ABSTRACT
In the welfare field, however, much policy is common - for instance, in health, education and social security - and this is especially the case within mainland Britain. Welfare policy in Britain can be traced back to the early years of the nineteenth century, and indeed beyond that to the onset of industrialisation and capitalist economic relations in the seventeenth century. The British welfare reforms of the 1940s were based upon both policy and political alliances. In policy terms the creation of the welfare state involved significant changes to both economic and social policy? Welfare reform also supported economic growth, for instance, providing a healthier and better educated workforce for the growing manufacturing industries. The steady growth in welfare provision and social expenditure in the decades following the post-war reforms in Britain were accompanied, as they were in all developed countries, by a period of sustained economic boom.
