Abstract
Universalists, such as Titmuss and Townsend, have consistently condemned the use of charges and means tests in the welfare sector. This may explain why so many students of social policy dismiss out of hand all arguments in favour of selective welfare provision and why little empirical research has been carried out into consumers’ reactions to the use of charges and means-testing. The consequences of their use have tended to be assumed rather than proved. Yet taken at face value much of the selectivists’ case in favour of charges and means tests makes good sense. It is difficult to deny, for example, the logic of concentrating scarce welfare resources on those otherwise unable to obtain help. Indeed universalists do not deny that the only way to ensure that the social services redistribute welfare to the poor is to positively discriminate in their favour. Supporters of the NHS and compulsory state education now accept that the relatively affluent have tended to get more out of them than the poor and deprived. According to Brian Abel-Smith, ‘The main effect of the post war development of the social services has been to provide free social services to the middle classes.’1 Universalists, however, reject consumer charges combined with means tests as the answer to this problem.
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References
B. Abel-Smith, ‘Whose Welfare State?’, in N. McKenzie (ed.), Conviction (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1958) p. 57.
See E. Ferlie and K. Judge, ‘Retrenchment and Rationality in the Personal Social Services’, Policy and Politics, vol. 9, no. 3 (1981) pp. 311–30.
M. Carlisle, reported in The Times Higher Educational Supplement, no. 388 (1980) p. 32.
R. Parker, ‘Policies, Presumptions and Prospects in Charging for the Social Services’, in K. Judge (ed.), Pricing the Social Services (London: Macmillan, 1980) p. 28.
Ibid.
Quoted by K. Judge and J. Matthews, Charging for Social Care (London: Allen & Unwin, 1980) p. 54.
Select Committee on Estimates, Child Care: Sixth Report from the Select Committee on Estimates, Session 1951–52 (London: HMSO, 1952) p. 74.
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R. Parker, ‘Policies, Presumptions and Prospects in Charging for the Social Services’, p. 36.
Ibid, p. 28.
Ibid, p. 29.
Ibid, p. 29.
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This argument is considered in K. Judge, ‘An Introduction to the Economic Theory of Pricing’.
K. Judge and J. Matthews, Charging for Social Care, p. 138.
Ibid, p. 82.
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Ibid, p. 29.
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L. Burghes, Living From Hand to Mouth, Poverty Pamphlet 50 (London: Child Poverty Action Group, 1980) p. 15.
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Ibid, p. 880.
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© 1983 Peggy Foster
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Foster, P. (1983). Charges and Means Tests. In: Access to Welfare. Studies in Social Policy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-86064-7_9
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