Recent Book: The Welfare State: In Worlds Apart
| Date | 01 January 1979 |
| Author | P. W. Carey |
| Published date | 01 January 1979 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7905200127 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
HOME
DEFENCE
POLITICS
ROBIN
HODGSON
M.P.
&
ROBERTBANKS
M.P.
"Britain's
Home
Defence Gamble"
Conservative Political Centre: 80p
This recently published
pamphlet
will
be welcomed
by.
many interested
individuals who find themselves with
home
defence responsibilities within the
frame-work of the
current
government
policy.
It
sets
out
clearly and precisely the
present level of preparedness within the
United Kingdom to meet a war situation
in the future.
The
considerable degree of
alleged risk to the public at large
emanates
from
the present policies isalso
highlighted.
With
certain exceptions, Britain's
home
defence is said to be an "ill co-
ordinated
shambles".
The
three
exceptions to this generalisation being
the United Kingdom
Warning
and
Monitoring
Organisation; the
Home
Defence College, Easingwold
and
a
handful
of local government officers,
volunteer scientists and members of
independent organisations such as the
National
Voluntary
Civil Aid Services
and the Institute of Civil Defence.
The
authors
emphasise the lack of co-
ordination
at local level, but in my view,
this is an unfair criticism.
The
quotation
"As
it was
put
to us,
'The
Police and the
Army
have their own organisational
structures, and there is a fair
amount
of
friction between
them
and the
county
emergency planners'" is, as
far
as the
local
area
in which I have recent practical
experience, far
from
the truth.
One
of the recommendations for
improving
home
defence policies,
namely to include
additional
statutory
authority
in the Civil defence Act 1948,
enabling central government to require
'local authorities to comply with
directives designed to ensure
that
certain
minimum
standards
in
home
defence
planning are met, would effectively see
the demise of the present
"toothless
paper
tiger" in the form of
Home
Office
circulars.
The suggestion to involve existing
voluntary
organisations
at
local
authority
level in future home defence
plans also has merit.
Perhaps
the most
important
aspect, to provide aviable
emergency organisation to deal with
both
peacetime and wartime emergency
situations, has again been missed.
If
the
financial costs involved in providingsuch
an organisation could be seen to be
providing a service to the public in
both
situations, many of the political
arguments
presented in this publication
would be thwarted.
SJ.H.
(M.I.C.D.)
THE WELFARE STATE
T1M
ROBINSON
In Worlds Apart, Bedford
Square
Press £1.95
It
is tempting to suppose
that
the
defects of Welfare
State
services derive
simply from a lack of resources. Tim
Robinson,
as
both
sociologist and
recipient rejects this
rather
cosy view. He
focuses
upon
the
often
strained
relationships between Welfare
State
professionals (for example, doctors,
social workers
and
teachers)
and
their
clients.
The
implications for the quality
of welfare services of their senarate
encapsutanonin
relatively closed social
worlds is closely examined. Drawing
examples from many of the caring
professions, the
author
argues
that
the
way forward lies
through
closer
professional-client
partnership
and a
lowering of professional barriers.
He begins by
noting
widespread client
dissatisfaction with
both
aposition of
relative powerlessness when
confronted
with
the
trappings of professionalism
and with the
quantity
and quality of
information
tvpicallv received
during
such an encounter.
For
the client these
dissatisfactions combine to give a sense
96
of exclusion and inadequacy.
This feeling of exclusion is real
and
not
imagined to the
extent
that
the
professional's training and
background
set him
apart
and
bureaucratic
demands
(say for
'quick
results') provide afurther
intrusion.
The
bureaucratic relevances of
the busy professional thus often conflict
with his client's perspective on the
seriousness of his own troubles and the
adequacy
of the
support
received.
The
author
views the gross power
imbalance between professional and
client as inhibiting to the latter's own
contribution
and recommends a less
formalized relationship and urges steps
to enlighten professionals
about
their
clients' viewpoints and measures to
increase client Dower.
Mr. Robinson concludes his cogent
and not overstated
argument
with a
challenge to the practitioner to stand
back and examine his own
area
of
concern for the problems discussed. Few,
surely, will decide they are totally
absolved. P. W.
CAREY
Januarv 1979
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