This book has explored government policies to promote welfare. In doing so, it has shown that this is a legitimate issue of public concern, and one that raises questions of social justice and social inclusion. Information has a central role in access to services and benefits. Assumptions that the aim of information policy is simply to facilitate access, to enable the exercise of rights and maximise take-up have been rigorously challenged. Information policy and practice have other agendas which have a direct bearing on the effectiveness of social policies and on the outcome for individuals. Attitudes to groups of claimants and to their status as citizens are reflected in policy.

Policy making has been shown here, and elsewhere in the literature, to be a complex process. It results from reconciling many often contradictory issues and pressures. The example of balancing the information needs of potential claimants with the need to contain or reduce expenditure – both administrative (including publicity) and programme costs – has long been familiar to policy makers. One politician expressed it this way:

Information policy mirrors the aims of those who devise, provide and administer welfare schemes. It is contingent on the priority given to the service or benefit itself. Information is necessary because of the complex structure of welfare schemes but the welfare state was built on the assumption of a less than 100% take-up.

The implications of political ideology for information policy are not clear. There are paradoxes, tensions, inconsistencies and ambivalent attitudes within each broad perspective. As discussed throughout this book, it is not possible to neatly correlate distinctive ideologies with distinctive attitudes towards information. Sometimes the results are surprising.