ABSTRACT
The Government agreed to unified organisation of the insurance services, but said that they still reserved the question "whether the organisation should be a new Ministry or an administrative Board". They agreed also to unified, but separate, organisation of assistance on a national basis. Presumably, in Beveridge's words, "the Poor Law code will, it is proposed, be abolished", and this will wind up half a millenium of English social history. The Assistance Board itself is now answerable to the Minister of National Insurance, who will thus have final responsibility for assistance policy as well as for insurance. Administration of the State's sick pay will not be farmed out to approved societies of any description. The Ministry itself is to be the nation's sole "approved society" and will handle sickness benefit through its own offices, just as it will handle pensions, children's allowances, industrial injury payments and death grants.
