Assessing the Impact of the Beveridge Welfare State on Society in UK

This essay provides an assessment of the impact of the Beveridge Welfare State on UK society, focusing on its delivery of care and wellbeing since its inception. It analyzes the role of the state and society in implementing welfare policies and their efficiency in addressing the five giant evils: ignorance, want, disease, squalor, and idleness. While the Beveridgean Welfare State initially led to poverty reduction and improved social services, the essay notes a resurgence of these evils in modern UK society. It discusses the evolution of healthcare models, the implementation of various welfare policies, and administrative reforms based on the Beveridgean model. The essay concludes by advocating for amendments to the current social and administrative system to better address contemporary challenges and ensure a more effective and individual-centric care system.

Running head: Social policy
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“Assessment of the impact of Beveridge welfare state on the society of UK “
The Beveridge Report also known as Social Insurance and Allied Services was a report
submitted by the government which was published in 1942. It had created a great impact in the
formulation of a welfare state in the UK. It was conscripted by William Beveridge who had
projected the reforms relating to the system of welfare states to address the five biggest evils
faced by the society viz. unawareness, desires, disease, joblessness and foulness .So, in this
essay, the impact of the Beveridgean Welfare State on its delivery of care and wellbeing since
its inception shall be assessed. Furthermore, the role of state and society in the implementation of
the welfare policies and their efficiency shall also be analyzed.
As per Hall (2012) there has been a great influence on the practices of care and welfare since
the inception of the Beveridgean Welfare State. The main aim of the welfare state was to
demolish the five giant evils and poverty was one of them, so it has greatly influenced the
mitigation of poverty. There was a decrease in the poverty, slum clearance, inequality, and a rise
in real incomes which had a great impact on the rise in the tax incomes and helped the country to
pay its post war debts. Thus it was concluded that the problem had been eradicated to a great
extent. The level of poverty remains stable over the past decade which is 21% or around 13
Million people now reside in houses where one of the family members is working. The social
policy of Beveridgean Welfare State refers to providing services to the people in the areas of
health services, social protection, educational services and housing provisions and subsidies.
However, it seems that the five giants are creeping back into the society again. It has been found
that around 1,252,000 people comprising of 321,000 children are facing destitution in Britain at
some point of time in a year. Approximately 2% of the population of Britain which is the fifth
largest economy of the world has to face the problems related to poverty (Armstrong, 2017).
The society of UK has been facing with the second giant evil known as disease. The children
born in the poor areas are born with 200 g less than those born in the richest neighborhoods. The
children born in the poor areas tend to die within their first year of life and amongst the
survivals, most of them are likely to have chronic diseases for the rest of their lives( Isakjee,
2017).

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The third evil is unawareness for education. England has ranked amongst the bottom four OECD
countries in terms of literacy and technology amongst the age group of 16-24 years. It has been
reported that 20% of the people of UK does not have internet connections at their homes .
The fourth evil pertains to foulness or uncleanliness has been prevailing in the society of Great
Britain. Thus a ban on the councils building homes have led to their shortage and around one
third of the private rental homes in UK fail to qualify for the National Decent Homes Standard
(Brindle, Kelley and Neil, 2014).
The fifth evil relates to unemployment. It has been reported that nearly 5% of British people are
unemployed. It means that 95% of them have got their source of earning. However, the average
pay adjusted for inflation has fell by 0.5% year after year (Franklin, Brancati and Hochlaf ,
2016).
As per Hughes (2017) new models of health care have been developed across UK to balance the
enhanced demand for improved health and social care services contrary to the decreased
expenditure. Despite of the failure of the integrated care programs to decrease the number of
hospital admissions, certain substitutes have been emerged regarding the community based
integrated care. These policies demonstrate the methods to tackle the issues of ageing and
number of admissions in the hospital with the help of specific structures of the policy.
The impact of welfare policies on the delivery of care and wellbeing is associated with flat rate
benefits and tax funded social support. The ‘Beveridgean model’ is still been regarded as the
fundamental principles of the welfare state. It forms the basis for providing benefits as well as
the right of the stakeholders for eliminating the threats of means tested assistance
(Humphries ,2015).
The important elements of a Welfare State can comprise of health, adequate housing facilities,
education, welfare including child welfare and social security of all the individuals. So, the role
of state and society in respect of their obligation of care and wellbeing of adults is in
empowering by providing guaranteed minimum standards of living comprising of minimum
wages and the social protection of all the individuals in the society in the event of their

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insecurity. Furthermore, the provision of services at its best possible level has been provided by
the government (Odekon, 2015).
The government of UK has implemented various laws and policies for the welfare of the people
which are based upon Beveridgean model. The Family Allowance Act 1945, Industrial Injuries
Act 1946, National Insurance Act 1945 and the National Assistance Act 1948 have been
implemented in this behalf. Apart from this, the National Health Service Act 1948 ,1944 Free
Education Act , Town and Country Planning Act 1947 , the New Towns Act 1946 and the
Children’s Act 1948 has also been formulated for the welfare of the society (Hallsworth, Parker
and Rutter ,2011) .
For the welfare of the state, there have been reformations of the Department of Social Security
into the Department of Work and Pension and the responsibility of the income maintenance have
been allocated to Inland Revenue. The management of transport and the administration of
regional and local governments have been allocated to the local governments and communities.
The administration has undergone the major reforms as per the ‘Beveridgean model’. In 1990s,
the civil services and management of welfare had been restructured and it was known as new
public management (House of Commons, 2013).
It comprises of the three major elements viz. the division of management functions into agencies
so that the efficiency of the management can be analyzed individually. The NHs trusts and
agencies accountable for social security are established in this regard. The public services should
act like economic markets where the transacting in the public services and introduction of
competition should be treated separately. The managerial strategies should be introduced where
managers should be held responsible for running the agencies in a commercial way. This method
is more prevalent in health and personal social services (Strategic Policy Making Team Cabinet
Office, 1999).
Various policies have been implemented with regards to NHS and social services. The practical
effect of social policy in the field of health care is that it coordinates the health and social
services to address the issues of financial, organizational and patient centered problems. The
policies of assimilation and teaming up of services, government departments and budgets are not
only limited to the health policy but are applied on all the aspects of the British society. With the

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attempt to integrate care, it restraints the expenses incurred on social programs and tries to
improve the synchronization amongst all the services so that a better analysis of the problems
can be executed (Robertson, Gregory, and Jabbal, 2014).
Thus integrated care is demonstrated as individual centric and responding who caters to the
needs of the society. Within the heath policy, the responses of the people who use multiple
services are coordinated and assimilated in the policies with the aim to integrate the health and
social care. It is regarded as cost effective for the health system.
However, certain policies have been successfully implemented in the British society for welfare
of the people but new models of care are required to break the existing constraints between
services so that more individual centric and cost effective care systems can be applied. With
regards to the other four evils, rebuilding and redesigning the systems for the 21st century is
expected for the digital era and for the society which is expecting an altered relationship with the
government (Hagen, 2012).
Hence to conclude, it can be said that certain amendments should be made in the current social
and administrative system. All the administrative powers should be centralized in the hands of
management. The Beveridge Report shall be analyzed as a product of its time. It was a
consequence to mitigate the after effects of war and was reinforced by victory and by the merits
of state planning and as an extension of rules which were observed as the means of
accomplishing efficient and effective social reforms .It is the duty of the central government to
implement economic growth and full employment opportunities without which the universal
social insurance would be a complete failure.

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