ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a framework for analysing the broad consequences of social policy on the structure of society. For obvious reasons, Britain was used as the case study but it is hoped that the framework adopted could be applied to other advanced industrial societies. There has been a tendency in social policy literature to confuse aims with consequences and to use these two notions interchangeably. It is, therefore, necessary to distinguish between the two. Aims refer to the intentions or aspirations of social policies; consequences are the actual outcomes of social policy. The chapter relates the detailed and particular aims of individual services, and the broader aims which cut across individual services and which affect the social, economic and political structure of society. Clearly, the documentation of the political consequences of social policy is a far more difficult affair than the documentation of its social and economic consequences.
