Government Policy and Ideologies of Welfare

G everywheren man spott indemnity and Ideologies of WelfareWith reference to deepens in authorities policy and ideologies of upbeat, debate the logical implication of the shift from victorian pauper to 21st century proceeds go forr and its restore on fond devise practice and values.By charting changes in government policy and well-being ideologies, this essay will discuss the significance of the stir up from the victorian Pauper towards the 21st century Service User and examine how this has influenced tender roleplay values and practice. But number one, brief consideration must(prenominal) be given to offering a definition of these terms. The Oxford incline Dictionary (2009 online) defines a pauper as roughlybody with no property or means of alimentation who is dependent upon charity from others and a beggar. Terminology has changed dramatically and the term value user emerged in the 1990s as the generic name for nation kind workers work with (Pierson Thomas , 2006 560). In contrast to pauper, the Collins Internet-Linked Dictionary of brotherly use by Pierson and Thomas (2006 560) offersits popularity has spread among practitioners, managers and genial work educators akin as it seems to convey the to a greater extent contemporary emphasis on those who throw the go having some mightys and influence over that service (Ibid.).All societies ask methods of assisting those in financial difficulties (Payne, 2005 13) and the 1601 English low Law was the first internal wellbeing provision that lasted in one form or other for 350 historic period (Spicker, 2008 78). However, in the 18th century, the brusk Law Report exhibit the current allowance system was demoralising and promoted idleness (Fraser, 2009 53). This, coupled with a proliferation of paupers and escalating relief costs, led to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 which heralded the origination of workhouses, designed to deter everyone that the destitute from applying for book (Thane, 1996 31). It was hoped by replacing show updoor relief with the workhouse, the faults of the current system would be corrected (Fraser, 2009 55). Ultimately, it provided a harsh alternative to self-help that the pauper would tho accept when destitute and fearing the workhouse, they would hopefully bewilder employment (Ibid. 55-56). This was in keeping with the general kind philosophy of the cadence that supposed men were masters of their own fate and that the unmarried had at heart his grasp the power to find his own salvation (Ibid. 56). Those requiring service were unsaved for their position and expected to find solutions to their own self-imposed misery (Sullivan, 1996 xiv). Therefore, the Victorian Poor Law divided the needy into the deserving and ugly execrable with the deserving worthy of philanthropic assistance whilst the undeserving was punished for their awkward behaviour (Ibid.). In essence, the Amendment Act successfully forced able-bodied men to take responsibility for themselves (Thane, 1996 33).Throughout the 1880s charitable responses to suffering grew (Payne, 2005 36) and the philanthropic Organisation Society was schematic in 1869, aiming to persuade charities to organise resources so they were distributed to those best able to use them (Thane, 1996 21). The romaine lettuce was not an alternative to the Poor Law, but the flip side of the same coin (Payne, 2005 36) and its principles encouraged wad to become self-dependent and only helped those with potential to certification themselves (Thane, 1996 21). It provided charity for the deserving and hence, left(p) those without potential to become self-dependent to destitution or the Poor Law (Ibid. 21-34). Furtherto a greater extent, COS endeavoured to find lasting solutions to sights problems, without re paltry them from their environment and pioneered the practice of case-work whereby investigations were conducted into clients backgrounds who were then helped if deemed worthy (Ibid.). untold had to be said for this case-work approach, which provided a real attempt to investigate the genius of the peoples problems (Ibid.) and essentially, through and through the development of this method, created social work (Payne, 2005 38).Many people down the stairsmentioned COS principles in theory found it challenging to abandon those in desperate need in practice (Thane, 1996 23). Hence, dissatisfaction generated wise voluntary approaches, including the extermination Movement, which initiated modern community work (Ibid.). Residential settlement Toynbee dorm was established in 1884 where graduates would live and work among the poor a model reprised throughout the country by the end of the century (Ibid.). It aimed for them to utilise their moral exemplar and education to foster social development (Payne, 2005 37) and its warden Samuel Barnett countd class harmony and substantive improvement would only improve when the rich regarded the p oor as as worthy individuals (Thane, 1996 21).Moving to the twentieth century, following the Second World War, primordial welfare changes were introduced under the travail government in accordance with a blueprint proposed in the 1942 Beveridge Report (Bochel, 2008 192). Subsequently, the period from 1945 until the 1970s is consideredOne of political consensus on key issues, stemming from a combination of the frugal philosophy of Keynes, and the social policy of Beveridge, enshrining the ideas of the mixed economy and the welfare sound out (Ibid.).During this period it was expect societies had progressed, rendering the state responsible for providing universal welfare provision for citizens (Payne, 2005 50). Subsequently, the state established a range of social serve in the new era of welfare capitalism and this social security was regarded as the shaft that would eradicate poverty (Sullivan, 1996 xiii-3). The welfare state was created to put welfare on a new footing (Briggs , 1961 cited in Spicker, 2008 121) where everyone, not just the poor, had the right to access services (Spicker, 2008 121). This contrasted starkly to when support was confined to the destitute and by design made unpleasant under the Poor Law (Checkland Checkland, 1974 cited in Spicker, 2008 121) and this load to universalism provided an obvious change from the past (Sullivan, 1996 54). Moreover, social work was becoming sure as part of universal welfare provision alongside health, hold and social security (Payne, 2005 50) and in the 25 years following the war, a gradual professionalizing shift occurred (Lymberry, 2001 371). Subsequently, following the 1968 Seebohm Report and the 1970 Local Authority companionable Services Act, the three experienceing personal social services were regroup into unified local trust departments (Sullivan, 1996 195-196). It was hoped this would provide a more co-ordinated and universal approach to the problems of individuals, families and comm unities (Seebohm Report, 1968 quoted in Lymberry, 2001 371). Fundamentally, this was a period of proliferation and consolidation for social work with the hope it would contribute towards creating a more equal society (Lymberry, 2001 371).This front end to the welfare state from the Poor Law is referred to as the progression to institutional welfare from residual provision (Wilensky Lebeaux, 1965 cited in Spicker, 2008 92). Residual welfare catered for a limited number of people, was provided under sufferance and regarded as a domain burden (Spicker, 2008 92). Furthermore, the Poor Law was punitive in nature, limited liabilities through deterrence and deprived paupers of their rights (Ibid.). Contrastingly, institutional welfare covered the general populations needs, heedless of their financial circumstances, and offered protection to everyone (Ibid.). It was built on accepting mutual responsibility, considered addiction to be normal, and was establish on the premise of a right to welfare and citizenship, (Ibid.). Theoretically, this universalism provided the only delegacy to guarantee high quality of services were purchasable for all and re move the stigma associated with state services (Sullivan, 1996 54).During the two decades by and by the war, governments believed in Keynesian demand management techniques and Beveridges social ideas (Ibid. 90). However, from the late sixties these economic policies failed and the UK faced a fiscal crisis of the state (Ibid.). Subsequently, when the conservativists were elected in 1979, the ideology of the new-sprung(prenominal) proficient dominated and heralded a change from the post-war welfare consensus (Lymberry, 2001 372). This period was characterised by Neo-liberal thinking, which fundamentally questioned the state-delivered institutions forming the welfare state, and these pictures generate impact policy-making and the welfare system during recent decades (Ellison, 2008 61-67). For example, Thatchers government was dedicated to roll back the state and denying mutual commitments among citizens because allegedly society did not exist but comprised of competing individuals alternatively (Lowe, 1999 307). They aspired for those dependent on the state to become freelance becauseIf those in need were encouraged to look passively to the state for help, they would be denied the invigorating experience of self-help and of family or community care (Ibid.).Therefore, the New Right were committed to re-moralising society, just as Poor Law reformers of the 1830s had before them, with a return to Victorian values (Ibid.). This generated a reduction in benefits and conditions stipulated for accessing these were tough (Clarke et al., 2000 3). Furthermore, an increasing stigma was attached to everydayly provided welfare and it was, in some respects, criminalised by linking US notions of welfare dependency and demoralisation to UK ideas of scrounging and undeserving (Ibid.). Fundamentally, we lfare had come full circle whenIndividualism as the motor of economic and social policy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centurys gave way to the collectivism of that classic welfare state only to re-emerge in the late twentieth century (Sullivan, 1996 xv).New Right emphasis on the sanctity of marriage and family, the demonization of those who threatened these and their promotion of a social order based on Victorian values impacted on social work (Lymberry, 2001 372). It was forced to abandon its pretensions to providing a universalist service and focus on statutory duties, omitting the preventative remit laid out in the Seebohm Report (Ibid.). Furthermore, it underlined individuals looking subsequently themselves and their families (Bochel, 2008 194). Subsequently, social work changed after the Barclay Report of the 1980s, which introduced community social work strategies and encouraged local authority social services departments to develop alternative ways of face-off socia l need (Sullivan, 1996 196). This approach envisaged moving from the traditional one-to-one focus towards facilitating self-help by communities, social networks, and individuals (Ibid.). Moreover, it heralded the movement of social workers from therapists to enablers, supporting informal carers instead of providing the care themselves (Ibid.).When looking at New Labour and their Third mode approach, a decisive shift has occurred in the role of the recipients of social work services. For example, Blair (2000 cited in Jordan, 2001 529) intended to change the welfare state from delivering passive support towards fighting(a) support, promoting citizens independence instead. Taking the middle ground between free-market principles of the Conservative years and old style socialism it meant services would demand more from citizens, requiring people to contribute to a responsible community (Jordan, 2001 529-530). This tougher approach to welfare is evident in expecting many single parents, the disabled, and those receiving employment benefits to actively prove employment (Ellison, 2008 67). Additionally, benefits are now less generous and more strictly means-tested than in the height of Keynesian welfare (Ibid.).Furthermore, the development of anti-oppressive practice signals a change in the attitudes towards the role of users of social work services. Anti-oppressive practice has emerged over the last decade, forms part of the critical social work tradition, and is concerned with transforming power relations at every level in practice (Healy, 2005 172-178). Theorists believe the social work role is political with social workers holding a privileged status in comparison to service users (Ibid). Therefore, social workers must be critical and reflective in order to not replicate oppressive social relations in practice (Ibid.). Furthermore, it promotes working in partnership with service users with power genuinely shared at both an interpersonal and institutional level (Dalrymple and Burke, 1995 65 cited in Healy, 2005 187). Thus, service users opportunities for interest in decision-making should be maximised (Healy, 2005 187). amicable work has been affected by the unabated advancement of consumer capitalism and service users are expected to be more involved in arranging and managing services (Harris, 2009 67). The New Right ideas forceful that citizens had a right to freedom and choice (Ibid. 68) and recent Conservative and Labour administrations realise encouraged citizens to participate in welfare services utilising market- akin approaches to credit and increased empowerment in decision-making (Bochel, 2008 194). Efforts have been made to promote service user fraternity in planning and development with the view that their active role improves health and social care services (Carr, 2004 2). Furthermore, the importance of individual choice in improving provider effectiveness, the notion of citizens rights and responsibilities and a belief that individuals involvement in decision-making results in solutions that better meet their needs have been underlined (Bochel, 2008 194-195). This is evident in the Direct Payments scheme, endorsed on the basis of choice and independence, and demonstrates that the state increasingly expects citizens to be competent enterprising, managerial and autonomous individuals (Scourfield, 2007 108). However, as Scourfield (Ibid.) asserts this raises concerns closely dependent citizens and emphasisesa danger of using independence and choice as central organizing principles is to forget how and why the public sector emerged in the first placeto ensure that those who are necessarily dependent are tough with respect and dignity, to ensure a collectivized approach to risk, and to ensure that fix and reliable forms of support outside of the market or the family are procurable.Additionally, as Carr (2004 2) found, the extent to which service user participation leads to improvements in services varies and there is little monitoring and evaluation of the difference user participation is making. Furthermore, despite citizenship, choice, community, social inclusion and autonomy being key to New Labours programme, (Blair, 1998 cited in Humphries, 2004 95) Humphries (2004 95) contends Labours pursuing of neo-liberal economic and morally repressive policies has degraded public services punishing and excluding those regarded as having been given a chance but having failed. She proposes it is social workers who are expected to implement the surveillance systems that operate these policies and under New Labour a shift has occurred towards social work having an increasingly negative and narrow practice focussed on restriction, surveillance, control and elision (Ibid. 93-95). Thus, social work is concerned with the moralistic side of Labours policies rather than with empowering people instead (Jordan, 2001 cited in Humphries, 2004 94). Moreover, since 1993, increasingly punitive and repressive measures have been introduced to deter asylum seekers from coming to Britain and if they are granted access they enter an brutish and inferior welfare system (Humphries, 2004 100). Acts much(prenominal) as the 1993 Asylum and in-migration Appeals Act and the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act removed those subject to immigration controls from the welfare state (Ibid. 101) and Cohen (2003 cited in Humphries, 2004 101) describes the asylum support system as the creation of a modern day poor law based on coercion and lack of choice.This essay has documented the move from the use of the Victorian term pauper to the 21st century term service user by looking at shifts in government policy and welfare ideologies and its impact on social work. Looking back, one would hope we have progressed from the Victorian Poor Law that blamed the pauper for their need of assistance and deterred them from accessing support by rendering it as unpleasant as possible. However, when observing the cockeyed means-tested benefit system and New Labours tough approach welfare, ascertaining whether we have moved forward becomes questionable. Zarb (2006 2), referring to how older couples can be separated due to lodging and care allocation, questions whether citizens are still treated like the paupers in the Poor Law era who were regularly split up for not meeting the parishes criteria for support. Furthermore, to finish, Wynne-Jones (2007 online), writing on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website, highlights that today the media still assigns different types of morality to types of povertyThe undeserving poor are the Asbo kids and the hoodies, the drug-addicted and long-term unemployed. On the other hand, the deserving poor look a lot like middle Englanders fallen on hard times.Having spent time with a group of troubled young people on a Peckham estate, following the death of Damilola Taylor in 2000, she believes that it is through the stereotyped comedy characters such as Litt le Britains Vicky Pollard that Middle England reveals how threatened it feels about the undeserving poor utilising comedy as a means of criticising our societies underclass (Ibid.). She maintains that as Middle England laughs from the unease that people like this exist on our poorest estates, years on from Damilolas death, we are still failing those, like the group in Peckham, who are damaged so badly by life that their only empowerment is to attack others (Ibid.). 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