ANALYSING THE HISTORY OF BRITISH SOCIAL WELFARE : compassion, coercion and beyond

This book offers insights into the development of social welfare policies by exploring the interconnections between policies and practice throughout history. It challenges tacitly accepted arguments that favour particular approaches to welfare, such as conditionality and eligibility. It provides examples of enduring social assumptions which influence the way we perform social welfare, such as the equivocal position of women in social welfare and the unintended consequences of reforms such as Universal Credit. By identifying continuities in welfare policy, practice and thought, it offers the potential for the development of new thinking, policy making and practice.This book offers insights into the development of social welfare policies by exploring the interconnections between policies and practice throughout history. It challenges tacitly accepted arguments that favour particular approaches to welfare, such as conditionality and eligibility. It provides examples of enduring social assumptions which influence the way we perform social welfare, such as the equivocal position of women in social welfare and the unintended consequences of reforms such as Universal Credit. By identifying continuities in welfare policy, practice and thought, it offers the potential for the development of new thinking, policy making and practice Front Cover 1 Analysing the History of British Social Welfare: Compassion, Coercion and Beyond 2 Copyright information 3 Table of Contents 4 List of tables 5 List of abbreviations 6 About the author 7 Acknowledgements 8 1 Concepts, continuities and critique 10 Conceptualising social welfare 12 What is welfare? 13 Discourses and power 17 Habitus, capital, fields and practices 20 Everyday practices 22 Ambivalence and social welfare 23 Overview of the book 25 2 A brief history of British social welfare 29 Care and welfare before human recorded histories 29 Early roots of welfare: religion and charity 31 The English Poor Law 32 Towards reform 35 Poor Law (Amendment) Act 1834 38 20th-century changes in welfare: towards the welfare state and beyond 42 The conditions for welfare reform 43 Birth and growth of the welfare state 46 Impact of the welfare state 47 Rolling back the frontiers of the state: the New Right and welfare 49 Communitarianism and the social contract: New Labour and welfare 53 Welfare reform: the crash, the Coalition and the Conservatives 54 3 Philosophical binaries and normative judgements 56 Binary opposition and distinction: developing normativity in social welfare 57 Vagabonds, beggars and the impotent poor 61 Deserving and undeserving Victorians 64 Universalism? 66 Populist discourses in the contemporary world 67 Conclusions 70 4 Chocolate, flowers and social welfare reform 71 Charity, philanthropy and civil society 72 Chocolate, flowers and key philanthropic families 76 Prison reform 78 Elizabeth Fry and women prisoners 79 Cadbury, Bournville and Rowntree 81 James Reckitt and garden villages 83 Rowntree, Booth and the social survey 84 19th-century charitable bodies 85 Continuing philanthropy, charitable giving and civil society 86 Conclusions 90 5 War: the paradoxical crucible of welfare reform 91 War, conflict and welfare demands 93 The late 18th century to Poor Law reform 94 First World War 96 Interwar years 98 Second World War 99 The war in Iraq 102 Conclusions 103 6 Gendered perspectives on welfare 105 Women under the Poor Law and ‘bastardy’ 106 Surveillance and the Poor Laws 111 Hidden women in welfare and women hidden in welfare 113 Providing and administering the Poor Law 115 Family allowances 118 Welfare state typologies and gender relations 120 Women and the current COVID-19 crisis: an equality issue 124 Conclusions 125 7 Piacular austerity: sacrificing the poor for the rich 127 Piacular rites 128 The historical sacrificing of the poor 132 Austerity and welfare reform in the 2000s 132 Policy 132 Disability 137 Employment and mental health 138 Housing 139 Food banks 140 COVID-19 lockdown and sacrifice 141 Conclusions 142 8 Universal Credit versus Universal Basic Income: strange bedfellows? 144 Universal Credit? Ways of reducing welfare administration to address poverty 144 Universal Basic Income: novel schemes from different perspectives 147 Contemporary calls for universal/citizen’s basic income 154 Conclusions 157 9 Containing the radicals and regulating the ‘other’: a history of the strange case of social work 158 What is social work? 160 The beginnings of state social administration: the Poor Laws 161 19th-century beginnings 162 The outset of the 20th century 165 Second World War 167 Social work since the Second World War 167 Towards unified social services departments 169 Turn to the right 171 ‘Things can only get better’? 172 Ambivalence, scapegoats and a sacrificial profession 174 Ambivalence: the public’s love/hate relationship with social work 176 Ambivalence about social work 176 Conclusions 177 10 W(h)ither welfare after Brexit and COVID-19? 179 Theorising, anticipating and the future(s) of social welfare 179 Brexit and its consequences 182 Why did the UK vote to leave the EU? 182 The impacts of Brexit on social welfare and care 184 EU workers in social care and the National Health Service 186 The impacts of COVID-19 187 Conclusions 191 References 194 Index 237