ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the extent to which three key sectors in British social policy – personal social services, social housing and primary medical care – have involved mixed economies at various points in time. It shows that the British story has been rather different for two reasons. First, the emergence of a state role in the personal social services and social housing has been very much dominated by services run by local government, subsidised and supervised by central government. Second, a series of policy changes in the 1980s and 1990s partly ended the relatively simple pattern of state run services. The modernfor housing projects to improve statutory social services only really emerged after the Second World War. Personal social services changes were made necessary by one of Labour’s political commitments in 1945: to sweep away the last vestiges of the Poor Law. The Labour government of 1945–1951 substantially extended the subsidies to local authority housing departments.
