8 - What is Social Security For?

Summary

The Beveridge report was famously popular, with people queuing up to buy it. Beveridge was certainly concerned to reflect in his proposals his views about what the British public believed was fair and would put up with. But his blueprint and the prior reports it built on were developed in a period still dominated by hierarchy and patronage. The leading thinkers behind them were from privileged backgrounds with a strong flavour of what we now call the “white saviour complex” in relation to international development: solutions developed and delivered by well-intentioned outsiders with little or no input from those they intend to help and certainly no ceding of power to people with direct experience of the issues under consideration. Since the initial setting up of the welfare state, it has been built on and adapted over time to meet changing political imperatives but rarely with much involvement of those with direct experience of the system or other parts of the public. Even very big changes – such as the introduction of universal credit – have been pursued with extraordinarily little involvement from either the wider public or those with direct experience of the system.

This lack of public engagement has become more problematic as the cost of the system has increased and the problems it needs to address have evolved. There has been a constant pressure to reduce the cost of many parts of the system, with little or no substantive discussion of what we, as a society, really value and want to maintain, let alone how we collectively want the system to evolve to meet modern challenges. Attacking and defending specific benefit levels or conditions have consumed the debate, leading to constant changes back and forth as political pressures shift.

If we want to create a better social security system, it has to be based on sustainable public consent. That doesn't mean taking the latest poll and enacting it on the backs of people who are already facing hardship. But it does mean engaging the public in thoughtful deliberation and focusing on the underlying commitments that we want to make to each other. We should appeal to our best sides in this: to our empathetic, hopeful, compassionate selves. We should not allow prejudice and stereotypes to dictate policy. But the proponents of new ideas and radical solutions can't simply ignore the public's views.