ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to describe and to evaluate some of the important changes that have taken place recently in the way social service resources are allocated. Some economists suggest that the dilemma is never resolved and that frustrated consumers of the social services are continually demanding more than they as tax payers are prepared to finance. The distribution of staff within a local authority or area health authority will have been determined, as part of a continuous process of political interplay between the professionals, the administrators and the elected or appointed representatives. Some allocation decisions are open and explicit and planned, others are unrecognised, implicit and unplanned. The chapters that follow seek to illuminate the rationing process by examining it at central government level. There are clearly disadvantages in trying to paint a picture on such a broad canvas. Most of the theoretical literature on the subject of public expenditure control is American.
