ABSTRACT
Debates about consumer charges for social services frequently provoke considerable disagreement about their legitimacy or utility as policy instruments. The legislative origins of charges for accommodation for the elderly can be found in the period immediately after the Second World War. However, powerful arguments were also made against providing residents with sufficient to meet the economic cost, and by default these arguments lent support to the operation of a minimum charge. The arguments for maintaining the prewar policy of charging consumers for the receipt of home help was linked to the wider consideration of the role of consumer charges that took place in the prelude to the 1946 legislation. Women were expected to resume their maternal roles, and eventually increases in charges were used as a very effective policy instrument to reduce the effective demand for public day care.
