ABSTRACT
At the conference entitled 'Reforming the Social Fund' held in Leicester in November 2001, the junior minister in the Department of Work and Pensions, Malcolm Wicks M.P., outlined the government's extensive package of measures to address poverty and social exclusion. In front of an audience of welfare advisers and advocates, he suggested we could not possibly be interested in the minutiae of one of the many mechanisms, the social fund, given the progress being made on so many fronts. However, it is precisely with the minutiae that this piece is concerned since the experience of operating and applying to the fund is fundamental to understanding the nature of that fund. This study illuminates a number of features of the social fund that suggest that, even were there no concerns about its effectiveness in addressing exceptional needs, there are serious arguments for its reform.
