Dr Simon Duffy gave this talk to Directors of Public Health and other professionals in Birmingham in July 2016. He contends that there is no fundamental problem with the welfare state other than (a) we have abandoned concern for equality and (b) we have not designed a welfare state to effectively promote our own active citizenship. He sets out a series of possible changes to genuinely reform (rather than cut and undermine) the welfare state based on real community-based initiatives.

1. The
Welfare
State
and its
Citizens
Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform
on behalf of Leadership for Change

2. • How can we enable citizens to
play an active role in their
communities?
• What is the proper role of local
government and public
services in the future?
• What is our positive vision for
the future for society and the
welfare state?

3. What’s going wrong?
• Shrinking state hypothesis - we can no longer
afford the welfare state - FALSE
• Paternalistic design hypothesis - we need to design
a pro-citizenship welfare state - TRUE

4. There is no evidence that the welfare state is
unaffordable. We have spent roughly the same
amount of GDP on the welfare state for over 50 years.

6. What has changed is our commitment to equality and
justice. Inequality has nearly doubled in a generation.

9. We now spend much less on redistribution but spend
much more on services.

11. These trends seem particularly severe in the UK
where we have pulled off the unenviable trick of
being (a) the most unequal country in Europe (b)
very hard working and (c) very unproductive.
[In economic terms it seems that our policy of
shrinking wages and benefits has had the perverse
impact of making labour cheap and so discouraging
investments to increase efficiency.]

13. Since the banking crisis and 2010 election things
have got even worse.

20. The Committee is seriously concerned about the
disproportionate adverse impact that austerity measures,
introduced since 2010, are having on the enjoyment of
economic, social and cultural rights by disadvantaged and
marginalised individuals and groups. The Committee is
concerned that the State party has not undertaken a
comprehensive assessment of the cumulative impact of such
measures on the realisation of economic, social and cultural
rights, in a way that is recognised by civil society and national
independent monitoring mechanisms (art. 2, para. 1).
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:
Concluding observations on the sixth periodic report of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
24 June 2016
UN declares UK Government fails to respect human rights

21. • These problems are often
associated with the ideologies
of neoliberalism or eugenics
- “Let the Devil take the
hindmost!”
• This seems partially true, but
these changes are not simply
ideological.
• For change often involves
meritocratic tinkering not
actual cuts in spending.

22. • Benefits are distributed to groups with good advocacy or voter
impact e.g. disabled people vs. pensioners
• Blame shifted to scapegoat groups e.g. immigrants vs. bankers
• Universal services protected e.g. social care vs. NHS
• Self-serving influence of commercial interests e.g. think tanks
funding
• Some services are more powerfully defended e.g. BMA vs. LGA
• Hubris of politicians trying to make an impact e.g. every ‘reform’ of
the NHS
• Attempts to buy the swing voter e.g real marginal tax rate
Other explanations include…

23. The power of the
medianocracy
Where elections
are won or lost

24. The welfare state is a
good thing, it’s just
designed wrong…

25. …only legal and political
institutions that are
independent of the
economic forces and
automatism can control
and check the inherently
monstrous potentialities of
this process. Such political
controls seem to function
best in the so-called
welfare states whether
they call themselves
socialist or capitalist.
Hannah Arendt

27. • The welfare state emerged as a response to the
crises that led to World War II and the Holocaust
• In the UK its designers were led by Fabians,
reformist liberals and socialists, like Keynes,
Beveridge, the Webbs and Bevan
• There was great confidence in the benign role of
the state to balance the injustices of the free
market

28. …three guiding principles may be laid down at the
outset:
1. The first principle… A revolutionary moment in
the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for
patching.
2. 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 upon 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.
3. The third principle is that social security must be
achieved by co-operation between the State and
the individual….
Beveridge W (1942)
Social Insurance and
Allied Services.

29. • They believed the state would be rational and that
democratic control would be sufficient to ensure
the positive development of the welfare state.
• There was also a powerful assumptions that an
intellectual elite could be trusted to solve social
problems.
• “We have little faith in the 'average sensual man',
we do not believe that he can do more than
describe his grievances, we do not think he can
prescribe the remedies.” [Beatrice Webb]

30. but there was an
alternative vision

32. • The design of the welfare state reflected the spirit of the
times and assumptions of dominant intellectuals, yet
there were other strands of progressive thought.
• G K Chesterton and the Catholic church advocated
distributism and subsidiarity - less centralised
approaches to social justice.
• Archbishop Temple, who coined the term ‘welfare state’,
advocated an approach which made love and human
development central.
• Michael Young warned the Left of the dangers of
‘meritocracy’ and the advocated equality and creativity.

33. “Today we frankly recognise that
democracy can be no more than
an aspiration, and have rule not
so much by the people as by
the cleverest people; not an
aristocracy of birth, not a
plutocracy of wealth, but a true
meritocracy of talent.” [1958]
Yesterday’s satire feels
like today’s tragedy

34. and there are places where
this alternative vision of
welfare flickers into life

35. I. Citizenship is Key

36. • Prevention - e.g. Local Area Coordination
• Personal budgets and direct payments - e.g.
Inclusion Glasgow
• Peer support - e.g. PFG Doncaster
• Family-focused work - e.g. WomenCentre
• Place-based approaches e.g. C2 Community
Development

39. Peers with mental health problems leading community change

41. • Postnatal depression reduced by 77%
• Unemployment dropped by 71%
• Reduced fear of crime
• Childhood accident rate dropped by 50%
Community led programme of neighbourhood renewal

42. II. Heading Upstream

43. • We need to move our attention upstream - beyond
services, treatments and institutions
• Local government can play a critical leadership
e.g changing governance in Barnsley
• This will require a change in our thinking about own
roles - a need for humility

46. The Professional Reclassification of Youth in Arendt H (2007) The Jewish
Writings. New York, Shocken. p.30
“But charity is not solidarity; it usually helps
only isolated individuals, with no overall plan;
and that is why, in the end, it is not productive.
Charity divides a people into those who give
and those who receive. The former, whether
they like it or not, have a stake in the latter not
jeopardising their positions where they live,
and hence in keeping them at a distance -
which amounts to a sort of philanthropic
antisemitism.”

47. III. A New Vision

48. • Our challenge is to redesign the welfare state from
within
• To make the case for constitutional change, and
• To reflect on our own roles within this process

49. The problems of life are insoluble on the surface… Getting hold of the
difficulty deep down is what is hard. Because if it is grasped near the
surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the
roots; and that involves us beginning to think about things in a new way… If
we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are
discarded along with the old garment. [Wittgenstein]

52. Lao Tzu
True leaders
are hardly known to their followers.
Next after them are the leaders
people know and admire;
after them, those they fear;
after them, those they despise.
To give no trust
is to get no trust.
When the work's done right,
with no fuss or boasting,
ordinary people say,
Oh, we did it.

53. FIND OUT MORE:
www.centreforwelfarereform.org
@CforWR @simonjduffy
https://www.facebook.com/centreforwelfarereform