Silencing the social: Debt and depletion in UK social policy

an article by Charles Dannreuther (University of Leeds, UK) published in Capital and Class Volume 43 Issue 4 (December 2019)

Abstract

This article draws on a social reproduction approach to examine how debt informed the development of UK welfare provision.

A brief history of the Public Works Loan Board introduces its centrality not only in the delivering of welfare institutions but also in the typographies and social values that informed welfare policies.

The depletion of social care services today may be evident in the extensive use of debt to deliver social policy across the United Kingdom. However, in the past access to publicly backed borrowing enabled local authorities to deliver social rights that had been legislated for by central government.

We can therefore see that it was not debt but its democratic accountability that played a central role in the changing fortunes of the UK’s welfare state.

See also:

PWLB to be scrapped, government confirms
an article by Richard Johnstone (November 2016)
The government has confirmed plans to abolish the 223-year-old Public Works Loan Board and transfer its functions for lending to local authorities to the Treasury.
Link to article in Public Finance

Wikipedia is very short of information

Labels:
depletion, local authority debt, PWLB, social reproduction

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