Scope for Management in Local Offices of Social Service Departments
| Date | 01 June 1953 |
| Published date | 01 June 1953 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1953.tb01676.x |
| Author | E. N. Gladden |
Scope
for
Management
in
Local
Ofices
of
Social Service Departments
By E. N.
GLADDEN
Dr.
E.
N.
Gladden
is
an official
in
the Ministry
of
National Insurance
and is well
known
for
his
books
on
Public Administration and the Civil
Service.
Preliminary Survey
EPARTMENTS
with local Offices have existed a very long time. From
D
their early days the taxational authorities, the post office and, to some
extent, the armed services have had to operate through a number of widely
distributed offices, and in departments of this type the scope for management
has always been wide and civil servants have been concerned with the principles
and problems of management. Quite frequently the special needs of this
type of organisation have been recognised by giving the work to specialist
departmental classes recruited specifically for the work in question. Despite
the advantages of an all-service pattern, as proposed in the Trevelyan-
Northcote Report of 1853, there is a good case to be made for this alternative
arrangement, particularly in services on the modern scale. Civil
servants today are no longer confined to Whitehall, handling files and answering
correspondence
:
they are stationed out in the field with the job of providing
a specific service direct to members of the public.
It
is significant that when,
with the passing of the Old Age Pensions Act in 1908, it was found necessary
to station officers throughout the British Isles in order to deal with claims
for pensions
it
was decided to give the work to the Customs and Excise
Department which had suitable offices, although its work was of quite a
different type. There did not yet exist a social service ministry to which
the task could be given, and the job was not large enough to warrant the
establishment of a new organisation.
The modern trend really began at about the same time with the setting
up of Labour Exchanges (shortly afterwards legally renamed
"
Employment
Exchanges
")
under the Board of Trade
in
1909 and their gradual development
under the new Ministry of Labour after 1917.
It
is significant that, for the
National Health Insurance scheme launched in 191 1, the managerial problem
was largely solved by giving the work of local administration to a large number
of geographically distributed and autonomous
"
approved
"
societies. The
next important development did not take place until the early thirties when
the new Unemployment Assistance Board established local offices throughout
the country to pay supplementary allowances to the unemployed who had
exhausted their right to benefit out of the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
The Board has since changed into a National Assistance Board administering
the more general assistance scheme which finally superseded the remnants
of the old Poor Law in 1948. Latterly a Ministry of National Insurance
has been established to administer a comprehensive system of social insurance,
closely in line with the Beveridge proposals, through a widespread system
of nearly a thousand local offices.
The advent of the welfare state has created special problems.
117
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