The level of income which supplementary benefit provides can be viewed as the government-approved minimum income level for this country. This article reports on a study which looked at a particular group of people who are living on this state minimum, and investigated how they were managing financially. The study discovered that most of the male unemployed claimants who were interviewed had suffered an appreciable drop in their incomes and living standards compared with when they were in work, and this caused budgeting problems as they tried to cut back on their normal expenditure or to supplement their weekly income in various ways. Contrary to popular belief, the study found that it was the unemployed men with families who were least able to cope, although for them the relative drop in income between work and unemployment was less. They appeared to be hard pressed both in and out of work, and had less in the way of savings and stocks of clothing to cushion them for their period on benefit. The paper concludes, with the Supplementary Benefits Commission, that supplementary benefit incomes for the unemployed, especially those with families, are barely adequate to meet their needs at a level which would allow them to participate fully in the society in which they live.

Richard Titmuss's ‘The Social Division of Welfare’ has been neglected as a framework for assessing changes in social policy and society. The analytical, as opposed to the descriptive, value of the original essay becomes more evident, and more significant, when the relations between the social divisions of labour and welfare are examined in terms of the distribution of benefits and services through the public, fiscal and occupational systems; the growth and differential recognition of needs and ‘man-made’ states of dependency; the variations in the primary objectives of welfare including control; the interrelationship of the different systems and the ways in which they legitimate the existing social structure. This paper seeks to show that, combined with a consideration of power and the state, time and security and the institutions of capitalism, the ideas of the original essay encourage a more dynamic analysis of the impact of the three systems of welfare on society than has so far been attempted.

A comparison of costs to the organization of alternative forms of care requires estimates for similar types of client. The degree of dependency is the main characteristic in which comparability is necessary with regard to services for the aged. This paper presents estimates of the costs incurred in providing residential care for clients of four degrees of incapacity for self-care – the capacity implicit in Bevan's residential hotel model of the old people's home, and three progressively more severe states of dependency. The estimates are for two cost concepts – average (unit) costs and marginal costs (the cost of caring for an additional person). The paper also estimates both long-run costs (costs that it is appropriate to take into account in decisions in which capital investment in new plant is being considered), and short-run costs (costs that it is appropriate to consider when the issue is the allocation of existing capacity between client groups). It also examines the consequences of the size of the home with regard to costs. Inter alia the paper shows:

(a) that the size of home beyond which costs do not fall with scale provides for as many as fifty places (equivalent to an average daily census of forty-six residents); and

(b) that, although the dependency components of costs are much smaller than the hotel components, dependency costs are large enough for it to be important to base comparisons of alternative forms of care on estimates of costs for clients which are comparable with respect to dependency.

Although Britain has never had a set of policies explicitly labelled ‘family policies’, most if not all social policies are implicitly family policies because they are based on certain assumptions about the nature of relationships between the sexes and the generations. By careful examination of the detail of the legislation and administrative rules, together with the way in which services are allocated and used, it is possible to expose these assumptions and show that they are not only consistent between policies but very persistent over time. This paper first examines the assumptions concerning the division of unpaid labour within the family whereby women care for the young, the sick and the old and for able-bodied adult men (their husbands). The examples are selected from a variety of income maintenance systems and services for children, the old and the disabled. Particular attention is focused on the extent to which it is recognized that women are at the same time workers in the labour market and unpaid domestic workers in the home. The second part of the paper analyses the impact on their participation and opportunities in the labour market of the ideology which accords to women the primary responsibilities for caring for other members of their family. The perpetuation of such an ideology favours the interests of men and frequently the interests of the economically powerful, but it is not assumed that these interests always coincide.

This paper discusses the notion of paternalism, and its application to the evaluation of social policies. It attempts first to define the concept, using Mill's distinction between self- and other-regarding actions. A paternalistic policy is one in which the government renders a self-regarding action less eligible for a citizen, with the intention of benefiting the citizen in question. This concept is then applied to the analysis of redistribution by means of social policy measures. Two questions are discussed: (a) whether any redistribution must be paternalist, and (b) whether redistribution in kind is more paternalist than redistribution in cash. It is argued that paternalism need not be the explanation for the policy in either case. Finally three criteria are specified in terms of which paternalistic interventions by the state might be assessed as justified or not.

The setting of health priorities is primarily concerned with the equitable distribution of resources and is now more than ever an important part of strategic planning within the National Health Service (NHS). The basic information which can be used to assist in such decision-making and the process by which different agencies become involved are important aspects of priority-setting; this article is based on a major review of the research literature on these aspects and provides a discussion and an analysis of experience within health and other fields. From this material a number of possible approaches to priority-setting are identified and discussed. The article concludes that, before it can be decided how priorities should be set in the future, outstanding questions about how far rational approaches are feasible, about who is to be involved and what role they should play, and about how far such decisions are to be taken nationally or locally will need further consideration.

The priority area approach to problems such as urban deprivation has recently been criticized because of its alleged ineffectiveness and because the majority of the deprived live outside the priority areas. This paper argues that these criticisms do not constitute an adequate appraisal of the area approach, as they ignore some other and equally important considerations, in particular the economic aspects of the approach. One is the possibility of achieving resource cost saving through area action (thus making it possible to help more deprived people from a given level of resources). Another is the possibility of achieving a higher rate of take-up of special assistance. The paper discusses those attributes of utility functions and production functions that are relevant to the appraisal of area policies, and provides a framework that would allow a complete evaluation of the economic aspects of an area policy.

This paper analyses the determinants of social policy through a study of a crucial stage in the evolution of British narcotics legislation. Conditions in the First World War fundamentally altered the way in which narcotics were controlled in England and established a ‘hard-line’ reaction to drug use later reflected in the first Dangerous Drugs Act (1920) and the debates of the 1920s. Wartime needs formulated a pattern of governmental responsibility which, with control vested in the Home Office, still persists. The paper analyses the tendencies inherent in nineteenth-century poisons legislation, and argues that, despite Britain's reluctant adherence to the American-inspired system of international narcotic control, domestic narcotics legislation as considered prior to the outbreak of war was more liberal than the wartime regulation. Drug smuggling from England to the far east and fears, largely illusory, of a cocaine ‘epidemic’ in the army in 1916 brought more stringent regulation. Narcotic controls in Britain appeared set on a path similar to that of America's Harrison Act, which was being interpreted in an absolutist way. Only the report of the Rolleston Committee on Morphine and Heroin Addiction in 1926 marked a victory for the medical approach, but the influence of the events of 1916 lived on in other ways.

Many social workers today are critical of what they regard as their profession's conventional concern with remedial social welfare. This criticism has been voiced with special reference to developing countries, and some social workers have suggested alternative roles for social work in the third world. Among these it has been suggested that social workers should take prime responsibility for social development planning in the developing countries. But this suggestion is unrealistic. Social workers are not likely to be asked to participate in national social policy formulation and planning until they have legitimized their claim to professional status and public recognition and demonstrated their ability to deal with the pressing problems of poverty in the third world through direct service.

The principle of positive discrimination in favour of the poor has emerged out of a tangled history of social welfare debate about universalism and selectivity. Positive discrimination, based on the idea of ‘inclusive’ selectivity, represents something of a hybrid of the two concepts. The ‘rediscovery of poverty’ and the recognition that universal benefits were not adequate or reaching intended beneficiaries contributed to the general case for specially channelled services. But the government's response has tended to be piecemeal, responding to specific pressures and criticisms with a wide array of small and separate programmes of positive discrimination. This article traces the particular pressures, in race relations, which contributed to the emergence of the Urban Aid Programme and shows what lessons were learned from the experience of the American poverty programmes.

Public assistance in Israel has increasingly become the focus of public debate. This article examines the social function of the system, its structure and its mode of operation, and considers its place in the broader framework of the country's social policy. Particular attention is paid to the prevailing political culture which obliges the system to wage a continuous struggle to preserve its legitimacy and organizational survival, and to obtain adequate resources to meet the requirements of the population in need. In conclusion, it questions the efficiency and effectiveness of the assistance system in view of the growing trend to expand selective social services.

This article is an attempt to create a general theoretical model or ‘scale’ for categorizing voluntary organizations chiefly concerned with social service provision. Consumer participation, which the author believes has positive and particular advantages in voluntary organizations, is taken as one element in the categorization. He discusses what participation may or should mean, and the reasons why it is so rarely found. Where it exists it tends to involve the participation of staff rather than ‘clients’, which may result in more discussion than action. The article also discusses how an organization's position on the ‘scale’ can change. Voluntary organizations which start out as small, highly-participating, self-help organizations tend to become more elitist and altruistic with success and growth. The author suggests that organizations with a higher degree of consumer participation may be more responsive to social change and its consequences, more flexible and even more cost-effective than more traditionally organized institutions and may also be better able to take advantage of the independence afforded only to voluntary organizations in an increasingly state-dominated society.

This study investigates the legal status and treatment of the youthful offender in Israel. Due to a legal provision, in the case of the youthful offender, the court is required to receive a pre-sentencing report from a probation officer; however, there is no institutionalized indication as to how or to what degree the judges should follow the report. Our findings reveal that both judges and probation officers adhere to high professional standards and make their decisions according to the specific case brought in front of them, and that they are not affected by social class or ethnic stereotypes. In spite of a considerable correspondence between the recommendations made by the probation officers and the decisions made by the judges, one cannot avoid noticing also some discrepancy. This is attributed to the strong therapeutic values which characterize the probation officers' training and which are less evident among the judges. The consequences of this discrepancy are analysed and discussed and a few steps to narrow the gap are suggested.

This paper takes as its subject the explanation of social policy development through the use of comparative data. It is based upon the book by Piven and Cloward entitled Regulating the Poor, published in 1972. This book has been both dismissed too lightly and adopted too uncritically. While the thesis of the book may be somewhat over-simplified it nevertheless points to a range of important issues in social policy and exposes a number of assumptions. As well as evaluating Piven's and Cloward's general perspective this paper looks, in particular, at three themes. These are the relationship between social policy and social control, the relationship between work and welfare and lastly the relationship between power and poverty.