derive from three main tion in Britain, New York, 1945. In 1946- is courage." (Pericles: The Funeral sources, whose influence can be 47 an earned income of $200,000 will, after Oration.) traced throughout this brief account. taxation, leave the earner $19,723.