Ambiguity and Obscurity in Policy-Making for Social Security

Abstract

The article offers some explanations for the different responses to recent developments in British social security policy. Lack of opposition to reductions in national insurance benefits in 1980 is contrasted with resistance put up to the employers’ statutory sickness benefit scheme. Following Derthick’s analysis of American social security policy-making, it is suggested that major policy shifts in the 1980 benefit changes were not recognised because of the ambiguity and technicality of the British national insurance scheme; because of the incremental nature of the politics which surround issues about who loses and who wins within the scheme; and because of the particular characteristics of the practitioner and consumer groupings in social security which do not provide a power base from which to challenge such developments. By contrast the proposal to introduce the employers’ statutory sickness benefit scheme visibly and unmistakably affected the boundaries of the public and private sectors and involved external organised interest groups.