bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
John Burns at the Local Government Board: a Reassessment
Authors: Brown Kenneth D. 
Published: January 2009

AbstractHistory has judged John Burns's tenure of the Local Government Board between 1905 and 1914 to have been almost totally barren because his officials were able to capitalize on his great personal vanity in order to flatter him into incompetence and reaction. This article attempts a re-assessment of Burns's presidency along four lines. First it seeks to suggest that his achievement, while by no means impressive, was perhaps more substantial, particularly on the administrative side, than is usually argued. Secondly, it points out that he was already well disposed towards the sort of attitude current among LGB officials when he went to the board. It suggests further that there were certain institutional obstacles which hindered Burns, including the existence of several royal commissions examining aspects of Board work, the poor quality of LGB staff, and the absence of a well-developed statistical section. Finally, it is argued that while Burns's personality was the key factor in his presidency, it was not so much his vanity as his absorbtion with trivia, his intellectual limitations, and lack of any constructive ideas that lay behind his relatively unimpressive record.
Knowledge and Perceptions of the Social Services
Authors: Glampson Ann , Glastonbury Bryan , Fruin David 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThis article reports on an attempt to discover the attitudes of members of the public towards a range of personal and family problems, all of which could be seen as relevant to the work of social service departments. The data are drawn from two samples: one of current users of a social services department and the other from the general public.Our outline findings show that although users seem more aware of the potential of social service departments than other members of the community, there is nevertheless substantial confusion and disagreement over appropriate services for different problem situations. It was equally clear that for several quite important problems many people saw voluntary or neighbourhood involvement as more relevant than intervention by a statutory agency. On the basis of these findings we discuss the following suggestions for social service departments. Firstly, education programmes are necessary to improve general knowledge about the personal social services, but structured in such a way as to avoid stimulating demand which cannot be met – we are critical of the Seebohm report's analogy of personal social services with commerce. Secondly, more attention needs to be paid to relationships between social workers and other professionals who may be intermediaries in contacts between the potential client and the agency. Thirdly, social service departments should assess their own priorities with greater sensitivity towards the community viewpoint, since we found not only a significant willingness for people to get involved in social service but a keenness to participate in policy making.
The Family Wage
Authors: Avizohar Meir 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThe study deals with the history of an early Israeli labour movement attempt at establishing economic equality. In the early 1920s, under unique conditions, which made the Histadrut (Israeli general union) the largest employer of its members, a ‘family wage’ was established after its workers spontaneously began to practise communal distribution of their basic necessities. Though applied only to a minority of Histadrut members, it was extremely prominent in ideological and educational activities of organized labour, because the minority included the leadership, officers and managerial strata.From the outset the system was beset by controversy over application, and, more significantly, over what actually constituted equality: an equal standard of living for families or equal pay for equal work. One problem never solved was how to convince skilled workers, especially profesisonals, to accept the same wage as unskilled workers. The system was therefore eroded from the beginning by exceptions made for specific groups. As more and more groups pulled out and regulations became harder to enforce, the family wage became isolated to the point where it was repealed in 1954.
Collectivism, Regionalism and Feminism: Health Visiting and British Social Policy 1850–1975
Authors: Dingwall Robert W. J. 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThis paper takes up three particular themes in the historical development of the present pattern of social service provision in the United Kingdom and argues that existing accounts are somewhat misleading in their treatment of these issues. The three themes are the relationship between collectivism and individualism in social policy legislation and practice, the influence of centre and periphery in British political life and, to a lesser extent, the occupational roles available to women in the social services. These questions are examined through a study of the history of health visiting. It is argued that the fluctuating fortunes of the health visiting service allow us to see more clearly the changing influence of collectivist and individualist philosophies on government policy and the degrees to which definitions of problems and possible solutions have either been imported from the national periphery to the national centre or vice versa. Insufficient attention has been given to the defeat of metropolitan individualist philosophies by the peripherally-based public health movement at the beginning of the twentieth century and to the conditions which have led to their subsequent re-emergence and the waning influence of collectivist approaches.
The Swift Rise and Fall of Community Resources Boards in Vancouver
Authors: Jones Catherine 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThis paper tries to untangle the events and arguments leading up to (a) the statutory introduction of Community Resources Boards (CRBs) in Vancouver in 1974 and (b) their effective cancellation very shortly afterwards. The idea of introducing CRBs (that is, multi-purpose, community-based and community-elected social care agencies) was partly inspired by a local reading of the Seebohm report. The programme embarked upon by the New Democratic party's Minister of Human Resources, however, was not merely far more sweeping than anything Seebohm had envisaged; it was launched on a scale and at a speed sufficient to put off many fellow reformers, let alone opposition members of the British Columbia legislative assembly. Once the opposition (Social Credit) party had managed to regain provincial office, in December 1975, the days of the CRBs (the last few of which were just then being elected) were strictly numbered. This was a pity since, despite their very brief period of operation, CRBs had by this time begun to attract an unexpectedly wide range of popular support.
Technical Solutions to Social Problems?: Some Implications of a Computer-Based Welfare Benefits Information System
Authors: Adler Michael , Feu David Du 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTTechnical experts frequently prescribe simple technical ‘solutions’ to complex social problems. In this article, the authors describe an experimental project which was designed to increase the take-up of means-tested benefits. The project incorporated a computer-based information system which provided individuals who supplied details of their financial and other household circumstances with personalized information about their entitlement to a wide range of benefits. Although the project was a technical success, it made little impact on take-up rates. In attempting to explain why this should have been so, the authors point to the complexity of the problems involved and advocate the need to examine and simplify existing administrative procedures at the same time as investigating the potential of computerization, rather than assuming that a technical device can of itself side-step the problems. They also point out that administrative simplification is itself no easy task and is fraught with political and organizational problems.
The Welfare Economics of Priority Area Policies
Authors: Holtermann Sally 
Published: January 2009

AbstractThe 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.
Participation and the Voluntary Sector: The Independent Contribution
Authors: Rowe Andrew 
Published: January 2009

AbstractThis 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.
Regulating the Poor Revisited
Authors: Higginst Joan 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThis 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.
The Concept of Social Policy (Sozialpolitik)
Authors: Cahnman Werner J. , Schmitt Carl M. 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThe concept of Sozialpolitik (social policy) has rarely been considered in the English-language literature thus far. The present article surveys the pertinent English, American and German literature which led to the initiation of the Verein für Sozialpolitik (Social Policy Association) in 1873. All these efforts culminated in Otto von Zwiedineck's classic book, Sozialpolitik (1911). A chapter of this book, now printed in Zwiedineck's collected essays, Mensch und Wirtschaft, is offered in English translation for the first time. The article presents and clarifies the concept of Sozialpolitik in terms of social action directed toward problems affecting society as a whole and the continued attainment of society's goals. However, the definition of these goals remains subject to change. A theoretical foundation for the integration of scientific and normative perspectives in the social sciences is thereby provided.
Policy Studies and Social Policy in Britain
Authors: Blume Stuart S. 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThe recent debate about the establishment of a ‘British Brookings’ involved a number of fundamental issues which were not brought out. In fact the idea that the British policy-making process should be made more ‘rational’ through the development of what are sometimes called policy studies is not new. It has roots in the Heyworth Report on social studies, which recommended greater use of social research in policy-making, and in the Fulton Report on the civil service, which argued for more policy-planning. These two approaches may now be seen as basically the same, and the problem as one of changing the relationship between social science and (social) policy. However, past analyses of this relationship attribute difficulties to quite different causes and hence yield a variety of prescriptions for reform. It is argued here that the policy studies which are needed must avoid the disciplinary fragmentation of the social sciences as well as that of the current administrative structure, that they must encompass research bothforpolicy andonpolicy, and that they must seek their own conceptual structure, and in addition that certain organizational requirements follow from this.
A Note on Discrimination in Employment and its Effects on Black Youths
Authors: Dex Shirley 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThis article suggests a Gateway Effects theory of discrimination in employment which attempts to link discrimination at the entry port into a job with its effects on later employment experiences and behaviour. A longitudinal sample of black and white 1971 school-leavers from Bradford and Sheffield was used to propose this theory. An attempt is made to generate a theory about discrimination which explains the position of black British school-leavers and which also incorporates the concerns of existing alternative American-based labour market theories about discrimination. Several implications for policies about discrimination are deduced.
The Human Factor in Social Administration
Authors: Smith John H. 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThe practice of social administration is founded on the human response to problems of industrialization and urbanization. Motivation and effort towards ‘social service’ were once taken for granted, but this seems no longer justified in the light of changes in the material and intellectual contexts in which service to the community is undertaken. These changes include the politicization of the service ideal; the emergence of radical social work; the managerialism of service reorganization; new interpretations of professional accountability; and new fashions in sociology and psychology. Although hitherto stable assumptions have been questioned, the dogmatic basis for recent developments and the reactions to them justify a fresh evaluation of the human factor in social administration. The human factor remains the basic resource in identifying and meeting social needs.
The Informal Rationing of Primary Medical Care
Authors: Foster Peggy 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTAll social services are rationed, yet the effects of such rationing on the client are rarely fully explored. This article reviews the evidence on the existence of informal rationing devices in general practice. It examines the effects on patients of a wide range of informal rationing devices now used by individual general practitioners. Various suggestions for reforming the present rationing of primary medical care are evaluated and the likelihood of any reform being carried out is assessed. Although this article concentrates solely on rationing in the primary care sector of the National Health Service, the issues discussed are relevant to most welfare agencies as they are presently organized.
The Social History of Social Policy: Infant Welfare in Edwardian England
Authors: Lewis Jane 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTDuring the years following the Boer War, infant mortality became an issue of national importance, and increasing emphasis was placed on the provision of infant welfare clinics and health visitors. The infant mortality rate declined steadily throughout the period, and officials attributed the improvement to the new services. But just as the causes of infant mortality were complex, so were the reasons for the decline in the mortality rate. What needs explanation therefore is why health officials concentrated so exclusively on one particular form of solution. It is argued that this was a consequence of, first, the way in which infant welfare was perceived as a problem of mortality and especially as a problem of diarrhoeal mortality and, secondly, the philosophy of the infant welfare movement, which held that responsibility for infant mortality rested with the individual mother. Infant welfare services were thus compartmentalized as a set of personal social services, and kept separate from broader socio-economic issues.
Community Care and the Family: A Case for Equal Opportunities?
Authors: Finch Janet , Groves Dulcie 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTDespite the existence of sex discrimination legislation certain social policies appear to militate against equal opportunities between the sexes. Community care policies are a case in point, especially with current interest shifting towards ‘care by the community’, and the presumed existence of ‘informal caring networks’, with a view to their effective mobilization at a time of cutbacks both in public expenditure and in domiciliary social service provision for groups such as the handicapped and the elderly. To the extent that community care policies rely on women's unpaid domestic labour and may necessitate their withdrawal from the labour market, such policies could be counter-productive to the promotion of ‘equal opportunities’. The challenge is to devise community care policies which do not disadvantage women and which give men ‘equal opportunities’ to take on caring roles usually assigned to women.
The Junior Hospital Doctors’ Pay Dispute 1975–1976: An Analysis of Events, Issues and Conflicts
Authors: Treloar Susan 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTIn late 1975, for the first time in the history of the National Health Service, junior hospital doctors in the United Kingdom took industrial action. Their pay and working conditions were basic issues, but the dispute was complex. The first part of this article describes these complexities – the significant events, and the grievances and their resolution. In the second part the dispute is analysed in terms of its causes, effects and implications, particularly for the medical profession. The ambivalence, confusion and ignorance about the new contract and the question of breaking government pay policy, problems of representation, and conflicts of interests within the profession are highlighted. It is suggested that the significant economic gains of the junior doctors were not achieved by industrial action.
From Containment To Conflict? Social Planning In The Seventies
Authors: Glennerster Howard 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTDuring the 1970s a complex range of formal planning procedures were developed by central and local government and other public bodies. By the end of the decade there were well over twenty ‘public planning systems’ in operation, each with its own timetable, procedure and information demands. A number of allocation formulae were evolved to distribute cash and capital allocations between geographical areas, and various procedures to improve service coordination were also introduced. Together these innovations have had an important impact on the allocation of social service resources and the implementation of social policies. The first part of the article describes the growth of such planning activities, while the second part seeks to analyse their purposes both in terms of the official accounts and from a rather more critical perspective. It is possible to see these changes as attempts by government to come to terms with the problem of ‘overload’ – the tendency for demands on government for more and better services to outrun its and the economy's capacity to respond. They may be seen as more explicit and centralized rationing procedures which seek to combine a realistic appreciaation of budgetary constraints with responsiveness to varied individual and community needs. Critics see these procedures as attempts to contain public spending by insulating popular demands for improved services in increasingly technical and centralized procedures. The article ends by considering the impact of the new government's public expenditure policy.
Continuity in Social Policy Behaviours: The Case of Voluntary Blood Donorship
Authors: Lightman Ernie S. 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTUsing voluntary blood donation as a case example, the study on which this article is based explored not only the extent, or breadth, of community involvement in social policy behaviours, but also the continuity, or depth, of this commitment. Demographic and motivational data were collected through a postal questionnaire returned by 1,784 persons who had voluntarily donated blood at least once in metropolitan Toronto between 1974 and 1978. An empirical distinction was also drawn between the ‘active’ and the ‘lapsed’ donor.The study found that while certain sectors of society were probably disproportionately represented among those who chose to undertake voluntary social behaviours, the continuity of these actions could not be statistically associated with demographic or socio-economic variables. However, it did find that donors initially motivated by ‘external’ considerations such as convenience of location were more likely to lapse, while those for whom moral considerations and a sense of community were most important were more likely to continue as active donors.The general conclusion suggests that manipulating the context may be useful to broaden the initial participatory base in voluntary actions, but to produce continuity in this involvement the challenge must be phrased in moral language.
No-Fault Compensation for Victims of Road Accidents: Can it be Justified?
Authors: Lewis Richard 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTThis article considers the reasons given for the creation of a no-fault compensation scheme for victims of road accidents. In particular the article examines the work of the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Compensation for Personal Injury and evaluates its proposals by reference to its analysis of whether preferential treatment for road accidents can be justified. The policy options for the future development of welfare provision for the disabled are thereby thrown into sharp relief: each justification given is of relevance to other accident victims; the political nature of the reform is exposed when considering why one particular group is to be preferred to another; and the rationale supporting the existence of the many regimes of compensation in tort and social security is called into question. The role of Commissions in policy making and the structural limitations upon their deliberations are also discussed. In sum the article provides a case study of what has been called ‘the strain of seeking to justify the different treatment for various categories of misfortune’.2