Sir William Beveridge - social insurance and allied services, 1942

Résumé du document

This text is the introduction of the Beveridge Report, called Social Insurance and Allied Services. This report was presented to the British Parliament in November 1942 and was published the on 1st of December 1942. He was commissioned by Arthur Greenwood, in June 1941. William Beveridge (1879-1963) taught in 1908 at the university of East End in London. It was a place where the poorest workers could benefit of juridical advices and attended lectures. He contributed to the elaboration of the important reformist laws of 1911, the National Insurance Act (this measure gave the British working classes the first contributory system of insurance against illness and unemployment). He taught economy at the London School of economics (1919-1937) and then at Oxford in the University College. The Liberal government's National Insurance Act was prepared with assistance from experts like William Beveridge, Churchill and Lloyd George. W. Beveridge chaired the coalition government committee set up during the war to examine social insurance schemes. W. Beveridge was the most qualified man for a thought concerning social services.

Extraits

[...] The protected persons are not anymore determined by their membership to the worker class. From now, all the citizens could be protected. In reality, Beveridge made categories within the population. Each category was linked to the degree of risks. We can say that his social insurance system was based on a selective system. The workers could access to all the benefits, the married women accessed to wedding and maternity allowances and the old people could receive an old age pension. [...]

[...] Two periods about social questioning can be distinguished during the war. The first, from 1940 to 1942 is characterized by an abundance of initiative, until the publication of the Beveridge Report. For him, it was the government duty to provide social protection for all British subjects, especially for those who had lost their capacity of earnings. After 1942, the military situation allowed England to focus on the social question. Besides the nomination of W.Beveridge, John Reith was choosed by the government for thinking about reconstruction in the areas destroyed by Germans bombings. [...]

[...] The report ensured that social policy would remain high on the public agenda after the war, along with other priorities such as a free national health service. - The Beveridge Report rejected a social insurance system only reserved to the workers. He also struggled against the principle of an assistance limited to the destitutes. The Beveridge Report wanted to end with the distinction between the rich and the poor. He wanted to end with the moral distinction that provided allowances. [...]

[...] Beveridge wrote another report where he recommended full-employment. Thanks to this measure, the social security could be financed. Beverigde recommended to replace the Poor Law ( 1834) by a system which included family allowances, a national and free health service and an insurance if you could not work anymore because of unemployment, sickness, old age, accident, or maternity). Those social security benefits would be opened for everybody, without any earning distinction. There would be partly financed by the recipients but in majority by the state. [...]

[...] The Beveridge plan for social security based its measures on a diagnostic of the British population. Thanks to surveys about conditions of life, the British government pointed out the difficulties to be abble to solve it the best way possible. What emerged of those surveys was that want was due to interruption or loss of earning power (l.29). The William Beveridge Report identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease.Those five giant's evils are the five social scourges responsible of the working class poverty. [...]