Aims to review the issues raised by the state provision of social benefits and to examine the principles on which their provision may be deemed to rest.

This text aims to review the issues raised by the state provision of social benefits in cash and in kind and to examine the principles on which their provision may be deemed to rest. The contributors examine the purpose of this area of public activity of 60% of public expenditure in Britain. What are these elaborate social services meant to achieve? By what criteria are they to be judged? By what authority have the objectives been adopted and the criteria applied? The answers to questions such as these will obviously reflect both differences in basic value judgements and differences in appraising the facts of any social situation. The editors compile many viewpoints on the topic.