ABSTRACT
'To be blunt the British social security system has lost its way', 1 This opening observation in an official Green Paper on the need for reform echoes the sense of disillusionment often expressed in Britain, as in other developed countries with lengthy experience of the social security and other policies loosely comprehended by the term 'the welfare state'. Although various reforms have been carried out, dissatisfaction remains. Welfare expenditure is immense. If attention is confined to cash benefits, which constitute the social security system, to the health service and to the personal social services, Britain's annual public expenditure corresponds to over a fifth of gross national product. One person in two at any one time is in receipt of a cash benefit of some kind. Yet this vast ouday does not seem sufficient. Even the protection against want seems inadequate with large numbers still living 'in poverty', in some sense of that admittedly ambiguous term. There has been a similar disappointment in the failure to meet the full 'need' for health services, education and housing. These various failures have often been explained by saying that, although much has been spent, still more is required. Or it may be held that the means adopted for implementing welfare policies have been seriously defective and vulnerable to manipulation by special interest groups. It is also possible that the disillusionment may reflect obscurity and ambiguity in the objectives themselves and thus in the criteria by which success or failure have been determined. Or — a very likely explanation — there may be a conflict between objectives which has resulted in unsatisfactory compromises. Whatever the explanation, the difficulties and the dissatisfaction are not to be regarded as peculiarly British, for this is the common experience throughout the developed world. A striking example is the Swedish social security system - often held up as a model of its kind where serious problems are being encountered in sustaining its towering edifice of pensions (Ch. 11). In other European countries, and in North America, there are similar problems.
