ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book clearly demonstrates that the Beveridge Report did indeed require detailed planning to turn its proposals into reality, and it is mainly on the details that the academic assault on the Report has been mounted. The academic scepticism about Beveridge engendered by the adopted methodology is reinforced by the historiographical dimension. The generic fear of poverty was reinforced in the 1930s by the resentment of the indignities heaped on the unemployed by the family means test. The translation of the Beveridge Report into the Welfare State in less than six years provides a remarkable case study of the formation of social policy and its relationship to its historical context.
