Social security is by far the largest public expenditure programme and now accounts for a quarter of all public expenditure. Unlike most of the other expenditure programmes, social security has up to now been protected from intentional cuts: there has been controversy about whether benefits have been increased sufficiently to maintain their value but no government since the war has explicitly admitted that it intended to cut benefits to reduce expenditure on social security. The Conservative government elected in 1979 changed all this. They plan to reduce public expenditure in volume terms over the four years 1980/1-1983/4 and social security has not escaped the axe. The proposals for cuts are discussed later in this chapter but first, in order to indicate why public expenditure on social security has managed to avoid earlier cuts by successive governments and why the present government's plans are so significant, it would be useful to outline the special nature of social security expenditur
