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Its ter

ployment, and consumption. mination therefore does not give evidence of the deflationary effect usually regarded as characteristic of such a phase of economic development.

The progress to a more sober pattern of economic activity may not be achieved without a set-back, however. Losses in production and employment will probably come on a much larger scale than in recent months, but they will not be telescoped into a short period, as is usual in a depression. While one industry or a dozen are struggling with difficulties, other industries will be working at capacity. At the end of 1946 a slump was developing in the leather and shoe industries, but the textile and clothing industries were enjoying a record level of expansion. In May the textile mills and clothing industry were laying off workers, while leather and shoe factories expanded production.

If the liquidation of the inflationary boom continues to follow the same pattern, one industry after another is likely to pass through the process of readjustment, with unavoidable losses in profits and earnings, but these partial set-backs will be stretched over a comparatively long period and total unemployment in the Nation will fluctuate within a narrow range, on a level somewhat higher than at present.

The movement in claims for unemployment benefits in May confirmed this general appraisal of the situation.

7. 21 5 19 JUNE JULY

Many States reported lay-offs during the month because of lack of orders. In several cases the rise in claims was explained by the curtailment of production caused by the resistance of buyers to high prices. For the United States as a whole, however, the number of claims showed only minor fluctuations, partly due to some seasonal factors, rather than the rise that would have been anticipated as a result of the downward trend in business.

The picture was somewhat blurred by the rise in initial claims in New York State, where the new benefit year began on June 2 and where "transition claims" filed by persons already receiving benefits in the last month of the old benefit year are reported as initial claims.

For the United States without New York the number of claims changed as follows:

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April in Review

The increase in initial claims for unemployment benefits during April was due partly to lay-offs in consumergoods industries in States along the Atlantic Coast and in a few Southern States. The main factor, however, that sent initial claims from 725,000 in March to more than a million in April was administrative, with the beginning of new benefit years in 9 States. Many of the claims filed in those States in April, however, were transitional initial claims of persons already receiving benefits at the end of the benefit year in March, and they do not represent new unemployment. A comparison of March-April claims levels with those in 1946, on the other hand, reveals an appreciable rise this year in the weekly number of job terminations-that is, in new unemployment. Continued claims rose only moderately, and most of the increase in these claims, too, came from the 9 States with new benefit years. Benefit disbursements in the country as a whole rose only slightly, while the average weekly number of beneficiaries decreased from 974,000 to 929,000.

IN OLD-AGE AND SURVIVORS insurance, awards of monthly benefits in Aprilmore than in any other month since May 1946-included 266 awards to survivors of workers whose wage credits from employment in the railroad industry could, under the 1946 amendments, be counted in determining the amount of the survivor benefit awarded. For another 35 beneficiaries, benefits were recomputed to take into account the additional credits from the railroad employment of the deceased wage earner. At the end of the month, almost 1.8 million beneficiaries were receiving monthly benefits totaling $33.8 million.

A discussion elsewhere in this issue concerning the characteristics of aged workers to whom primary benefits were awarded in 1946 shows that more than two-fifths were at least 70 years of age. These were the workers who had continued to work in covered employment after age 65 but found themselves unable longer to hold the jobs they had had during

(Continued on page 48)

Some Recent Developments

in Social Service in Great Britain

By John S. Morgan*

"Subject to the provisions of this Act, every person who, on or after the appointed day, being over school leaving age and under pensionable age, is in Great Britain, and fulfills such conditions as may be prescribed as to residence in Great Britain, shall become insured under this Act, and thereafter continue throughout his life to be so insured." 1

In that one clause of a single act of Parliament can be found some of the main elements of Britain's new statutory social services. It draws attention by implication to the raising of the school-leaving age to 15 and later to 16 years of age. It makes clear the dominant motive of the social legislation enacted or proposed by the Labor Government of Britain. The idea that all should share the dangers and difficulties of modern industrial civilization on an equitable basis, whatever their age, sex, rank, or economic status, was particularly prominent in wartime, when "fair shares for all" was the established pattern of conduct. It is now to be found as a major principle of social change in postwar Britain.

The principle of all-inclusive sharing is not confined to the persons to be covered by the social services; it is also applied to the needs which are to be met. The predominant aim is that all citizens shall have the right to receive all the services they require to meet the unpredictable social, medical, and economic problems that bedevil the lives of so many in the complex pattern of living that is now the inheritance and the problem of civilized mankind.

The major items of the British Government's legislative program for social insurance and a national health

• Lecturer and Research Associate, School of Social Work, University of Toronto; author and formerly social worker in Great Britain.

1 National Insurance Act, 1946, sec. 1.

service are examined in some detail in the BULLETIN for February 1947 and need not be repeated here. In addition to this legislation, note must be taken of the Education Acts of 1944 and 1946 and of some of the important inquiries which have been reported, such as the Rushcliffe report on legal aid and advice,' the report of the Lord Chancellor's Committee of Enquiry on Justices of the Peace, the Curtis report on the care of children," and the Report of the Committee on Procedure in Matrimonial Causes. These and other Government papers serve to show that most, if not all, of the needs of the common man are the subject of study and of action. Examination of some of these measures and proposals will show that if Sir William (now Lord) Beveridge could write in his report of 1942 that "provision for most of the many varieties of need through interruptions of earnings and other causes that may arise in modern industrial communities has already been made in Britain on a scale not surpassed and hardly rivaled in any other country in the world," then in 1947, only 5 years later, it can truly be said that there has been a great improvement in coverage, and there is promise that the aim of all-inclusive coverage for all men is being held.

7

2 Carl Farman and Catherine Perrins, "The New British System of Social Security," Social Security Bulletin, February 1947, pp. 9-19.

37 and 8 Geo. 6, ch. 31; and 9 and 10 Geo. 6, ch. 50.

Report of the Committee on Legal Aid and Legal Advice, London, 1945. (Cmd. 6641.)

Report of the Care of Children Committee, London, 1946. (Cmd. 6922.)

Cmd. 7024, London, 1947.

7 Social Insurance and Allied Services, London, 1942. (Cmd. 6404.) For a full account of the report see Martha D. Ring, "Social Security for Great Britain-A Review of the Beveridge Report," Social Security Bulletin, January 1943, pp. 3-30.

A Survey of Public and Private Services

National Insurance

The National Insurance Act, 1946, accepts and gives effect to most of the essential principles of the Beveridge report. It provides insurance cash benefits, that is, benefits receivable by right of previous contribution, for all periods in which there is interruption of livelihood earning; and it provides them on the principle that the need is the same and therefore the cash benefit should be the same, whether the need arises from unemployment, sickness, or retirement.

In place of an administrative jungle that has hitherto involved no less than seven Central Government departments and a host of local government authorities, there is now to be a single department, the Ministry of National Insurance, with its own regional and local offices. As viewed by the citizen, this administrative change in the public social services will be perhaps more noticeable than many of the increased benefit rates and more generous regulations. For him it means one insurance card, one weekly stamp, and one office for the receipt of cash benefits other than assistance. Provisions for the assistance program are not yet announced, but its administration will most probably be closely related to the Ministry of National Insurance.

It would be wrong to imagine that the National Insurance Act satisfies everyone or that it covers adequately the real needs of all persons to whom it applies. Without going into the details of benefit rates, it can be said that the principle of a "minimum income sufficient for his subsistence, needs and responsibilities," which Beveridge claimed had been "abandoned" by the Coalition Government in its proposals of 1943, has not been fully restored by the Labor Government in its 1946 legislation. The old people have received the most generous treatment," getting immediately much more substantial benefits than Beveridge had proposed. Unemployment and disability benefits are sub

8 Sir William H. Beveridge, The Pillars of Security, London, 1942, p. 132.

"For details see Increases in Old-Age, Widows' and Blind Persons' Pensions, London, 1946. (Cmd. 6878.)

This

ject to time limits; and the children's allowances, under the Family Allowances Act, of 5s. a week for every child under school-leaving age, except the first, are well below the minimum subsistence level, even allowing for substantial improvements in the provision of benefits in kind. Another weakness is that mothers of families engaged in their vital task of running the home are classified as "not gainfully occupied persons" and as such are ineligible for sick benefits. provision may be administratively sound, but it does not do away with the social consequences, so well known to social workers, of the fact that "mother cannot afford to be ill." The transfer of all cash-benefit payments to the Ministry of National Insurance has many virtues, but it also raises some awkward questions about services which should be closely integrated with and related to cash payments; this is a general feature that will be discussed later in this paper.

Workmen's Compensation

10

The new and revolutionary treatment of workmen's compensation in the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, has its critics, though few can be found to deny the advantages of exchanging the labyrinthine complexities of the old order for a single and relatively simple state insurance scheme. By establishing somewhat higher rates of benefit than those under the National Insurance Act for sickness benefit, for example, the new act leaves room for anomalies and also invites the natural suggestion that the benefits under the general act are, as indeed they are, below an adequate minimum rate. The whole question of medical treatment and rehabilitation is assumed to be properly within the competence of the new national health service and the rehabilitation services of the Ministry of Labor; thus, again, the cash benefits are divorced in administration from their complementary services. There are some who would prefer them to be more nearly related within the same organization, as they are, for example, under the Ontario system of workmen's compensation.

10 9 and 10 Geo. 6, ch. 62.

National Health Service

The National Health Service Act, 1946, represents a major change in Britain's provision of social services. The legislation has been, and still is, a source of major controversy within the medical profession, but it would be wrong to permit the very vocal opposition of a part of the medical profession, and of some sections of the population partly on political grounds, to overshadow the very real welcome the proposals have received from a large proportion of the general public.

There are many significant features in the national health service, but for the student of the social services there are two which are perhaps of particular interest. The provision of a free medical service for all is a constructive measure that should do much in future decades to remove thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, from the rolls of those in need of economic assistance. The creation of a national hospital service shows a new trend in public administration, because it involves taking away from the major local authorities a service, in many cases assumed only recently as a result of the reforms in the Local Government Act, 1929, and placing the management of a state service on a national basis with regional boards. It is hoped that the new service will expand and develop the work of the hospital almoners." They are fully trained social workers, who provide the essential link between the medical care provided by the hospital and the social and family conditions of the patient.

Other Areas of Public Activity

In surveying recent developments in social service in Great Britain it is impossible to omit four other major areas of activity that have far-reaching social implications for the people of Britain.

Some reference will be made later to the important place which the Ministry of Labor and National Service now plays in the pattern of the

11 Further information on the training and work of the hospital almoners can be obtained from the Institute of Hospital Almoners, B. M. A. House, Tavistock Square, London, W. C. 1, England.

British social services. The Ministry's services for the veteran, for the disabled, for those in need of vocational training and redirection, allied to its responsibilities for a constructive employment service, make it an essential partner in the provision of constructive social service.

The Education Act, 1944 (with some comparatively minor amendments in 1946), not only recast the educational system on more democratic lines, but also made provision for greatly improved educational services for handicapped children, for milk in school and school meals as an essential part of education, and for the development of "recreational and physical training" services for adults as well as young people as an obligatory duty of local education authorities. This act is notable also for the abolition of smaller local education authorities and the concentration of administration and policy in the hands of the counties and county boroughs.

Housing is a third area of public activity which has peculiar interest for social workers and administrators. Between the two World Wars, something like a million houses for rental by the lower-income groups were built in Britain by the local municipal authorities, with financial aid, policy direction, and technical services from the Ministry of Health which, as the successor of the Local Government Board, is the Central Government department generally responsible for relations with local authorities. This major contribution to the solution of Britain's housing problem has given rise to a number of social services. Slum clearance and the correction of overcrowding are social policies. Differential rent systems relating the rent of a municipal house to the income of the family, rather than to the cost of the house, are social policies, requiring in their administration the application of social service techniques. These policies have led to a marked growth of professional housing management, one of the specialized fields of the social work profession which has achieved recognized status in Great Britain.

The creation of the planned new towns, exemplified in Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth, has had

added impetus since the publication of the Barlow report" and has become, with the New Towns Act, part of national policy, with profound social implications. It is particularly relevant that the development of these new towns, two or more of which are already in progress, is to be placed in the hands of specifically designated, centrally appointed organizations and not of the local municipal authorities already on the ground. Provision is made, however, for the transference of the town to the existing or an appropriate local government authority when it has been created.

The fourth area of social change, one that is still in the stage of inquiry rather than of action, is that of child care and protection. The Curtis report on the care of children shows only too clearly that two major faults of the present provision are the almost complete lack of adequately trained social workers for this work and the administrative confusion that invariably arises from piecemeal legislation.

It is interesting to find that the Curtis committee, while it recommends that one central department should be "ultimately responsible" for the care of children, believes the actual provision "should remain a matter for the local authorities and the voluntary organizations." The committee strongly favors, however, a single, fully responsible committee of the local council to be responsible for all the authority's duties in connection with the care of children, with a highly qualified "children's officer" as its chief executive. These proposals indicate an effort at coordination without centralization, which is a somewhat unusual approach to the administrative problems of the social services in presentday Britain."2

12 Report of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population, London, 1940. (Comd. 6153.)

12 Since this article went to press the British Government has announced its acceptance of the main thesis of the Curtis report and its intention to center child-care work in the Children's Branch of the Home Office and to encourage local authorities to appoint children's committees served by competent children's officers.

Private Social Services

Turning now to the private social services or, as they are more generally known in Britain, the voluntary social services, a number of significant developments can be noted. In this field, however, the changes are more subtle and less easily defined than are those in the area of the public or statutory social services.

The report issued in 1909 by the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws 13 referred to the need for increased cooperation among the private social service agencies. The First World War emphasized this need, and in 1919 the National Council of Social Service was created. This organization, particularly in the present decade, has made a remarkable contribution to the social services in promoting cooperation among private agencies and also between public and private agencies engaged in the same fields of social service. Particular mention may be made here of the Standing Conference of National Voluntary Youth Organizations, created in 1937, the Standing Conference of Voluntary Organizations, created in 1938, the Women's Group on Public Welfare, created in 1940, and the National Old People's Welfare Committee, created in 1943. Each of these conferences represents joint consultative machinery, provided with secretarial services by the National Council of Social Service and drawing together the private agencies, the public services, and interested individuals engaged in the same or similar fields of social service.

The National Council of Social Service has also been engaged, among many other activities, in a sustained and growing effort to improve the quality of social life in the rural and urban areas of Britain. This phase of community organization is reflected in the Rural Community Councils movement, with its closely related policies in respect of village halls, and the Community Centers and Associations movements, both centering in the council and both representing a very substantial program of cooperative effort at the local level.

13 Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress (Part VII of the Majority Report, England and Wales), London, 1909.

In the past 5 years the National Council of Social Service has taken a more active part in social service on the international level. It has been responsible particularly for promoting the interchange of social workers and administrators, for which there are now committees in Britain, the United States, France, Czechoslovakia, and possibly other European countries. The council has acted as the coordinating center of Britain's participation in the International Conference of Social Work, and its general secretary was recently appointed Treasurer of the International Conference scheduled for 1949.

14

The tendency to joint or cooperative action by the private agencies may be illustrated from other areas of social work. The Council for Voluntary War Work was established in 1939 under the auspices of the War Office and brought together the private agencies engaged in providing comforts and welfare for the armed forces, to ensure adequate coordination and the most economical use of the available manpower. The Provisional National Council for Mental Health incorporates all the major private agencies engaged in this type of work. The council, which had its origin in the thorough investigation and report of the Feversham committee," provides an excellent example of private agency action based on considered inquiry rather than on the urges and pressures of a passing emergency. In quite another type of social work, the Council of British Societies for Relief Abroad represents cooperative action on the international level.

The Second World War created for many of the British people problems of individual and family need that far outstripped any previous experience. The effects of intensive bombardment, of mass evacuation, of transferred industries, of billeting

14 Now established as the National Association for Mental Health, incorporating the Central Association for Mental Welfare, the Child Guidance Council, the National Council for Mental Hygiene, and the Mental Health Emergency Committee.

15 The committee's report was published in 1939, and the Provisional National Council for Mental Health was established in 1943.

huge armies from other countries,1o and of general conscription, were to strain the bonds of family life, and in many cases, of family economics, beyond the breaking point. The statutory schemes for the Prevention and Relief of Distress, War Service Grants," War Damage Compensation, War Injuries Compensation, and other programs, such as School Feeding, Emergency Feeding, and Emergency Housing, took the major economic shocks. As always, however, there remained a wide area of residual problems that fell particularly to the private agencies to resolve.

The British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John, in the Second, as in the First, World War, set up a joint organization through which were mobilized immense resources of voluntary help, skilled service, and sorely needed aid over a wide range of social services. Particular mention may perhaps be made of their services for prisoners of war, their work in maintaining medical and ambulance services for bombed areas, and the auxiliary medical services they provided for the armed forces and civilians both at home and overseas.

Residual financial needs, after the statutory schemes had been used to the full, were particularly the responsibility of the family case-work agencies, led by the Charity Organization Society of London, which thus added another chapter to its long history of service since its foundation in 1869. Very large sums were collected from the public in Britain and overseas upon which these agencies drew heavily for the special needs of a long war. The three most notable funds raised for these purposes were the Red Cross and St. John War Fund (especially its penny-a-week scheme, which drew contributions from a wide constituency of ordinary citizens); the Lord Mayor's Air Raid Distress Fund, which received, in addition to its home support, substantial contributions from

16 At one time or another, Britain

housed the armies of the United States, Canada, Norway, Holland, the Free French, and other allied nations, and must have been the base for literally millions of allied troops.

17 Supplementary grants to meet exceptional needs of the families of members of the armed forces.

the Dominions and colonies; and the British War Relief Fund of the United States.

One of the most interesting social phenomena of the war was the urgent need of the ordinary citizen for accurate information and skilled advice. The inevitable complexities of programs designed to serve millions of people often made their intricacies incomprehensible to and their operations unmanageable by the ordinary citizen whom the restrictions were intended to protect and the schemes were intended to serve. From this need there came the creation of the Citizens' Advice Bureaus,18 established in 1939 by the National Council of Social Service in cooperation with the case-work agencies and the local councils of social service all over Great Britain. It was found that a central service of accurate information," combined with skilled interviewing and sympathetic interpretation, provided an essential lubricant to the complex machinery of social welfare. So clearly was this fact established that it is now recognized that public authorities have a responsibility not only to provide social services but also to explain and interpret those services to the people whose needs they are intended to meet; local authorities are today being urged by the Central Government to make provision for this vital new social service, while the Central Government has itself retained a Central Office of Information from the wartime Ministry of Information.20

Not only does the general public need information, but social workers and administrators of the social serv

18 National Council of Social Service, Citizens' Advice Bureaux in Great Britain and Advice Centres in Liberated Europe, London, 1944.

19 The central key of this information service is a regular digest of all social legislation and information entitled Citizens' Advice Notes, which is published by the National Council of Social Service and is recognized as a standard reference for social workers and administrators.

20 The need for legal advice, long known to social workers, became very clear during the war, and one consequence was the foundation of legal advice services for the armed forces. Subsequently a Government committee, headed by Lord Rushcliffe, investigated the whole subject and published in 1945 a report, commonly known as the Rushcliffe Report on Legal Aid, containing proposals that the Government is expected to implement.

ices also need the facts and figures on which to base their thinking. The Government has made many valuable contributions to social thinking during the past 5 or 6 years. Some of the more important reports, to which reference is made throughout this article, constitute the necessary preliminary thought and investigation from which the new social code of Britain is being written into law.

The contribution of the private agencies to this essential process of skilled inquiry and careful thought is beginning to grow. The work of Political and Economic Planning (PEP) is well known, and its authoritative bulletins and reports constitute some of the clearest statements on social and economic issues of the day. The Fabian Society continues its work of educating the British people, for which it has become famous. Other research organizations, such as the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Institute of Sociology, and Nuffield College, have all made significant additions to the study of the social services. Among the agencies actually engaged in social work, the National Council of Social Service during the later years of the Second World War made or encouraged a number of particularly valuable studies of social questions of immediate practical significance. The most important of these studies was Our Towns-A Close-Up," made under the auspices of the Women's Group on Public Welfare. This study became a best seller and is known to have had profound effects on social legislation, being quoted, for example, in the Government's introductory White Paper on Educational Needs, which preceded the Education Act of 1944.

These beginnings of research and study within the social work agencies are significant, since the agencies have the accumulated experience which, allied to theory, may well contribute a new and vital element to social study.

The need for information and skilled guidance has shown itself in quite another form. The great increase in the number of broken marriages, evident during and after the First World War, became even more

21 Oxford University Press, 1942.

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