Understanding the Finance of
Welfare. What Welfare Costs and How to Pay for It
Howard Glennerster
"... a brilliant and
lively textbook that students will enjoy. It makes the complex subject of financing
welfare accessible to all those studying and working in the field."
Ian Shaw, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham
How can society pay for high
quality public welfare services such as health, education, social care and social
security? This is perhaps the central political question in the UK today - one that this
book sets out to answer. It challenges the belief that easy solutions lie either in
extending private funding or taxing the rich.
Understanding the finance of
welfare is a much needed and up-to-date text on a rapidly changing policy field.
Howard Glennerster, author of Paying for welfare (Harvester, 1997), is the
pre-eminent author in this field.
Understanding the finance of
welfare:
- reviews the economic case
for public social services, and examines the economic and political limits to taxation,
- analyses the limits to
markets as a way of meeting basic human needs,
- explores in detail the
practical ways in which hospitals, schools and other social agencies are funded. In each
case the UK's position is contrasted with funding arrangements in other advanced
economies,
- devotes a chapter to the
theory and practice of rationing scarce resources and to the public expenditure process.
Contents
1. Meeting basic human
needs: Summary; Basic human need; Someone has to pay; Need and the life cycle; The
distinction between finance and provision; The social division of welfare; Choice and
agency; Overview; Questions for discussion; Further reading;
2. Market failure and
government failure: Summary; Why markets work - sometimes; Market failure; Government
failure; Privatisation and quasi-markets; The voluntary sector and mutuality; Overview;
Questions for discussion; Further reading;
3. How to pay for social
programmes? The tax constraint: Summary; Consent; Improving the popularity of taxes;
Equity; Efficiency; Overview; Questions for discussion; Further reading;
4. Financing healthcare: Summary;
The cost of healthcare; How the NHS funds are allocated; Raising the money; Improving
choice and efficiency; Overview; Questions for discussion; Further reading;
5. Financing social care:
Summary; The cost of social care; How social care funds are allocated; Improving
choice and efficiency; The spending on and organisation of social care in other countries;
The funding and organisation of long-term care in the UK; Overview; Questions for
discussion; Further reading;
6. Financing education: Summary;
The cost of education; How education funds are allocated; Improving choice and efficiency;
The finance of education in other countries; Overview; Questions for discussion; Further
reading;
7. Financing income
security: Summary; The state's role: income replacement or poverty relief?; The case
for insurance markets; The cost of income maintenance; How social security funds are
allocated in the UK; Improving choice and efficiency; Overview; Questions for discussion;
Further reading;
8. Financing housing: Summary;
Housing policy evolves; From producer subsidies to consumer subsidies; Rent control and
regulation; The costs of housing; The organisation of state finance; Choice and
efficiency; The finance of housing in other countries; Overview; Questions for discussion;
Further reading;
9. Rationing scarce
resources: managing rising expectations: Summary; Rationing; Containing public
expenditure; Treasury control; Comprehensive plans; Self-imposed prudence; A more
proactive role for the Treasury; Territorial rationing; The place of local authority
spending; The Private Finance Initiative; The 2002 Comprehensive Spending Review;
Overview; Questions for discussion; Further reading;
10. Do public services
have a future?: Summary; Changing the tax structure; Stealth taxes and beneficial
taxes; Charging; Selective universality; Squeezing more out of each pound spent; Whatever
we do, it costs; Working longer; Vouchers and tax incentives; Tapping the willingness to
pay; Overview: Dear Brutus; Questions for discussion; Further reading.
235 pages