ABSTRACT
Two rival concepts of welfare are even today being debated within and between political parties, the major social services and social work agencies. Both polarities were reflected in the system of poor relief that operated between 1601 and 1795; but since then the two have alternated in their supremacy. The stable rural hierarchy, the customary reciprocal definitions of the duties of each complementary social class, which the report attempted nostalgically to re-create, was already condemned by the Industrial Revolution, by social and geographical mobility. Surveys have shown that although financial aid only accounts for a small proportion of the budgets of the social work department in some areas the vast majority of clients come to social work departments looking for financial aid rather than for more traditional work assistance. Similarly, social services make agreements to pay the bed and breakfast or guest house charges of homeless families for indefinite periods.
