Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of photographs and sources
- Foreword
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction Owning not othering our welfare
- Part One The legacy of the past
- Part Two The way to the future
- Afterword The future: a different way forward?
- Appendix One The family
- Appendix Two Research projects and related publications
- References
- Index
Twelve - A new approach to social policy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of photographs and sources
- Foreword
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction Owning not othering our welfare
- Part One The legacy of the past
- Part Two The way to the future
- Afterword The future: a different way forward?
- Appendix One The family
- Appendix Two Research projects and related publications
- References
- Index
Summary
What can people be usefully employed upon once the current product line disappears?
(Phil Asquith, Shop Steward, Lucas Aerospace Alternative Plan, 1978)We saw a libertarian future for social work coming from ‘community control’. We argued that this needed to include the control and involvement of ‘service users, workers and local people’. We thought it was important that all three overlapping constituencies should be included, rather than any one’s inclusion being at the expense of the others.
(Beresford and Croft, 2004, 54)Whether a product is regarded as profitable or not really depends on the value that a government or society puts upon it. For example it is regarded as profitable to make Harriers [military jet aircraft], but not profitable to make kidney machines. Now it’s the same customer, the government, so it just depends on what price the government’s put on it and does one expect a school or a hospital to be profitable.
(Mike Cooley, Trade Union Leader, Lucas Aerospace Alternative Plan, 1976)By the mid-1970s, the UK’s increasing economic difficulties and the failure of successive governments to grow and develop the welfare state meant that its principles were weakened and its practice diluted. Thus by the time Mrs Thatcher came to power, the welfare state that existed was no longer the welfare state that had been envisaged or implemented after the war. This may have made Mrs Thatcher’s task easier, harnessing populist feelings of dissatisfaction with the welfare state, but her goal was undoubtedly to destroy it, whatever its specifics.
The mid-1970s, however, could equally have been a time for welfare state renewal – as happened in some other European countries – seeking to advance it in line with emerging political and cultural ideas, changed demographic and cultural pressures, social and other developments that had taken place since its inception. While this largely did not happen in the UK, there were strong radical forces seeking to make such progressive change. These were often forces operating internationally. This time, unlike the period post-war, there were also strong progressive interests in both diversity and participation – the key components lacking in the post-war welfare state.
- Type
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- Information
- All our WelfareTowards Participatory Social Policy, pp. 235 - 262Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016