Managing Poverty:Limits Social: Limits of Social Assistance

Since World War II, the means-test has played a role of growing importance in British social security provision. Beveridge's vision, 50 years ago, of a society protected by a national system of social insurance has never been realized and, instead, social assistance, designed as a residual and diminishing means of support, has gradually expanded to make up for the inadequacies of a national insurance system which was at first neglected, then attacked by governments. This important shift in the founding principles of the British income maintenance programme occurred without any public or parliamentary debate and without public acknowledgement by government that it was happening. As a result, British social assistance provision has continually been stretched beyond reasonable limits. "Managing Poverty" examines the reasons for the growing importance of social assistance in British social security policy, traces the many changes introduced by successive governments, and examines in detail why both Conservative and Labour governments have been unsuccessful in finding permanent solutions to the recurrent problems that have emerged.