Voluntary Action. A Report on Methods of Social Advance
- Author:
Lord Beveridge. Allen & Unwin.
16s.
At a time when the State is taking more and more responsibility for the provision of man’s basic needs, people are asking what place there is for the voluntary?i.e. the privately governed and controlled?social services. Lord Beveridge, in his Report, gives an authoritative answer to this question. The Report is all the more opportune because of the danger that Government Departments, whilst paying lip service to the continued need for voluntary organizations, may not always be ready to provide that help and encouragement by which alone these organizations can continue to exist, or to safeguard their freedom and independence.
The Report analyses voluntary action under two headings related to the motive underlying it?first, mutual aid for providing security against misfortune, and second, the philanthropic motive resulting from a social conscience unwilling to make a separate peace with social want, disease, squalor, ignorance and idleness whilst retreating into personal prosperity.
Part I is concerned with the mutual aid motive in action, as expressed in Friendly Societies from their beginnings in 1555. Despite the new Social Insurance Scheme, Lord Beveridge sees a need for their continued existence to supplement and complete the scheme.
Part II?perhaps the most interesting to social workers?deals with Voluntary Social Service inspired by the philanthropic motive. This section deals with a great variety of organizations, showing the way in which many of them have developed to meet the needs of a changing social structure. Particularly striking in this connection is the evolution of the Charity Organization Society with its emphasis on the giving of material aid, into the Family Welfare Association concerned with the many tangles of human life, and providing personal service and guidance in all kinds of problems many of which have nothing to do with financial difficulties. Many instances are given in the Report of co-operation between Voluntary Bodies and Central or Local Government, and two chapters are devoted to some of the many needs which statutory social services fail to meet?e.g. those of the aged, the physically handicapped, the unmarried mother, the overworked housewife.
Emphasis throughout the Report is laid on the continued need for voluntary action to initiate new enterprises, to supplement State action, to maintain freedom and independence, and to co-ordinate social services of all kinds:
” The Capacity of Voluntary Action inspired by’ philanthropy, to do new things is beyond question. Voluntary Action is needed to do things which the State should not do, in the giving of advice or in organizing the use of leisure. It is needed to do things which the State is most unlikely to do. It is needed to pioneer ahead of the State and to make experiments. It is needed to get services rendered which cannot be got by paying for them.”
Voluntary Action, however, depends on an adequate supply of both finance and service. Lord Beveridge devotes a whole chapter to Charitable Trusts, but maintains that Voluntary Action should depend neither on “endowments from the past ” nor on ” favour from the State New methods of obtaining small sums of money from the many, rather than large sums from the few, must be explored, and opportunities of service must be made for those with only a limited amount of leisure. In his Preface, Lord Beveridge promises us a supplementary volume to be entitled ” The Evidence from Voluntary Action ” containing the memoranda on which the present Report has been based. D.C.K.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.