The British Welfare State - Essay Example

? The British Welfare System Index page Introduction , page Thesis , page 3 Method page 4 The N.H.S, its origins and development page 4 The First Part of the 20th Century , page 9 Later in the 20th Century, page 11 Recent Times, page 12 Poverty, page 17 New Patterns in Society, page 18 Conclusion ,page 21 References, page 22 Abstract This essay deals with the British Welfare State, the influences and personalities that brought it about its origins, development, problems and benefits. It looks at such things as legislation and the reports on which such laws are based. In particular it considers the inequalities the welfare state sought to redress, but also point out inequalities in more recent years, and the possible reasons behind these. Introduction This essay will deal with the British Welfare System and the inequalities it sought to remedy in such areas as education, employment opportunities, justice and health. The United Kingdom is a state in which centralised government , and the legislation it produces, directs its welfare system to a great extent. However, although one state, it is not one country. This means, especially since the setting up of separate parliaments that legislation and therefore provision and available services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as in England will differ to some extent. Also there is no one ‘Welfare State Ministry’. The Cabinet office for instance is responsible for public service reform, the Treasury for finances, and there are of course numerous othe rinvovled departemnts and agencies. This means that in some cases inequalities are built into the governmantal system. However reasons for inequalities are many and varied , and not just linked to legislation. This essay will consider the failures as well as the positive attributes of such a system , and why these occurred and continue to do so. It will look briefly at the history and origins of the present system and its gradual development. It will consider problems that have arisen and why these occurred. One of the initial problems is perhaps the definition of inequality within society. Is it to do with equality of opportunity or equality of outcome? The former for instance was dealt with by such things as the provision of free secondary education for all. But all children were not as capable intellectually of benefiting from a grammer school education and so schools were developed offering education of a more practical nature. Some of those who passed the grammer school entrance examinations could not proceed for economic reasons or because of family pressures and so ended up in secondary modern or technical schools, for which presumably they were not best suited. All this means that, in the case of education at least, although technically there was an equality of opportunity, in fact there was not, and there certainly could never be equalities of outcomes. In more recent times parents have supposedly been given more choice as to which schools their children will go to, but the practice falls far short of such an idealistic situation. With regards to health perhaps the situation would be more equal? After all the health service was set up as free at the point of need. But now in the 21st century the media are full of the ‘post code lottery’ or reports about some Health Care Trusts refusing to fund certain treatments, in some cases potentiality life saving, which are available in other areas, or, of course, to those who are willing and able to pay. Inequality rules therefore in health care as in other areas of society. There has always been economic inequality in human societies since the very first caveman noticed that his neighbour had a better axe than he has. The exact nature of inequalities in society, their causes and effects as well as their importance have long been a matter for debate, but is clear that the varying abilities of people to create wealth for whatever reasons , are part of the complex pattern of equalities in society. Also within any particular country or nation the degree of inequality will depend upon its individual social and economic structures. Economic differences lead to a lack of cohesion within society as Charles Dickens so clearly revealed in his 19th century novels such as ‘Little Dorrit’ and ‘Nicolas Nickleby’. The development of the British Welfare State was an attempt to redress such social inequalities as far as it was possible to do so. In particular the Labour government, who took charge in 1945 under the leadership of Clement Atlee, took the victory in the election under a pledge to eradicate the social evils described in the Beveridge Report, and put in place policies designed, they felt, to provide for the Britsh people "from the cradle to the grave."( Rivett 2009) Thesis Despite its wonderful aims there are many ways in which the British Welfare System has failed to eradicate inequalities in British society since the Second World War. Method Looking at the history of the British welfare system and the motives behind it, both historically and in the latter part of the 20th century. This will be done in the main by using web based sources and search terms such as the National Health Service, British Welfare System, failures in the welfare system, dental care etc. The N.H.S, its origins and development The setting up of The National Health Service can be considered as the greatest achievement of the post-war Labour Government. The idea was that good provision for health care should be made available to all whatever their financial position. Not that there wasn’t a system of sorts before that time, but it was disparate and not centrally organised. The Poor Laws first came into operation in Tudor times. That there needed to be three of them – in 1572, 1597 and 1601, suggests the severity of the problem and the difficulties encountered in dealing with it, despite a population of only 4.8 million.(Hitchcock 2003) This was at a time when attitudes of the majority towards the very poor were changing from one of harshness and moving towards a more compassionate approach. (The Poor Law , undated ) Bloy points out ( 2002) how Britain’s Christian population at the time of the Renaissance tried to follow the injunctions Jesus gave, as recorded in Matthew 25 v v 32-46. This meant that they felt responsible to feed the hungry poor , visit those who were sick and also prisoners , care for strangers and bury the dead. Registers were kept in parishes of those officially considered to be poor. In 1563 Justices of the Peace were given powers to raise funds locally for poor relief. This was a compulsory tax on property owners. The amount required in more than 15,000 individual parishes in England and Wales would be worked out and then collected. The various provisions of the various poor laws were consolidated in 1601. Later came the parish work houses, described by Howsum ( 2002) as ‘ a ruthless attempt to solve the problem of the poor.’ By the 19th century the Poor Law Guardians had been given the right to take on the powers and duties normally undertaken by a parent. At first this meant taking care of abandoned children, but later this was extended to those from families where parents or guardians were perceived to be ‘unfit’. In 1857 came the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, which allowed courts to decide such matters as child custody in cases of divorce. (Wojtczak 2009) In the 1860’s the Quaker industrialist Joseph Rowntree undertook two large surveys of poverty within the kingdom (Seebohm Rowntree, undated). . In 1889 Charles Booth produced his survey of London life ‘Life and Labour of the People of London’. In 1901 Joseph Rowntree’s son Seebohm, after two years work, produced his own report, Poverty, a Study of Town Life’. Each of these reports would have been known to people such as Liberal leader Lloyd George, when he first considered what needed to be done in order to improve conditions, especially for the poorest members of society. By 1926 there were more than a quarter of a million work house inmates distributed in some 600 work houses. In 1929, under the powers of the Local Government Act the work houses were closed and local authorities became responsible for their inhabitants. Any former workhouse buildings were later put into use as hospitals in the new National Health Service, but many people, especially the elderly, remained in terror of going to the work house , which was perceived as a terrible shame. End of the 19th century many towns had cottage hospitals paid for by donations, by such fund raisers as summer fetes and by endowments. In large cities there were philanthropic efforts such as the Carnegie Clinics, set up and financed with money made in America by Scottish industrialist Andrew Carnegie. There were also more likely to be specialist hospital such as the Moorfields Eye Hospital in Old Street London, which began as the London Clinic for Diseases of the Eye and Ear in 1805 and the Chelsea Hospital for Women , which was founded in 1871 ( London Metropolitan Archives , undated) The population of Great Britain and Ireland was estimated as being 46, 089,249 at the start of the Ist World War in 1914. and, if one takes in account the separate development of the Republic of Ireland, after partition in 1921, this figure would continue to rise, wars notwithstanding (Hitchcock, 2003). A view emerged within British society that good health care should be considered as a right, rather than something available in quite an erratic way depending upon local charity, especially considering that many voluntary hospitals struggled financially. In parliament members on both sides of the house agreed that the prevailing system needed vast improvements. According to Rivett (undated ) the cataclysmic events of the Second World War cleared the way for massive change, as did the creation of an emergency medical service during the war. Rivett ( undated ) also points out that among many younger members of the medical profession there was a widespread view that there must be a better way to provide the care required. The National Health Service was officially born on 5th July 1948 ( Rivett, undated ) , but it was clearly more than the outcome of more than just of the immediate vision of Aneurin Bevan, at that time Minister of Health in the post-war Labour government led by Clement Atlee. According to Perry ( 2010) for many years , going back to mid Victorian times, there had been efforts to provide adequate housing for the poorer sections of society, pensions upon retirement and healthcare for all. Perry points across the North Sea to Germany and the reforms put in place by Chancellor Bismarck in Germany. This Goodin described in 2003 as ‘Frankly neofeudal foundations to buy social peace.’ In the 1880’s the German state had begun to provide its citizens with insurance for accidents and health as well as pensions. This was the inspiration he says behind the model as first thought up by David Lloyd George and William Beveridge, although not an idea welcomed by all. Economist Alfred Marshall in 1893 told the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor that pension schemes:- Do not contain … the seeds of their own disappearance. I am afraid that, if started, they would tend to become perpetual. ( Quoted by Perry 2000) Despite this Lloyd George, while serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Liberal government of that time, worked to introduce state pensions from 1908 onwards. . The Old Age Pensions Act became law in August 1908 and the very first pension payments were made in January 1909. It should be pointed out that in those days life expectancy for men averaged only 50.02 and for women 53.51, so few actually received any pension or, if they did do so, it was not for very long. These figures come from the Government’s Actuary Department ( undated) In 1911 Lloyd George put forward the National Insurance Act out of which the present welfare system , including the setting up of the National Health System, would develop. ( BBC Wales North West 2009 ). The National Heath Service had many successes, including a major decrease in maternal and infant deaths when professional midwifery and obstetric care became available to all. But there have also been many failures - often having more to do with politics and economics than the skills of health professionals. As long ago as 1969 in a letter to the British Medical Journal there is mention of the growing reliance on staff from overseas ( Leggat 1969. Today a person in the United Kingdom may have a Spanish dentist, a Ukrainian doctor and an Indian opthalmologist - such is globalisation, but such changes also reflect the way in which the system has always relied on ‘props’ from outside. An important aspect of the N.H.S. which regularly makes headlines is the inequality of provision. In 2008 the King’s Fund made an analysis of spending by primary care trusts (PCT) .It discovered huge variations in the amounts spent on dealing with particular conditions including cancer, mental health and circulatory conditions, by the various Health Care Trusts, even when due account has been taken for varying local situations. Some trusts were spending as much as 3 times the amount of others on mental health for instance, although the compilers of the report do state that they cannot be certain of the accuracy of the data received from the government department concerned. They cite Islington PCT spending a figure of ?332 per member of population on mental health inone year, whereas in the East Riding of Yorkshire the figure was a much lower ?114. The proportion of total health spending spent on mental health varied, as far as is known, from 8.7% up to 25 %. Spending on life threatening cancer treatment varies from 3.6 % of the budget available up to over 9%. Huge discrepancies and inequality, but there are not many reasosn given for this. However the report clearly shows that not all the differences discovered are because of purely economic decisions. Some depend upon the views and practices of medical staff, and the way they decide that certain conditions should be treated – deciding who recieves treatment and when and how is it to be given. The First Part of the 20th Century. William Beveridge, an Indian born lawyer, began working for the Board of Trade, which served to advise the government upon economic matters. Known as a social reformer, in 1908 he took on the task of both setting up and running the new Labour Exchanges. He believed that full employment was possible if industry was not over regulated ( Ward’s Book of Days, 2006), although employment is usually considered to be a matter of supply and demand. ( Study English Info, 2010) Beveridge served as advisor to Lloyd George on welfare matters in the years leading up to World War I. In 1909 he produced his report ‘Unemployment : A Problem of Industry’ which he would expand upon in 1930. He went on to work at the London School of Economics, but during the Second World War he was called on once more ( BBC History 2011), this time to produce a report as to how Britain should rebuild itself once the confrontation was over. This he did in 1942, recommending that the country needed to combat what he described as ‘the Giant Evils’ of ‘Want , Disease, Ignorance , Squalor and Idleness’ with what he described as ‘The Way to Freedom from Want’. (Beveridge 1942). His report was some 300 pages long, so obviously went into great detail The first response can be said to be the 1944 Education Act which brought the school leaving age up to 15, which was of course intended to provide children with a better education than had previously been available to the majority. The Act, sometimes known as the Butler Act ) and a separate one for Scotland which soon followed in 1945, provided for free secondary education for all. However inequalities were still part of the picture. Between 1913 and 1937 the number of ‘free’ grammer school places had risen to almost half of all places - but in many cases places could not be taken up because of costs to families. Grammer schools required expensive uniforms - this was long before the days of supermarkets competing for custom by offering uniforms at throw away prices. Then there was the fact that pupils were expected to remain at school until they were 16 or even 18. The original intention was that the age should be raised to 16, but this did not happen until 1972 – too many families and too much business depended upon the efforts of the younger people Although staying at school and obtaining qualifications, first matriculation and later GCES etc, might ultimately mean that they would receive larger life time salaries, too many families , especially those with large numbers of children in the time before the easy availability of contraceptives, relied on the money brought home by children of 14 plus. There are of course inequalities in abilities. In 1938 Sir William Spens (Education Encyclopedia, 2011), produced a report recommending a three tier system, perhaps more politically correctly to be called a tripartite system, with the setting up of grammer, secondary modern and technical schools. Many local authorities followed the recommendations, using the results of the 11 plus examination to decide which school children should be allocated to. Another important report was the 1946 Curtis Report, produced by the Care of Children Committee. ( Hendrick, 1988, page 133) ‘The first enquiry in this country directed specifically to the care of children deprived of a normal home.’ Out of this came the Children’s act of 1948. This would be followed in 1963 by the Children and Young Person’s Act. Later in the 20th Century The new children’s departments took over from the earlier charities and religious groups. Unfortunately, in some cases at least, although there are of course success stories, there are far too many cases, not all of which public notice, of young people scarred for life by their experiences while in state care, not least because there is no stability with even those with foster parents being moved on , not just once, but many times, and then as they turn 17, find themselves apparently abandoned, falling through the cracks in provision. In 1969 came another piece of legislation, ‘The Children and Young Person’s Act ‘ which aimed to bring together two aspects – care and control. Under this act children who committed breaches of the law could be taken into compulsory care. I t is described as being to do with the care ‘and other treatments’ for young people. In 1971, following the Seebohm Report, 0f 1968, the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 brought together the different areas of social work into generic Social Services Departments. Concern in the early 70s about the 'drift' of planning for children in voluntary care, and the need for children to be parented in permanent families, led to the Children Act 1975 and the Adoption Act 1976. In more recent times the school leaving age for many has extended until students are 18 or on to colleges and universities. Unfortunately in too many cases this is not because this is necessarily the best thing for them, but because otherwise there would be no jobs for them and no means of keeping them under some sort of control. The Welfare State in the early 21st century has many problems. Perry ( 2010) after all heads his article ‘The Rise and Fall of the Welfare State’, and quotes Tony Blair, under stress because of massive problems as early as 1997, who said :- My vision is not just to save the National Health Service but to make it better. The money will be there, I promise you that. This year, every year. Perry goes on to describe how, each winter, there is a crisis within the N.H.S., because of bed shortages and other failures in resources. He also quotes a senior consultant, Professor Michael Joy, who said in October 2000, before the expected winter crisis had had time to really set in:- If nothing is done, I guarantee within the next weeks there will be a mighty crash. Everybody in the Health Service is totally demoralised. I have never seen morale at such a low level in my 35 year career. Unfortunately 11 years on, despite much effort and money being poured into its coffers, the situation is no better, and the population has grown, as has the proportion of those in the oldest age groups. Cosstick ( undated) states that the proportion of children in the population fell from 25% in 1971 to 20 % in A House of Commons Research Paper of December 1999 ( page 5 ) tells us that from 1911 to 1915 63% of the British population died before reaching the age of 60. By the time of the report (1999) this was true of only 12% even allowing for wars and such things as the problems in Northern Ireland. Recent Times In the 1980’s and 1990’s various aspects of the welfare system were broken up into various agencies such as National Health Service trusts and Social Security administration. These are run in similar ways to businesses, rather perhaps than with the idealism of earlier times. . In popular memory and broader political discourse ‘the welfare state’ was something born of shared wartime suffering and the Great Depression; it was animated by the desire to meet needs and promote social equality; and it operates on and through broadly capitalist economies managed along broadly Keynesian lines. Goodin, 2003, Chapter 9 The present day British Welfare State is attempting to operate in a very different world from that of the early years of the 20th century when it had its first beginnings. There are high levels of unemployment and financial shortcomings, not just for individuals, but for wider society which means less money for present services and a restriction on expansion. Yet at the same time scientific and medical discoveries and advances have increased expectations - at its simplest not just x-rays, but medical imaging in all its 21st century complexity. These advances meant that there are now calls on the N.H.S. to provide a service which keeps up with these developments. Rivett also discusses the very recent developments about possible future changes, including the phasing out of Primary Care Trusts and with General Practitioners being given much more autonomy with regard to funding. Not only has the population increased, it is also much more diverse in its ethnic, cultural, religious nature. It is also a period in which older people are taking up a gradually higher proportion of the population. This means that there must be changes in the way resources are distributed. Less money spent on nursery places perhaps, and more on geriatric care in some areas. . A state pension that was seen as being only for a few years, is now being given to an increasing number of people for very extended periods. The numbers of centenarians quadrupled in the years between 1981 and 2009, ( Office for National Statistics, 2010) and the population increased by 470,000 in the year 2010, and according to the Office of National Statistics, moved up to a high of 62, 262, 000 . The influx of migrants has brought with it a new richness to the culture of the United Kingdom, but it is not without problems – increase in certain diseases such as tuberculosis for instance. One huge positive change brought about by NHS was in the rates of maternal and infant deaths. Many women in the early 20th century might turn to a midwife or doctor fro the actual delivery, but would have received no antenatal care. Such maternal deaths had been recorded since 1857 (Chamberlain 2006). Numbers of such deaths fell from the 1930’s onwards because of the use of such things as antibiotics, but proper antenatal and postnatal care, rather than the presence of professionals for only a few hours, reduced the rate much further. Every mother had the opportunity for the best possible care for her and her baby. At the present time though there are huge problems with the maternity services which are struggling to cope. In 1993 there came the Changing Childbirth Report ( cited by Bousanquet et al , 2005) It recommended increases in both obstetric and midwife numbers. The former was achieved, but, as Chamberlain and his colleagues state ‘ Progress has been at the best modest.’ They do on to describe how what was envisaged was an increase in midwife led, low risk units going through to obstetrician higher risk units. In fact the numbers of such midwife led units fell and there was greater centralisation. This means that many women at low risk are taking up time in high risk units and those who really need these may be marginalised. This centralisation was done under the dual excuses of money saving and improvements in patient safety levels, but Chamberlain et al claim that it remains unclear as to whether either of these aims have been achieved, especially when one considers that the Euronatal Working Group in 2003 found that within the N.H.S. maternity services care was ‘suboptimal.’ There are not enough midwives to give one to one care. Those that are available work shorter hours than they once did. The number of obstetricians has doubled in the past 30 years, yet there are large units which do not have 24 hour consultant care. Units are working at full capacity and so cannot cope with sudden surges of need. Chamberlain et al also point out to future strains as more women are delaying pregnancies and so put themselves at greater risk and require more from the professionals. The writers make a number of suggestions for improvements, many of them based upon care as given in other European countries. As for dental care the arrival of free care for all brought about a massive influx of patients with which the services available struggled to cope. (Taylor undated ) Dr Taylor describes how , when her career began in 1978 , 40% of Scottish adults had lost all their teeth, either through decay or removal. The service, instead of making more provision available produced charges – firstly for dentures and later for all services. So much for care free at the point of need. The criteria for obtaining free care over the age of 18 at present are quite strict. Taylor describes the various stages of modern dental care – the ‘vulcanite ‘ stage i.e. when full dentures were common; the drill and fill stage, when the aim was to repair damaged teeth. Finally she describes the modern emphasis upon preventing the damage in the first place. But for many denture care is unavailable as they cannot afford private care and the number of National Health Dentists who have vacancies for new patients is very low indeed. Also even the relatively lower charges made are considered to be unaffordable by many. Despite these negative Taylor describes some successes especially with regard to children’s tooth care and the improvements made by fluoride in toothpaste. There is also a strong community service available for those with particular special needs such as the homeless and those with certain complicated medical histories. Mental health is another aspect of necessary care, one which affects not only those immediately affected, but also by their wider circle of family, friends and local communities. Barker (undated) quotes the maxim ‘There can be no health without mental health.’ He states that one in four may experience some form of mental health problems during their lifetimes. Barker points out how, in Scotland at least, there has been a long term interest in the interaction between mental health and social factors. There is a stress on a break down of barriers between staff and patients with both for instance sharing in such activities as cooking, art work etc. There was an emphasis upon normal social interaction as playing an important part of good mental health. Barker ( undated) goes on to describe the development of a system of ‘mental health indicators’ which measure not just the health of individuals, but of the wider community as well. In 2006 came the paper ‘Delivering for Mental Health’ which proposed many future changes , including a greater emphasis upon community , rather than hospital, care. This would involve the creation of better links between the health services and local authorities, welfare groups including user groups and with the voluntary sector. The large mental hospitals have more or less gone, but there will always remain those for whom hospitalisation is the best option, even if only in the short term. Community care is also not necessarily a cheap option and can place huge pressures on families, other carers, and the communities involved. Barker ( undated) however seems to be optimistic because of the greater stress upon collaboration and co-operation between all concerned. Poverty Despite more than a century since the modern beginnings of the British Welfare State poverty remains a huge problem. In his report of 1902 Seebohm Rowntree described two types of poverty – primary i.e. where earnings in families never reach high enough levels to provide them with what could be considered to be minimum requirements. He also described what he referred to as secondary poverty – still far too common. This refers to situations where income was adequate, but where much of it would be wasted on such things as gambling, alcohol etc. Another situation which even the best plans of the welfare state can do little to change. Cosstick (undated) cites The Child Poverty Action Group , who in 1999 claimed that as many of 30% of British children were then living in poverty. In May 2011 the same group were happy to report that, despite the recession, the level of child poverty had fallen for the first time in 25 years. This change they put down to increased support for low income families, so somebody is doing something right. Unfortunately the group are not so hopeful for the future under the coalition government led by David Cameron.:- These are the final figures for the previous government’s time in office. David Cameron must keep his promise to make British poverty history and make sure the fall in child poverty continues. But cuts to public services, tax credits and childcare support mean fewer people will be better off in work, with fewer jobs to go round. Experts like the Institute for Fiscal Studies are warning that the Government’s cuts will make child poverty go up again. The article by the Child Poverty Action Group ( May 2011) goes on to criticize the present government polices to deal with child welfare as they do not state how many children will be lifted above poverty levels.:- Without robust action to tackle problems like lack of jobs, poverty pay, unaffordable childcare and Britain’s critical shortage of social housing, the Government’s strategy lacks credibility. New Patterns in Society Society has changed considerably in a hundred years – but so much provision is still based upon the idea of that modern day rarity - the perfect nuclear family with their 2.1 children. Those who do not fit into this pattern may be penalised – or not. Splits within families have always gone on, but seem to be a commoner pattern in the new century. This too often adds to problems for individuals, families and the societies to which they belong. In some cases these difficulties are exacerbated by the welfare system. A single mother who has a man to stay overnight can loose her benefits – but a married man who sleeps with another woman suffers no such financial consequences. It might be better for their families and for wider society if neither were promiscuous, but why should one suffer and not the other? Many benefits depend upon an established and stable work pattern – so if someone is dismissed or who joins a strike , is penalised even if they are acting in good conscious. There are also systems based upon residence and so a migrant can be penalised, by being refused certain services. On the other hand long term British people inequalities that act against them – as might happen for instance where a school their family have always gone too become swamped by refugees and other migrants who don’t speak English and so the education of native speakers can be seen to be at a disadvantage, as for instance in some schools in Whitechapel where perhaps 80 languages are the mother tongue. Davis , 2010, claimed that more than 40% of London school children speak English as a second language. Although this is seen as a positive thing (Institute of Education 2011) it also reflects a lot of homes where there are adults struggling to fit in to the society around them . She cites a report by the Institute of Education and the National Centre for Languages which reveal that the number of bilingual pupils has increased over the years. This sense of possible failures within the system was echoed by Munro, 2003, who, speaking particularly of children and their welfare, said that:- Plans to bring child welfare services together under the umbrellas of trusts seem to forget that children don’t live in isolation from the rest of us. Apparently the aim of these trusts is to improve accountability for the welfare of children, linking education, social services, and some aspects of health provision. The aim is to bring about earlier and more effective intervention when required. However, Munro asks if so much structural change will be effective, pointing out that for more than 30 years change in structures has always been the answer to perceived problems, but that this has in fact proved to be ineffective. She cites the government’s green paper, which preceded the announcement of the new proposals in the Queen’s speech of 2003. This she says makes no attempt to analyse why the approach used for the previous 30 years, which was supposedly family centred, had too many failures. This is backed up by Wingfield ( 2011) who describes how the rioters of August 2011 :- Live in urban territories where the sharp-elbowed intrusion of the welfare state during the past 30 years has pushed aside older ideals self-reliance and community spirit. Some would take issue with the word ‘self reliant’. That is an ideal of course, but impossible if employment is not available for whatever reason, even if one includes sheer fecklessness. The aims of the new legislation mentioned by Munro ( 2003) was that all children would be able to have 5 things – health care, be safe, be able top enjoy life and to achieve according to their abilities, be able to make a positive contribution to society and ultimately to be successful economically. These are described as being :- Mutually reinforcing. For example, children and young people learn and thrive when they are healthy, safe and engaged; and the evidence shows clearly that educational achievement is the most effective route out of poverty. (Every Child’s Future Valued, The Sustainable, Development Commission, Future Matters, 2007) The Sustainable Development Commission, once considered so important, no longer exists. This is being written at the time of the rioting in so many British cities. Rioting by what left-wing writer Brendan O’Neill describes acidly as ‘welfare state mobs’ ( Cited by Wingfield, 2011) Perhaps this catastrophe and its aftermath will be the catalyst for action, not just by the government, but by individuals and communities who will, it is to be hoped, realise that enough is enough, and as Edward VIII said so long ago in 1936 ‘Something must be done.’ Despite all these negatives some good things are going on for children and others –local authorities now have the responsibility to both approve and register child minders , as well activities such as pre-school groups and nurseries as well as after-school care for children of infant school-age. Despite the recession, according to Cosstick ( undated) “This is an expanding area, especially with Government encouragement and financial support for these services.” Many of the social projects however, although they may rely, at least to some extent, upon funding from local or national government, are actually begun and charities and church groups. Large charities such as Age UK, Scope and Mind run such things as day centres for instance. Are we moving back towards a diversity of responsibility? Conclusion Common sense, and even the most rudimentary look at history, both tell us that there will always be inequalities in human societies, both within Great Britain and elsewhere.. All human societies seem to be based upon inequalities, stratification and groupings – class and gender, local and incomer, educated and illiterate, rich and poor. It is very difficult to change groups or places in the hierarchy. Spicker ( undated ) claims with some justification that our ‘Relationships follow consistent patterns.’ The reasons behind this are to do with multiple factors such as race and ethnic background and culture, gender, politics, economic. Often these factors are intermixed and have complex effects. Many resources in society are unevenly distributed, not just goods and money, but also such things as intellectual capacity, morals etc. Such is human nature. The British Welfare State, despite its many faults and problems, is at least a well meant attempt to at least reduce obvious inequalities. It frequently fails, not always through its own fault, but also on occasion because of the changing society it is trying to serve. Its inadequacies and difficulties cause frustrations and even suffering, but is so often much better than the alternatives, or no provision at all, even if, as Perry considers, that it is in its dying days. 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