ABSTRACT
The word program, or program in its American spelling, comes from the Greek word program– to write publicly – which adds a touch of irony to the secrecy in which the program budgeting activities of Her Majesty's Government are conducted. There follows an Act entirely concerned with specifying the structure of the system–the ages and stages of the education process. The largest and most directly comparable to their British counterparts are the Social Security programs. The current debates and developments in American public assistance are, in some ways, reminiscent of the British history in the 1930s. The Health Services and Mental Health Administration (HSMHA) gives grants to a wide variety of private and voluntary organisations and to state and local governments, to assist in and promote a whole range of activities that have at various times caught the attention of Congressmen or Presidents as special cases.
