Sir William Beveridge begins his report by saying that in one respect only of first importance ╤ namely, limitation of medical service ╤does Britain╒s achievement in social insurance fall seriously short of what has been accomplished elsewhere. It falls short also in its provision for cash benefit for maternity and funerals and through the defects of its system for workmen╒s compensation. In all other fields British provision for security, in adequacy of amount and in comprehensiveness, will stand comparison with that of any other country; few countries will stand comparison with Britain.
But the services as they exist to-day are conducted by a complex of disconnected administrative organs, proceeding on different principles, doing invaluable service, but at a cost in money and trouble and anomalous treatment of identical problems for which there is no justification. He notes the difference between income in unemployment and in sickness. An adult insured man with a wife and two children receives 38s. if unemployed; if after some weeks he falls sick and is not available for work his insurance income sinks to 18s. There are four different types of means test.
THREE PRINCIPLES
Sir William Beveridge says he had three guiding principles:
The first principle is that any proposals for the future, while they should use to the full the experience gathered in the past, should not be restricted by consideration of sectional interests established in the obtaining of that experience. Now, when the war is abolishing landmarks of every kind, is the opportunity for using experience in a clear field. A revolutionary moment in the world╒s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.
The second principle is that organisation of social insurance should be treated as one part only of a comprehensive policy of social progress. Social insurance fully developed may provide income security; it is an attack on Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness.
The third principle is that social security must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual. The State should offer security for service and contribution. The State in organising security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility, in establishing a national minimum it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family.
Abolition of want requires a double redistribution of income, through social insurance and by family needs. To prevent interruption or destruction of earning power from leading to want it is necessary to improve the present schemes of social insurance in three directions by extension of scope to cover persons now excluded, by extension of purposes to cover risks now excluded, and by raising the rates of benefit.
Abolition of want requires, second, adjustment of incomes, in periods of earning as well as in interruption of earning, to family needs; that is to say, in one form or another it requires allowances for children. Without such allowances as part of benefit or added to it, to make provision for large families, no social insurance against interruption of earnings can be adequate. But if children╒s allowances are given only where earnings are interrupted and are not given during earning also, two evils are unavoidable. First, a substantial measure of acute want will remain among the lower-paid workers as the accompaniment of large families. Second, in all such cases, income will be greater during unemployment or other interruptions of work than during work.
ABOLITION OF WANT THE AIM
By a double redistribution of income through social insurance and children╒s allowances, want, as defined in the social surveys, could have been abolished in Britain before the present war. The income available to the British people was ample for such a purpose. The plan for social security takes abolition of want after this war as its aim. It includes as its main method compulsory social insurance, with national assistance and voluntary insurance as subsidiary methods. It assumes allowances for dependent children as part of its background. The plan assumes also establishment of comprehensive health and rehabilitation services and maintenance of employment ╤ that is to say, avoidance of mass unemployment ╤ as necessary conditions of success in social insurance. These three measures ╤ of children╒s allowances, health and rehabilitation services, and maintenance of employment ╤ that is to say, avoidance of mass unemployment-as necessary conditions of success in social insurance. These three measures ╤ of children╒s allowances, health and rehabilitation services, and maintenance of employment ╤ are described as assumptions A, B, and C of the plan; they fall partly within and partly without the plan itself, extending into other fields of social policy.
Social security as envisaged in this report is pre-eminently not a plan ╥for giving to everybody something for nothing and without trouble.╙ It is a plan to secure to each citizen an income adequate to satisfy a national minimum standard ╥on condition of service and contribution and in order to make and keep men fit for service.╙
The changes suggested therefore ╥accord with two views as to the lines on which the problem of income maintenance should be approached╙: first, ╥that benefit in return for contributions rather than free allowances from the State is what the people of Britain desire.╙ Secondly, ╥whatever money is required for provision of insurance benefits should come from a fund to which the recipients have contributed╙
The insured persons should not feel ╥that income for idleness, however caused, can come from a bottomless purse╔ The place for direct expenditure and organisation by the State is in maintaining employment of the labour and other productive resources of the country.╙
