In 1982 Julian Le Grand in his text, The Strategy of Equality delivered the message that ‘almost all public expenditure on the social services in Britain benefits the better off to a greater extent than the poor’. This has been developed into the conventional wisdom, that the welfare state has failed to achieve equality. However, this pessimistic verdict may be challenged on a number of grounds. First, it is debatable to what extent the welfare state was intended to achieve the types of equality defined by Le Grand. Second, it is possible to arrive at a less pessimistic conclusion both by re-examining Le Grand's original evidence and by examining subsequent evidence on the extent of equality achieved by the welfare state. This article examines the pessimistic thesis on both conceptual and empirical grounds, with a specific focus on the National Health Service. It is concluded that reports of the failure of the welfare state may be premature.

Martin Powell has produced an important critique of some of the arguments put forward in The Strategy of Equality. In doing so, he advances the debate in several significant ways, although not always in the direction that he may have intended.

The social insurance system has been an important element in the Swedish welfare model. However, in Sweden as in other Western countries there is an ongoing discussion about the rationality of the post-1940 welfare state. A social right or benefit constantly debated is the right to an early retirement pension. The value of such an early retirement pension has been questioned from economical as well as social or human points of view. The purpose of this article is to shed light on different processes behind the increasing number of early retirement pensioners and on the ongoing rehabilitation programmes in Sweden. A question that will arise: Is there a possible margin of gains from the interventions of the rehabilitation programme?

Abundant evidence exists to suggest that increasing numbers of people in England and Wales are facing difficulties in paying for water services. The reasons for these difficulties and their consequences are not easy to disentangle yet it is essential to understand them if policies for their alleviation are to be developed in the context of increasing costs of water service provision. This article suggests how social policy research can address the main issues at three levels: first by looking at economic, environmental and political considerations underlying increasing costs, the need for water conservation and changes in charging systems; second, by understanding how ability to pay depends not only on the resulting size of water bills, but also on income levels and access to organisational arrangements to help with payments; and third, by examining the impacts of inability to pay – debt and disconnection – on living standards, health and well-being.

The concept of ‘parenting skills’ features large in professional, political and popular discourse on the role and responsibility of parents. This article explores what constitutes skills of parenting from the perspective of community health and social service providers, working with families deemed to be ‘in need’. It shows how the concept is drawn on to describe both the needs of women with whom they work and their own role in fulfilling some of those needs. It argues that ‘parenting skills’ are not only gendered, insofar as it is women as mothers who are more likely to be perceived as needing them, but that a lack of them might also be associated with marital status, age and place of residence. In looking at ‘parenting skills’ from the perspective of service providers in the context of their working lives, it is clear however that service providers, predominantly women, formulate a role for themselves in the face of poverty and poor housing which they feel powerless to change.

The Commission on Social Justice set up by the late John Smith presented its proposals for the reform of Britain's tax and benefit system in October (87—22/3—1.8). They included taxing child benefit for higher earners and abolishing married couples′ allowance, a minimum pension guarantee and a national minimum wage. A Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) paper on the relationship between private insurance and the state social security system concluded that state benefits must remain the major source of provision for benefits, and suggested that there is only limited scope for further development of private sector alternatives. Meanwhile the 1994 edition of social security statistics showed that 521,320 families received family credit at January 1994, an increase of 119,900 over 1993. In April 1994 there were approximately 540,000 recipients.