ABSTRACT
Amendments to social security benefits during the first decade of Conservative administration set in train the withdrawal of public responsibility from areas which had previously been assumed to be part of its uncontested remit. The early attempts at social security reform were piecemeal in conception. This period came to an end with the announcement of the Reviews instigated by Norman Fowler, then Secretary of State for Social Security. The genesis and practical operation of the Social Fund has been considered at length by a range of social policy commentators. The account of privatisation and social security during the middle years of Conservative administration would not be complete without some consideration of the changes which were brought about in the benefit treatment of young people. B. Waine’s account of the personal pension policies developed by government during the late 1980s and early 1990s begins by linking their genesis to the rise of radical right and neo-liberal thinking within the Conservative Party.
