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Levitt, I.

English

In 1945 the Labour Government undertook the wholesale reform of welfare provision.
Existing service provision was rationalised, greater National direction in service
delivery was introduced and a vast array of new needs were recognised as requiring
statutory support. Radical restructuring such as this does not of course occur
within a vaccum and underpinning the thrust of Labour's plans lay one very
important working class desire, the wiping out of the last vestiges of Poor Law
philosophy and practice. The thesis sets out to examine the origins within Scottish
society for change and the reasons why politicians laid great stress on
incorporating working class opinion within the framework of welfare provision.

Around 1890, at a time when the existing ratepayer philosophy of adequate, but
discriminatory relief had reduced pauperism to its lowest level, working class
material interests began to be threatened by a more advanced form of industrial
Capitalism. However with their acquisition of the vote in local elections it had
become possible for them to articulate their interests far more formally. Nevertheless,
before 1914, organised Labour was not sufficiently powerful to push through any
radical welfare demands and it was left to Liberals and National Administrators,
sensing the estrangement of the working classes from a more competitive system of
industrial Capitalism to formulate a policy that could incorporate their interests
within statutory welfare. The issue they sought to resolve essentially centred on
three particular aspects of provision, the relationship of the individual to
statutory social welfare, the view of individual development within the operation of
welfare and the role of government in the promotion and operation of policy. Yet
although the locus of National thought did shift, many property owners, especially at
the local level failed to adjust their perspectives sufficiently to permit a radical
restructuring of provision. Thus despite a stronger and more directive National
Administration emerging many issues remained unresolved.

After the War, with mass unemployment and an organised, assertive Labour movement
the issues and the debates moved onto a different plane. Firstly, in order to
preserve public order and property, Conservatives and local ratepayers were forced
to concede statutory assistance to the unemployed. Once granted, continued
working class pressure, especially after 1930 led to the establishment of a new and
more ameliorative policy in the conduct of distress relief. Secondly, in order
to achieve their statutory aims of promoting the health of the people, National
Administrators found themselves pressing for greater statutory provision in hospital
care. In the face of continued voluntary hospital and ratepayer hostility they
eventually aligned themselves with a section of the Labour Party, who acknowledging
the immediacies of the working class deprivation, had abandoned the tenets of
locally based democratic socialism. Thirdly, the cumbersome nature of a legalistic
Poor Law to promote individual need gradually pushed National Administrators
towards redefining poverty not in terms of a "right" which could be judged, but
as an administrative norm that could be effectively regulated by Civil Servant
action. Thus by 1945, a "positive", ameliorative and humanistic method for promoting
and regulating an individual's welfare had emerged. It was one that Conservatives
thought could retain working class loyalties and one which Labour felt could
fundamentally alter the distribution of rewards within a more advanced industrial
society

Levitt, Ian

Edinburgh Research Archive

Welfare and the Scottish Poor Law, 1890-1948

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Welfare and the Scottish Poor Law  1890-1948

https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/7231/1/344351.pdf

Welfare and the Scottish Poor Law : 1890-1948.

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