Social policy 1970-9

The two major themes of British social policy in the 1970s were the rapid expansion of social services expenditure, and attempts, from 1975 onwards, to control this expansion. These attempts were made from fear of allowing social services to use scarce resources that could have been employed in productive industry, and thus stultifying economic growth. During the later 1970s, the notion that social services were competing for resources with productive industry gained ground, and strongly influenced policy. The social services are by their nature labour intensive, and up to now new technology has not affected their work. The Labour government tried hard to release resources from the social services, and to stimulate the growth of productive industry. In the hands of Labour ministers, the social wage was a tool with much more pragmatic uses.