ABSTRACT
The social fund emerged in 1988 as a result of the provisions of the 1986 Social Security Act. However, prior to 1988 there had been several national one-off payments schemes in the UK managed by government and it was the consistently troubling issues raised by the operation of these schemes that the social fund was intended to address. This Chapter therefore sets the scene for the book by reviewing the experience of these earlier schemes and identifying the key issues which government hoped to solve with the introduction of the social fund. In particular, the Chapter wil l examine the experience of the two most recently preceding schemes, the Exceptional Needs Payments (ENP) scheme of the Supplementary Benefits Commission (SBC) (1966-1980) and the Single Payments (SP) scheme of 1980-88.
