In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses Richard Titmuss's role in the making of British social policy studies after World War II. He begins with his impressions of Titmuss and his early experiences, and how his thoughts on the ends and means of social policy developed to maturity. In 1950, Titmuss published Problems of Social Policy, a study of the impact of war on British civil society and the response of the social services. During that same year, he was appointed to the Chair of Social Administration at the London School of Economics. Pinker considers a number of distinctive and often controversial features that characterised Titmuss's collectivist and unitary approach to the discussion of social policy and social problems. He also talks about the ‘conditional’ as opposed to what Titmuss claims is the open-ended nature of altruism and reciprocity in everyday life by focusing on on Titmuss's 1970 book The Gift Relationship.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker considers the more recent debates about community care as a key policy idea for social care by focusing on the recovery and cultivation of community that were on display in London in the 1880s in the Settlement Movement, and, in particular, at Toynbee Hall. Toynbee Hall, according to Pinker, was representative of the cross-currents of ideology and interest which were to transform the state–civil society relations in the formulation of British social welfare policies during the twentieth century. Pinker discusses some general issues with respect to formal social services and informal care in Britain. He also describes the community care programme at the University of Kent that focused on the decentralisation and specialisation of social work services for elderly people living in the community. Finally, he comments on the Griffiths proposals for community care and their implications for local authority personal social services.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker explains the main reasons for his dissent to the Report of the Working Party on the Role and Tasks of Social Workers, also known as the Barclay Report. The working party, headed by Peter Barclay, was established in 1980 ‘to review the role and tasks of social workers in local authority social services departments and related voluntary agencies in England and Wales and to make recommendations’. The Barclay Report argued that social work was necessary, but urged a new emphasis on ‘community social work’. Pinker was opposed to the neighbourhood social care model proposed by Roger Hadley and the community social work model. He argues that the report's proposal was a prescription for managerial chaos. Pinker concludes with a discussion of the implications of the Barclay Report for the education and training of social workers.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker examines how civil war influences T.H. Marshall's hypothesis that the civil, political and social rights of citizenship developed under conditions of peace. Using the examples of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Pinker discusses the conditions in which the advancement of welfare or well-being is likely to be seriously disrupted by focusing on Marshall's theory of citizenship and welfare. Marshall describes three key elements in the status of citizenship: civil rights, political rights and social rights. Pinker traces the history of the often conflictual relationship between England and Ireland in order to address a gap in Marshall's theory of citizenship and welfare, rendering it open to criticism. He suggests that civil wars ‘are not fought over the conventional issues of social welfare. Ordinary people are not prepared to kill or be killed in the cause of better social services’.

Social policies concerned with the areas of social care and of social work as a profession have always been topics on which Pinker has made significant contributions. His writings more frequently and in more detail dealt with what are often referred to as the ‘personal social services’ than those of, say, ...

In this chapter, Robert Pinker explores the conditionality and ‘mix’ of altruism and egoism and provides theoretical and rational rather than ideological or doctrinaire justifications for welfare pluralism. He begins by discussing The Price of Blood, a monograph that reviewed the arguments for and against paying blood donors and developing a role for competitive markets in the sale and purchase of blood products. Pinker challenges Richard Titmuss's analysis of the moral qualities that underpin exchange relationships in his 1970 book The Gift Relationship. He also reflects on his works Social Theory and Social Policy (1971) and The Idea of Welfare (1979) which, together with The Gift Relationship and Julian Le Grand's Motivation, Agency, and Public Policy (2003), illustrate the ways in which the normative debate about the ends and means of social policy and its entire institutional framework has changed.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker introduces the three institutional features which have come to make up citizenship — civil rights, political rights and social rights — by analysing T.H. Marshall's concept of citizenship from a generational perspective. He first considers Marshall's models of citizenship and ‘democratic welfare capitalism’, Michael Oakeshott's views on social policy and his notion of the state, and Max Weber's distinction between what he calls ‘formal’ and ‘substantive’ rationality. Pinker then explains how Marshall's concept of citizenship could be useful in understanding the everyday and subjective experience of citizenship at the level of everyday ‘life across the life cycle’. He also discusses the ways in which ordinary people secure their well-being and their welfare in everyday life, typically through means such as social services, the market, informal care and voluntary action. Finally, he describes the relationship between rationality and the sentiments of charitable discretion.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker considers the ways in which different generations of students perceive the history of social policy as well as the different vantage points in time from which each of us look back on our own lives. Pinker first discusses some of the scholars who had influenced his approach to the study of social policy from the 1950s onwards, including Richard Titmuss, T.H. Marshall, Brian Abel-Smith, and O.R. McGregor. He then describes the academic context in which he started his career and wrote Social Theory and Social Policy and explains his interest in developing theories and models of social welfare for purposes of historical and comparative research. Pinker also talks about the variety of topics he explored in his research, such as the moral dynamics of welfare institutions.

This book looks at the concept of stigma in the context of social welfare. The idea of 'social welfare' is commonly identified with the 'social services'. Both terms are regrettably unclear. 'Welfare' can be taken to mean 'relief'; a 'welfare recipient' is someone who receives a monetary allowance. Secondly, 'welfare' refers to individual well-being; in economics, 'social welfare' refers to the overall well-being of a society. Thirdly, it signifies a pattern of organised activities equivalent to the social services (Butterworth, Holman, 1975, 15). This is the principal use of the term in studies of social administration. Social welfareis an omnibus term used to cover a wide range of activities in society. These activities are concerned with the maintenance or promotion of social well-being. (Ibid, 14) This is a very wide concept. 'Social well-being' covers anything that could be argued to be good for society. All collectively provided services, Titmuss writes, are deliberately designed to meet socially recognised needs (1955, 39). ('Need' is used to signify those things which are deemed essential for the well-being of individuals or groups.) But not all services provided on this basis are social services: the army is an obvious example. The needs that are dealt with are of a specific kind. The services which are most commonly accepted in Britain as being social services are health, housing, education, social security and social work. They have in common, not only that they provide for needs, but that people receive directly a good or a service from them and are therefore dependent. Titmuss refers to states of dependency which are recognised as collective responsibilities (1955, 42-3). These include injury, disease, disability, old age, childhood, maternity and unemployment. People in these circumstances rely on socially provided goods and services, and it is this reliance which is the distinguishing characteristic of social welfare and the social services. Eyden writes that A social service is a social institution that has developed to meet the personal needs of individual members of society not adequately or effectively met by either the individual from his own or his family's resources or by commercial or industrial concerns. (in Byrne, Padfield, 1978, 1) This definition implies, firstly, that the social services respond to individual need; and secondly, that they do so only when other methods have failed. This is true of some services, but not of others: education, or health, are accepted as social services, but are provided without regard to other resources which could meet the need. Greve (1971), by contrast, cites a definition of a social service from a UN report: lt is an organized activity that aims at helping towards a mutual adjustment of individuals and their social environment. This objective is achieved through the use of techniques and methods which are designed to enable individuals, groups and communities to solve their problems of adjustment to a changing pattern of society, and through co-operatlve action to improve economic and social conditions. (Greve, 1971, 184-5) The definition, Greve notes, makes three points. The first is that the provision of social services is not simply a transaction in which a passive person receives bounty (in the form of cash, kind or counselling) from the rest of the community. Nor, as many still think, is a social service concerned to get people to adjust unilaterally to society or to their possibly squalid environment. ... society must also adjust to the individual. (Ibld, p 185 ) The second point is that social services help groups and communities, not only individuals. Eyden suggested that social services were individual and residual. But dependency is not necessarily a feature of individuals: a group or community may be collectively dependent. The third point is that there is a 'positive, developmental function' pursued through'co-operative action'.This is a good definition, but it has its weaknesses. Its essential flaw is that it is prescriptive rather than descriptive. It puts great emphasis on self-determination either by enabling people to meet their needs, or by cooperative action - when the relationship may be one of passive dependency. It emphasises mutual adjustment, whereas the reality may be a matter of social control. The concept of dependency does not in itself imply either adjustment or control, or determine a developmental function; but it is consistent with them, as it is consistent with other policies. A social service can be defined as a social institution which is developed to provide for those conditions of dependency which are recognised as collective responsibilities. This is a restricted definition, but I believe it reflects the actual use of the term. Housing, health, social security, education and social work are social services because they deal with conditions of dependency. Urban planning, road building, libraries and the police force do not. This is the distinction between social and public services. The distinction may seem irrational, and in some ways it is. The study of social policy has moved increasingly towards treating them on an equivalent basis; but 'social policy', which takes in any policy affecting relations in society, is a wider concept than a study of the social services. The distinction is not completely arbitrary; states of dependency do present a distinctive set of problems, and those problems are central to this study. 'Social welfare' is not used quite synonymously with 'social services', although the terms are very close: references to 'social welfare services' can be found (e.g. Reisman, 1977, 50), which seem to mean, not services to promote welfare, but rather services which perform the function called 'social welfare'. Social welfare can be defined as organised activity to improve the condition of people who are dependent. Stigma and social welfare Stigma is an important concept in the study of social administration; it has been described as the central issue (Pinker, 1971, 136). A stigma marks the recipient of welfare, damages his reputation, and undermines his dignity. It is a barrier to access to social services, and an experience of degradation and rejection. The imposition of stigma, Pinker writes, is the commonest form of violence used in democratic societies. (1971, 175). Although some sociologists have tried to claim it for their own (e.g. Lemert, 1972, 15), 'stigma' is not an academic term; people who are embarrassed or ashamed of their dependency on social services use the word to describe their feelings. An unemployed miner talks about the stigma of going up to the dole every week, I think it's awful. (cited Gould, Kenyon, 1972, 21) A tenant of a 'sink' estate says, It is stigmatised ... You felt ashamed to say you were from Abbeyhills, because of the stigma. (Flessati, 1978) A person who had been committed to a mental institution for three days ln 1935 wrote to a Royal Commission more than twenty years later asking to get my name off your registers so that I no longer bear the stigma of being a certified person. (Cmnd.169, 1957, 97) And a recipient of Supplementary Benefit complains, It's shame, the stigma of it. Richardson, Naidoo, 1978, 27) 'Stigma' is a part of common speech; and, like many other common words, it has no precise definition, but is used in a way that assumes other people will understand it. Exposition of the concept has been limited, and the idea has been accepted, for the most part, uncritically. References to 'stigma' ln studies of social administration tend to be made in passing; they are asserted, without the benefit of reason or evidence. I have built up an argument, in many places, on the basis of references like these - a short passage from one book, a phrase from another - in order to illustrate both the way the idea is used, and some of the underlying assumptions made about it. The result is, I hope, rather more than a selective review; it is an attempt to clarify the different uses of the word, to establish whether a coherent concept can be constructed, and to see what the implications of the idea of stigma are for social policy.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses the complex relationship between social theory and social policy in democratic societies, focusing on the work of the philosophers Hilary Putnam and Karl Popper. Pinker first considers the distinction between scientific theory, normative theory and ideology and whether it is possible — or desirable — to design and implement rational social policies in the fractious world of democratic party politics. He then examines the interrelationships between policy making, policy research and public opinion and goes on to describe behavioural and structural models of poverty, as well as how poverty relates to liberal individualism, social inequality, socialism and collectivism. Pinker argues that the development and testing of theories is an essential element in the conduct of social research. He also comments on the work of Amartya Sen on the capability approach and its relevance to poverty analysis.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses the factors that have been most instrumental in the making of the welfare state by comparing the experiences of Britain, America and Russia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He examines each country's social welfare provisions, especially over the balance between provisions based on self-help and those emanating from the state, by focusing on their contrasting popular cultures and the political and moral values involved. He also considers the international aspects of social welfare and issues relating to migration, immigration and imperialism. According to Pinker, ‘perhaps the most neglected index of popular welfare preference has been the private ownership of land, either as a means of livelihood or as a location for property’. He concludes by suggesting an alternative hypothesis which questions the ‘optimistic’ collectivist view of social policy development at both national and international levels.

Introduction Robert Pinker on Rethinking Approaches to Welfare ~ John Offer Part 1: Introduction to Part One: On Social Policy Studies The Ends and Means of Social Policy: A Personal and Generational Perspective Social Theory and Social Policy: A Challenging Relationship Stigma and Social Welfare The Welfare State: A Comparative Perspective (with an Afterthought by Robert Pinker) Richard Titmuss and the Making of British Social Policy Studies after the Second World War: A Reappraisal (with an Afterthought by Robert Pinker) Part 2: Introduction to Part Two: On Social Care, Communities, and the Conditions for Well-being Report of the Working Party on the Role and Tasks of Social Workers: An Alternative View The Quest for Community: From the Settlement Movement to the Griffith's Report Citizenship, Civil War and Welfare: The Making of Modern Ireland Part 3: Introduction to Part Three: On Welfare Pluralism Golden Ages and Welfare Alchemists From Gift Relationships to Quasi-markets - An Odyssey along the Policy Paths of Altruism and Egoism The Experience of Citizenship: A Generational Perspective The Right to Welfare The Prospects for Social Policy in the United Kingdom After the 2015 General Election ~ Robert Pinker.

In this afterthought, Robert Pinker reflects on the prospects for social policy in the UK after Brexit. On 23 June 2016. the UK electorate voted to leave the European Union. The process of exiting the EU would commence right after the UK Government declared its intention to leave by triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Pinker discusses the debate in the UK regarding the kind of Brexit favoured by those who wanted to leave the EU — a ‘hard’ or a ‘soft’ one. He also considers the legal challenges to a fast-track Brexit, along with the Prime Minister's Lord Mayor's keynote speech promising to adopt a new approach to managing the forces of globalisation and the Chancellor's Autumn Statement on 23 November 2017. Finally, he looks at the funding crisis in UK health and social care services, the government's 12-point Brexit Plan, and the Supreme Court's rulings on Article 50.

In this chapter, Robert Pinker reflects on the implications of the largely unexpected outcome to the 2015 general election in the UK that termined the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition and saw the return of single party government by Conservatives for the first time since 1992. He first considers the social policy proposals set out in the Conservative and Labour Party 2015 election manifestos before discussing how the government clarified its post-election policy intentions in three keynote speeches as it prepared the ground for the Chancellor's presentation of his July Budget. He then analyses the Chancellor's position on tax credits, Labour's response to his budget proposals, the concurrent progress of its leadership election campaign and its eventual outcome. Pinker concludes with an assessment of the ways in which these events, and their ideological ramifications, might affect the prospects for health and social care in the UK over the next five years.

Nearly forty years ago, the publication of 'The Price of Blood' (1968) and 'The Gift Relationship' (1970) added a new dimension of ideological conflict to the debate about the values, ends and means of social policy. The questions that Richard Titmuss posed in 'The Gift Relationship' are still discussed in current debates about the respective merits of unitary and pluralist models of welfare, the egoistic and altruistic motives that underpin them, and the rights and responsibilities intrinsic to the status of citizenship. The ways in which the content and focus of these debates have changed over the past forty years are here reviewed, taking Titmuss's 'The Gift Relationship', my own contributions in 'Social Theory and Social Policy' (1971) and 'The Idea of Welfare' (1979), and Julian Le Grand's 'Motivation, Agency and Public Policy' (2003) as the temporal and salient points of reference. A brief introduction describes how the academic debate became sharply polarized in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and how a key decision about the future development of this journal was taken at the same time.