Evolution of Welfare Policies

This assignment analyzes the evolution of welfare policies across different eras. It examines the 1834 Poor Law amendment act and its impact on poverty alleviation, delves into the functions of the modern welfare state in providing basic needs and healthcare access, and explores the social policy initiatives of New Labour aimed at improving working conditions and promoting equality.

Social Policy and Society

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................1
1. Importance of 1834 Poor Law in social policy............................................................................1
2. Progress of social policy between 1900 and 1914.......................................................................2
3. Strengths and weaknesses of the welfare state in 1940s’............................................................2
4. Key features of New Labour social policy..................................................................................3
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Social policy refers to a mechanism that combines economics, politics and sociology in
order to examine that how UK government is addressing social issues for ensuring justice and
public welfare. It consists of various rules, regulations and statutory principles that government uses
for welfare and protection of the society (Bochel and Powell, 2016). The present project report
emphasizes upon various kinds of social policies and regulations applied in UK i.e. Poor Law Act,
1834, Welfare state and New Labour Social Policy for examining the mandatory governing
principles to ensure public safety and well-being.
1. Importance of 1834 Poor Law in social policy
In 1834, UK Parliament has introduced several amendments in Poor Law 1601, called Poor
Law Amendment Act (PLAA) 1837 or New Poor Law. The amendments were introduced
considering three principles, Malthus (population increase rapidly than resources), Ricardo’s iron
law of wages and Bentham’s principle that people demand relief rather than working somewhere.
The legislation plays an important role in the social policy because after such amendments, people
believe that the reform will reduce the cost of looking to the poor because they would have stopped
the outflow of money to the poor except only in special circumstances (Green, 2016). Now, after the
reform in 1834, people have to go to the workstations where they are provided with the cloth, food
and shelter facilities in exchange for the labor work performed. They are abided by the strict
principles, rules and regulations and live in terrible conditions. The law encourages and motivates
poor people in the society for working hard to help themselves and take beggars out off the street. It
has two priorities stated as: moving of people to the urban areas, towns, cities where individual can
found employment opportunities and protecting urban payers from the excessive wages demand of
migrant people before getting a full-time employment (Evans, 2016).
Many individuals react positively to such reforms i.e. Duke of Wellington and Poor law
Commissioner named James Kay-Shuttleworth supported the act as they believed that majority of
the population were poor just because of their own foolishness. They said that industrial revolution
has led too many changes i.e. rapid growth of population, rising rate of unemployment and others,
which in turn, increases number of poor in the country. Thus, these amendments are based on the
principle of less eligibility and workhouse test will have a serious impact on the poverty in UK. The
act was issued on the belief that granting financial assistance, pensions and other benefits can result
in serious consequences; thus, poverty is seen as a misfortune and pays focus on improvement of
poverty and employment rate so as to make poor people free from the poverty. However, on the
other hand, Richard Oastler has argued that new law is cruel by calling workhouses as prisoners for
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the poor people as they are not maintained in well condition (Crowther, 2016). In response to it, the
government has introduced a system of regular inspection of the workhouses. Although the act was
issued with the view to reduce poverty; still, its importance is declining with the coming of welfare
states in the nation.
2. Progress of social policy between 1900 and 1914
In 1900, UK government has estimated that nearly 30% of the population were living at the
edge of starvation where they were suffering various issues due to lack of food availability. At the
same time, there were high level of income and wealth inequality that were noticed by the
government, as a result, during the period of 1906-1914, a number of liberal social reforms have
been introduced by the British liberal party that was elected in 1906 ((Bochel and Powell, 2016). It
comprises free meals to the children in school in 1906, medical check-ups of pupils in 1907,
compensation to workers for suffering from injuries at the workplace in 1906, Old-Age Pension Act
in 1908 wherein all the pensioners were provided with the extra pension of 5 shillings, introduction
of National Insurance Act in 1911 to provide insurance facilities to all the employees from sickness
by paying a weekly premium of four penny and unemployment benefits were also brought in certain
specific industries such as shipbuilding.
Despite this, under the social reform, British party had charged high rate of taxes on the rich
people so as to collect funds and spent it on the poor, in order to provide better facilities and
improving conditions of the poorer people in the society. . In 1909, labour exchange was also
introduced to provide help to the unemployed people who are looking for the job by providing them
a platform where they can apply for the job in interested field (Rhodes and Mény, 2016). Apart from
this, in 1912, clinics were established in school to diagnose health concerns and illness of the
children. In 1914, local authorities were also provided with the government grants to deliver
maternal and welfare facilities to the child.
3. Strengths and weaknesses of the welfare state in 1940s’
Welfare state is a concept wherein state government plays a key role in society as they
perform enormous activities and made decisions to protect the health concern & well-being of all
the citizens. In this regards, regulatory body provides financial help to poor by various means i.e.
pensions, government grants and other monetary and non-monetary benefits (Thane, 2016). They
run their functions considering the principle of equal opportunity for equitable treatment of all the
citizens and equal distribution of wealth in the society so as to deliver well-being benefits to the
society.
Strengths:
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Easy access to healthcare facilities: UK government provides medical and health care
facilities to all the people on equality principle without any biasness and discrimination. Thus, it
makes easier for all the people, especially poor who do not have funds to take benefits of healthcare
facilities to cure their diseases and improve life expectancy (Taylor and Powell, 2017).
Fulfil basic needs: It fulfils basic needs of the individuals such as food, shelter and other
free of cost services i.e. medical care for their well-being.
Weaknesses:
Risk of fraud: Exploitation of welfare programmes is a risk which can cause hurdles in
providing well-being benefits to the society. Therefore, it is essential for the government to
regularly investigate the programme to reduce any fraudulent act and deliver services to the right
people who really need it.
Less incentive for better job: Welfare state does not provide any incentive to the people
and do not motivate them to get better job and employment for the better life standards (Van Berkel,
2016). By getting services i.e. grants, pensions & other kinds of financial support, people feel
dependent and do not desire to work anywhere.
4. Key features of New Labour social policy
New Labour policy consists of existing as well as upcoming strategies and policies so as to
provide better working conditions to the people and satisfy immigrant workers. The policy is also
termed as “Third way” that is introduced with the view to revolutionize entire society and combat
various social problems i.e. long-term unemployment, rising rate of poverty, streamline voluntary
employment programme and many others. The target of the new reform is to overcome workplace
barriers for the employees so as to provide them extremely well conditions and modernize National
Childcare strategy as well (De la Porte and Heins, 2016). The act is targeted to minimize the
workplace barrier and issues suffered by disabled people by reforming various benefits related to
employees’ disability. In the current time, employment rate is increasing; thus, such labour reforms
took place to design number of policies to assist older workers and address their concerns and
problems.
New Labour social policy addresses issues like discrimination practices on grounds of
gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship etc. and workplace conflicts with the welfare state; so
that the government can take legal actions and make strategies to ensure compliance with equal
opportunity and anti-discrimination policies (Heery, 2016). The policy makes it legal compulsion
upon organizations to provide equal opportunities to all the workers without any discrimination.
Besides this, other area of discrepancy i.e. pension and others are also considered in the new policy
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to overcome problems. In addition to this, aim of the policy is to provide employment services to all
the eligible people so as to tackle issues of unemployment in the society. Despite this, the policy
also focuses upon maintaining collaborative and cooperative working environment that is free from
individualism so as to build favourable, familiar and healthier surroundings at the workplace (The
Rise and Fall of New Labour, 2010).
CONCLUSION
From the carried analysis made in the report, it can be concluded that 1834 Poor Law
amendment act was issued so as to reduce the cost of looking after poor and thereby encouraging
them to find better job opportunities to get rid of poverty. Besides this, analysis of welfare state has
discovered that they provide benefits to the society to get easy healthcare access and fulfil their
basic needs. Lastly, it is examined that New Labour social policy has been introduced with the aim
to maintain better working conditions and provide equal opportunity and right by treating all the
employees equally without any bias.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Bochel, H. and Powell, M., 2016. The coalition government and social policy: restructuring the
welfare state. Policy Press.
Crowther, M.A., 2016. The workhouse system 1834-1929: the history of an English social
institution. Routledge.
De la Porte, C. and Heins, E., 2016. A new era of European integration? Governance of labour
market and social policy since the sovereign debt crisis. In The sovereign debt crisis, the EU
and welfare state reform. Palgrave Macmillan UK. 12(3). pp.15-41.
Evans, P., 2016. Workhouses and Poor Law Unions.
Green, D.R., 2016. Pauper Capital: London and the Poor Law, 1790–1870. Routledge.
Heery, E., 2016. Book Review: New Labour Policy, Industrial Relations and Trade
Unions. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research. 22(2). pp.255-257.
Rhodes, M. and Mény, Y., 2016. The future of European welfare: a new social contract? Springer.
Taylor, P.J. and Powell, J., 2017. The UK Welfare State System: With Special Reference to the
Mental Health Care System. Routledge.
Thane, P., 2016. The foundations of the welfare state. Routledge.
Van Berkel, R., 2016. Mariely López-Santana (2015) The New Governance of Welfare States in the
United States and Europe: Between Decentralization and Centralization in the Activation
Era. Albany: State University of New York Press. Journal of Social Policy. 45(02). pp.386-
387.
Online
The Rise and fall of New Labour. 2010. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-10518842>. [Accessed on 9th June 2017].
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