Since the Second World War, the means test has played a role of growing importance in British social security provision. Beveridge’s vision of a society protected by a national system of social insurance has never been realized and, instead, social assistance, designed as a residual and diminishing means of support, has gradually been expanded to make up for the inadequacies of a national insurance system which was at first neglected and then attacked by governments. This important shift in the founding principles of the British income maintenance programme occurred without any public or parliamentary debate and without public acknowledgement by government that it was happening. As a result, British social assistance provision has continually been stretched beyond reasonable limits.

First published in 1993, Managing Poverty examines the reasons for the growing importance of social assistance in British social security policy, traces the many changes introduced by successive governments, and explores in detail why both Conservative and Labour governments have been unsuccessful in finding permanent solutions to the recurrent problems that have emerged. Most of the previous literature on this subject has concentrated on the policy-making process, but Carol Walker looks at the efficacy of these policies from the point of view of the service users, the claimants. She uses empirical evidence on the experiences and views of claimants to evaluate benefit provision.

This book will be an invaluable text to all undergraduates and postgraduates in the social sciences, particularly social policy, and to all welfare professionals.

Carol Walker, Professor of Social Policy, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln, UK.