Influence of Welfare Pluralism in the United Kingdom: Analytical Essay

Welfare pluralism has had a major impact on the UK and for social and public policy. Since 1979 welfare pluralism has changed the whole welfare system, for good and bad. The meaning out welfare pluralism will be outline with regards to each of the four sectors and the implications welfare pluralism has made for social and public policy in regard to each of the four sectors.

Post WWII the welfare state was introduced which meant that the state was the main provider of welfare for the UK. This welfare system only lasted until 1979 which was when welfare pluralism was introduced by the Thatcher government. According to Hatch and Mocroft (1983) “welfare pluralism can be used to convey the fact that social and health care can be obtained from four different sectors- the statutory, the voluntary, the commercial and the informal”. Essentially this means the state allowed, encouraged the other sectors to provide welfare while the state took a lesser role in the provision of welfare. The introduction of welfare pluralism had many positive and negative implications for social and public policy which will be discussed soon. Welfare pluralism was popularized by the 1978 Wolfenden report on The Future of Voluntary Organisations and went on to influence social and public policy (Johnson, 1987). The Wolfenden report emphasised the increase role in other sectors that could provide welfare which diversifies the sectors roles within welfare. Other key aspects of welfare pluralism such as choice, shifts in role and more will be discussed.

The term ‘Welfare state’ originated from Labour government’s reforms post WWII (Encyclopædia Britannica). Central government provided social insurance, social assistance and the NHS (controlled by central government but administered by regional bodies and local management). The other welfare domains such as housing and education was provided by local government (subject to central government). This overall meant that the state had the responsibility to provide and fund welfare which is not the case today as there is now a mixed economy of welfare (welfare pluralism) which diversifies the responsibilities of provider and funder of welfare through four different sectors. Furthermore, Hatch and Mocroft in (Johnson, 1987, p.55) discussed this point as well and published “More prescriptively, welfare pluralism implies a less prominent role for the state, seeing it as not the only possible instrument for the collective of welfare services”. Thus, there was major implications for the state as the role in welfare domains for provider and funder had took a significant shift. For example, according to (Powell, 2019) from 1979/80 to 2013/14 there has been a major shift in funding and provision for many welfare domains e.g. in 1979/80 59% of housing provision and funding was from private sector but in 2013/14 there it is 23% increase in private provision and funding. This implies the state has a lesser role in the provision and funding in welfare housing. This can be seen in other welfare domains such as health care( 12% decrease in public funding/provision) and social care(30% decrease in public funding/provision) This shows the effect of welfare pluralism as the state is no longer the sole provider and funder and other sectors such as the private sector has a larger role/responsibility in welfare funding/provision (Powell, 2019). However, this shift in responsibility can be beneficial as the state as main provider has downsides such as increased bureaucracy. (Powell,2019) also concluded that the absence of bureaucracy resulted in “‘flexibility’ in problem resolution”

With the introduction of welfare pluralism this opened the way for the private sector to become involved in the welfare system. This was key to welfare pluralism as this diversified the roles and sectors involved in the welfare system. As a result, this led to the state having a lesser role in the provision of welfare. Thus, the ‘contract state’ came into existence. The contract state increased the role of the state as a funder, where the state is the purchaser and other sectors take the role as providers. The shift in role had beneficial effects throughout the 1980s and 90s with large savings of 20% annually with same quality level provided previously (Sassa, 2019) which benefits social and public policy greatly as this allowed the government to redistribute these savings to other domains if needed. One reason why the state had such savings, was that the state could not provide the same level of service as private companies with lower costs, which is due to the higher efficiency achieved by the private sector (Sassa 2019). However, the introduction of the contract state has many downsides, one being that the state has an “excessive focus on the lowest price and insufficient assessment of quality in selecting bids”. This resulted in lower quality of provision (many not meeting the minimum level of quality) and “unrealistic saving” (Sassa, 2019). One product of this failure is the G45 contract to run young offender facilities which resulted in poor treatment of young offender, being described as “degrading”. This is just one of many examples of failed contracts which resulted in the most vulnerable being affected negatively. As a result of these failures, the public trust in the ‘contract state’ has declined over the years with a poll in 2014 finding that two thirds of the public do not trust private companies to deliver public services. This could have major implications in social and public policy in the future as the continuous distrust in the private sector is increasing. in conclusion, the contract state has positive and negative implications of on social and public policy, but the negative implications far outweigh the positives as the most vulnerable are not receiving the services needed which is the main goal/objective of welfare.

As discussed previously, post WWII the welfare state was born with the Beveridge report. Under this new welfare system, the state became the primary source of welfare provision which impacted the voluntary sector negatively as they have less of a role in the provision of welfare. This system wasn’t changed until 1979 with the introduction of welfare pluralism. This introduction had mixed implications for the voluntary sector. The voluntary sector had an increased role in the welfare system as the voluntary sector provided anything above the “national minimum” (which was provided by the state). This increase in role resulted in the formation of a partnership between the state and voluntary sector. This partnership impacted social policy greatly as the state increased the use of grants. This increase was very significant as grants in 1979 was just £93 million but in the space of 8 years, more than tripled to £292 million in 1987. This increase in grants meant that voluntary organisation had increase financial security and increased provision capability. Government grants are very much still used today with a public policy example being the “Housing Voluntary Grant Scheme” which is provided to local organisations. This demonstrated the implications that welfare pluralism has made in public policy through the voluntary sector. However, the increased use of grants by the state reduces the independence of voluntary organisations as these organisations are far more reliant on the government and limited by regulations implemented by government. This loss in independence can result in ‘isomorphism’ which according to (Johnson,199,146) is “the process by which organisations become more like either their funders or their competitors” which essentially means the voluntary sector could become an agent of the state. According to Wolch(1990), the relationship between the state and the voluntary sector has changed from independent of one another to an interdependent relationship which means the voluntary sector and state rely on one another for support, e.g. voluntary sector dependent on resources and contract by the state and state relies on voluntary sector to provided such welfare provision. Overall, the state helps boost the voluntary sectors capabilities but in doing so take away the independence of such voluntary organisations and creates the impression that the voluntary sector is controlled by the state.

The informal sector in the UK according to (Graham, 1991, p.508) is “a resource through which an individual’s care-needs can be met by relatives and friends”. This type of care is also according to (Graham,1991) non-institutional, unpaid care and is provided through kinship. Examples of informal care could be a child taking care of a sick or disabled parent or vice versa. The informal sector has taken a larger role in provision of welfare with the introduction of the welfare pluralism which through policies emphasised the “greater involvement of families and communities in the care of dependent groups”. This idea for greater involvement of families and communities was brought forward in public policy with the NHS and Community Care Act (Graham, 1991). However, with the increased role placed upon the informal sector, females had greater roles in welfare. According to (Graham, 1991, p.509), two thirds of carers who care for 20 plus hours a week are female and also 75% of “woman in households with pre-school children are full-time carers”. This places a major disadvantage on woman as they are held back for job opportunities which creates greater inequalities within the UK which aims for equality of all. According to (x,x) woman who are cares in the informal sector are “time poor” as these woman take on large amount of unpaid work with many working over 20 hours a week unpaid(Graham,1991). However, the introduction of welfare pluralism has meant that the state tries to support the informal sector through varies policies such as the Care Act 2014

Overall this means that the states shift in role which resulted in an increased role on the informal sector has resulted in greater inequality.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the state has decreased their role in welfare provision and allowed/ encouraged other sectors to take up a bigger role. This led to a significant increase in provision of welfare by the private sector which had major benefits such as less bureaucracy which as discussed before allows more “flexibility in problem resolution”. Welfare pluralism also allowed the ‘contract state’ come into existence which in the first two decades was profitable for the state with savings up to 20% annually however this changed the states focus of quality to savings which led to lower quality and failure of contracts which affected the most vulnerable very poorly. The voluntary sector gained an increased role and responsibility in funding and provision of welfare which was beneficial as state grants to voluntary organisations increased dramatically when compared to pre-welfare pluralism, which helped voluntary organisations gain financial security. However, this increase in grants resulted in loss of independence for the voluntary organisations and increased reliability on the state which can give the impression that the voluntary sector is just an extension of the state or an agent of the state.