MAIN FEATURES OF THE BEVERIDGE REPORT

Main Features of the Beveridge Report

Main Features of the Beveridge Report

Introduction

William Beveridge's 1942 report is a landmark in the setting up of a welfare state. But the building blocks existed long beforehand. His skill was to unite them in a comprehensive cradle-to-grave scheme that helped promote a spirit of post-war optimism (Beverige, 89)

Features of the Beveridge Report

The architect of much of this reform in the field of social welfare was William Beveridge. His report entitled 'Social Insurance and Allied Services' was compiled as the war was at its height (Beveridge, 64). In it Beveridge set out a plan to put an end to what he called the 'five giants' - Want (today we would call it poverty), Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness (unemployment). The centrepiece was a state-run system of compulsory insurance. Every worker, by contributing to a scheme of national insurance deducted through the weekly or monthly paypacket, would be helping to build up a fund that would pay out weekly benefits to those who were sick or unemployed or who suffered industrial injury (Beishon, 89).The scheme would pay pensions at the end of a working life to employees and the self-employed. The idea was to support the worker and his family. Benefits were to be set at a level that enabled a man, his wife and child to survive. There would be benefits for widows and an allowance for guardians of children without parents to care for them (Paul, 57). A system of family allowances for the second child and subsequent children was intended to ensure that those with large families were not penalised. There was also to be a marriage grant, maternity grant and benefit, some specific training grants and a death grant (Janet, 150). The key feature was that people were eligible ...