ABSTRACT
Though these systems form a major part of the welfare state, the social rights provided through our education, health and social care systems are seldom spoken of as 'welfare' rights. The reasons for this are partly cultural and partly legal. On the one hand, 'welfare' is a term that has come to be associated either generally with the dispensation of cash benefits rather than services in kind, or more particularly (and pejoratively) with services thought to be reserved only for 'the poor'. This ought not to deflect us from speaking of education, health and social care as 'welfare' services, since clearly they are critically important for the welfare of the human subject. On the other hand, there really are surprisingly few legally enforceable rights in relation to such services. The language of rights tends to surface in four ways: • In relation to rights of complaint or redress. It is possible to have a clearly
defined right of complaint, even when the nature of one's substantive entitlement is not so clearly defined. I shall be discussing rights of redress separately in Chapter 9.
