Background

The post-war Attlee governments (1945–51) are commonly seen as exemplars of the SSD approach to social welfare in Britain. Central direction and control, which had proved so effective during the war, was now to be employed to defeat the domestic ‘giants’ (want, idleness, disease, ignorance and squalor) identified by Beveridge, thereby paving the way for the emergence of a more cohesive and egalitarian society (see Timmins, Reference Timmins2001). Labour aimed to ensure that social services of the highest possible quality would be made available to all on the basis of need, not ‘desert’ or ability to pay. Strong central state direction was seen as an indispensable part of this process, not because of some covert desire to subjugate individual autonomy for the collective good, as some right-wing critics argued both at the time (Hayek, Reference Hayek1944) and subsequently (Joseph and Sumption, Reference Joseph and Sumption1979), but because it was deemed to be the best way of bringing about greater equality and enhanced social solidarity. Different means were adopted for the achievement of these goals. In the case of social security, Labour (influenced, but not constrained, by the recommendations of the Beveridge Report, Social Insurance and Allied Services, Reference Beveridge1942; see also Francis, Reference Francis1997) opted for a unified, contributory national insurance scheme which aimed to provide protection, in Griffiths’ memorable phrase, for everyone from the ‘barrow boy’ to the ‘Field Marshal’ (Reference Griffiths1969: 84). Although those unable to secure regular paid work were obliged to rely on a ‘less eligible’ form of public support (National Assistance), Labour could claim with some justification that a nationwide, ‘universal’ (though differentiated) system of provision had been established. ‘Gold’ standard universalism was introduced for the newly established National Health Service in which citizenship, rather than a personal contribution record, was to be the sole determinant of access to both primary and secondary medical treatment. The central state played a major role in both these areas of social policy. Nationwide social security offices were introduced and the existing patchwork hospital system was nationalised. In contrast, local authorities were given the lead role in the fields of education and housing. In terms of the former, for example, local education authorities were given responsibility to ensure an adequate supply of free secondary school places which would meet the aptitudes and abilities of all children in their community.

Although Labour luminaries, such as R.H. Tawney and G.D.H. Cole, had previously voiced concerns about the threat that enhanced state activity at both the national and local level could pose to mutualist and syndicalist forms of socialism, there was a consensus amongst both the fundamental (Bevanite) and revisionist (Croslandite) wings of the post-1945 Labour Party that the state should play a key role in the planning, funding and delivery of the welfare state. This view was echoed by leading post-war Fabian socialist experts at the London School of Economics, such as Richard Titmuss and his protégés, Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend (the ‘Titmice’), who advised (and, in the case of the latter, frequently cajoled) successive Labour governments in areas such as social security and health policy (Timmins, Reference Timmins2001; Sheard, Reference Sheard2013).

Labour's post-war welfare policy was constructed along SSD lines. It was believed that citizens had uniform needs and aspirations and that there was, in consequence, no need for highly differentiated forms of provision on the grounds of individual differences or ‘unique’ local conditions. From this perspective, geographical or social ‘exceptionalism’ was not expected to influence the availability or quality of service provision. In practice, of course, there were significant regional disparities which reflected historic patterns of provision and policy trajectories. In the case of hospitals, for example, there were variations in the quantity and quality of provision and personnel, which mirrored earlier philanthropic (voluntary hospitals) and local government initiatives. To overcome disparities of this kind, elaborate funding formulas were subsequently devised, such as the Resource Allocation Working Party formula for health and personal social services (Department of Health and Social Security, 1976), to ensure that resources were directed to areas of greatest need. In addition, a range of other initiatives were introduced in an attempt to ‘induce’ professionals such as GPs to work in communities where the level of need was most acute (Butler, Reference Butler1973). Proponents of the SSD approach have always accepted that the precise mix of provision in any given area will vary in accordance with the demographic profile of the locality. A community with a large older population would, for example, require a different mix of services from one in which the population had a much younger age profile. The key task for policy makers was to obtain accurate projections about social and economic trends so that appropriate plans could be put in place to reflect these changing demographics (for example, new schools, or an increase in care services for older people).

The first stirrings of discontent

The SSD approach to social policy has come under fire from across the political spectrum since the creation of the post-war welfare state. The most concerted attacks have emanated from neo-liberal and public choice commentators (see Crouch, Reference Crouch2011). Think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) challenged SSD orthodoxies in relation to both economic and social policy (Cockett, Reference Cockett1995; Denham and Garnett, Reference Denham and Garnett1998) by suggesting that monopolistic, uniform, state welfare services posed a threat to consumer choice (Seldon, Reference Seldon1957; Lees, Reference Lees1961; Peacock and Wiseman, Reference Peacock and Wiseman1964) and undermined the voluntaristic character of British society. Public choice theorists, such as Tullock (Reference Tullock1965), questioned the assumption that public officials were motivated by ‘selflessness’, suggesting, instead, that they were often more interested in their own remuneration and conditions of service than in responding to the expressed needs of vulnerable citizens. It was contended that public officials had too few incentives to contain costs, improve efficiency or enhance service quality.

A number of influential social policy academics also drew attention to some of the shortcomings of the SSD approach to the welfare state in terms of reducing poverty (Abel-Smith and Townsend, Reference Abel-Smith and Townsend1965; Townsend, Reference Townsend1979) and inequality (Townsend, Reference Townsend and Mackenzie1958; Le Grand, Reference Le Grand1982). Others highlighted the way in which the social democratic welfare state was acting as a malign form of social control over those experiencing poverty and disadvantage in spheres such as social security (George, Reference George1973; Kincaid, Reference Kincaid1975), council housing (Ginsburg, Reference Ginsburg1979) and social work (Corrigan and Leonard, Reference Corrigan and Leonard1978). The demeaning treatment meted out to some benefit claimants, council tenants and NHS patients was seen as undermining public support for the welfare state, as did the failure to consult citizens about the delivery of services or prospective changes to provision (see Skeffington, Reference Skeffington1969; Coates and Silburn, Reference Coates and Silburn1970; Jordan, Reference Jordan1973). In addition, feminist writers highlighted the way in which the welfare state continued to operate on a patriarchal basis which left women financially dependent on men, not least in terms of their ‘rights’ to social security (Wilson, Reference Wilson1977; Pascall, Reference Pascall1996).

New Labour revisionism

During the Thatcher (1979–90) and Major (1990–97) eras the SSD welfare state was subjected to both challenge and change. Although key elements of the welfare state remained intact, its egalitarian and universalist ethos was undermined by the advance of neo-liberalism (Farrell and Hay, Reference Farrell and Hay2014). When New Labour came to power in 1997 there was no concerted attempt to revive the SSD approach to economic and social policy that Labour had previously pursued in the post-1945 era. This doctrine was deemed outmoded in the face of the growth of global markets, changing family and work patterns, and more diverse forms of personal and cultural identity (Giddens, Reference Giddens1994, Reference Giddens1998, Reference Giddens2000; Blair, Reference Blair1998). The left-right division was now deemed obsolete and the ‘false’ opposites of old needed to be jettisoned. It was, New Labour argued, now possible to be committed to both a thriving, appropriately regulated, free market economy, and to the promotion of social justice. Crucially, though, their ‘third way’ approach required a more ‘active’ welfare state which prioritised work over benefit dependency, a better balance between universal and selective provision, a focus on egalitarian opportunities rather than outcomes, the encouragement of choice and competition, and the adoption of rigorous performance and audit measures (see Le Grand, Reference Le Grand2003, Reference Le Grand2007). While some critics (see Faucher-King and Le Gales, Reference Faucher-King and Le Gales2010; Sivanandan, Reference Sivanandan2013) have contended that New Labour reforms of the welfare state reflected a neo-liberal, rather than a modern social democratic approach, others detected no major ideological shift, pointing to New Labour's investment in the welfare state and its determination to pursue long-standing social democratic objectives such as the eradication of child poverty (see commentaries by Hills and Stewart, Reference Hills and Stewart2005; Joyce and Sibieta, Reference Joyce and Sibieta2013).

It is important to note that although New Labour was committed to the reform of the ‘outmoded’ SSD approach to the welfare state, they remained convinced of the value of strong central control in relation to policy and practice, not least because they feared that devolving power or resources from the centre would run the risk of ineffective service delivery (Mulgan, Reference Mulgan, Cooke and Muir2012; Stears, Reference Stears, Cooke and Muir2012). New Labour was not, however, opposed to devolution in principle. They paved the way for directly elected mayors (see Marsh, Reference Marsh2012) and regional assemblies, although the latter initiative failed to ignite electors in the North-East of England when they were given the opportunity to express their preferences in an election in 2004 (BBC, 2004). Moreover, New Labour was not opposed to what came to be known as the ‘new’ localism, with its emphasis on the need to re-engage citizens in the policy process and with enhancing multi-governmental synergies so that complex problems could be resolved more effectively (see Stoker, Reference Stoker2004; Lodge and Muir, Reference Lodge, Muir, Diamond and Kenny2011; Hickson, Reference Hickson2013). In terms of social policy, even Gordon Brown, often portrayed as an arch centraliser, acknowledged the limitations of what Deacon (Reference Deacon2002) has termed the unitarist approach to service provision. Writing in Political Quarterly in 2003, he argued that;

Certainly, diverse localist arrangements were allowed to develop under New Labour, such as the greater involvement of ‘third’ sector organisations in service delivery, the establishment of membership-based NHS Foundation Trusts and co-operative trust schools (see Jowell, Reference Jowell and Philpot2011). However, critics argued that such initiatives amounted to little more than what Evans et al. (Reference Evans, Marsh and Stoker2013) have termed a managerial (strong central involvement) rather than representative (power devolved to local government) or community (power transferred to citizens within local communities) form of localism (see also Davies, Reference Davies2008). By the time of the inconclusive general election of 2010, New Labour was still being portrayed by its main political opponents as an overly statist, profligate ‘tax and spend’ government. Once established as a coalition government, both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties attempted to define themselves as deep rather than shallow (Labour) localists. As the Coalition Agreement of 2010 stated:

The Labour Party's defeat in the 2010 General Election has led to renewed thinking about Labour's SSD approach to the welfare state, whose contemporary standard bearers include Hattersley and Hickson (Reference Hattersley and Hickson2011, Reference Hattersley and Hickson2013), Meacher (Reference Meacher2013) and Toynbee and Walker (Reference Toynbee and Walker2001, Reference Toynbee and Walker2005, Reference Toynbee and Walker2011). Two significant strands of thinking have emerged within Labour circles which extend the challenge to the SSD approach to the welfare state that began under New Labour, namely, Blue Labour and Purple Labour.

Blue Labour and the Statist Social Democratic approach to the welfare state

Blue Labour is a strand of thinking within the Labour Party that was developed by Maurice Glasman (Reference Glasman2010, Reference Glasman and Derbyshire2013; Glasman et al., Reference Glasman, Rutherford, Stears and White2011), Jonathan Rutherford (Reference Rutherford2010, Reference Rutherford, Glasman, Rutherford, Stears and White2011, Reference Rutherford2013) and Marc Stears (Reference Stears2011) (see also commentaries by Davis, Reference Davis2011, Reference Davis and Denham2012; Cooke, Reference Cooke, Glasman, Rutherford, Stears and White2011; Finlayson, Reference Finlayson2011; Rooksby, Reference Rooksby2011; Derbyshire, Reference Derbyshire2013; Jobson, Reference Jobson2014). Although it lacks a formal ‘membership’ or a set of concrete policies, Blue Labour has been influential in Labour's ideological repositioning following the election of Ed Miliband as Party leader in 2010 (see Gaffney and Lahel, Reference Gaffney and Lahel2013). Blue Labour is highly critical of the neo-liberal turn in economic policy undertaken by New Labour, arguing that the party should return to its earlier guild socialist tradition and embrace German-style corporatism, in which employers, employees and financiers work together for longer term economic prosperity.

Blue Labour has been critical of Labour's failure to provide a clear narrative of the party's underlying beliefs and values (Rutherford, Reference Rutherford, Glasman, Rutherford, Stears and White2011). Re-engagement with the party's earlier mutualist and relational tradition, which was championed by writers such as G. D. H. Cole (Reference Cole1917, Reference Cole1920a, Reference Coleb), Richard Tawney (Reference Tawney1921) and Harold Laski (Reference Laski1925), and greater sensitivity to traditional working-class concerns, are seen as vital if Labour is to regain popular support. While this orientation towards the past has a ‘nostalgic’ feel to it, Blue Labour believes it has contemporary relevance with its emphasis on co-operation, solidarity and mutuality (Jobson, Reference Jobson2014; see also Kenny, Reference Kenny2014). For Blue Labour, the Party needs to abandon its fixation with abstract and ‘unrealisable’ goals, such as equality and social justice, and focus instead on relationship building within local communities (Stears, Reference Stears2011). According to Blue Labour, the Party needs to recognise the ‘communitarian’ advantages of encouraging residents of a particular area to come together to debate and resolve the pressing local issues that concern them. Associational activity of this kind can, it is argued, help local communities to recognise and act on their shared goals, such as the need to improve the administration of local public services, saving a school playing field from developers or purchasing and running a community library threatened with closure. Blue Labour contend that the glue that binds diverse citizens together is their mutual interest in their locality, be it a village, town or city. This ‘sense of place’, where individuals and families live and work, is seen as having a deep social resonance (Rutherford, Reference Rutherford, Glasman, Rutherford, Stears and White2011).

Blue Labour cautions against the liberal cosmopolitan mind-set that holds sway in elite party circles, which, they contend, has resulted in a failure to connect with the more ‘conservative’ dispositions of many of its working-class supporters. As a consequence, contentious issues such as immigration and nationhood have been ignored rather than confronted. Indeed, Glasman's determination to reconnect the party with its working-class base even led him to suggest that Labour should enter into dialogue with the far right English Defence League, and to consider curbs on further immigration into the UK; proposals that led some senior party sympathisers to distance themselves from the Blue Labour project (Beech and Hickson, Reference Beech and Hickson2014).

Crucially, in relation to the main focus of this article, Blue Labour has been highly critical of Labour's attachment to the traditional social democratic welfare state, which they believe has paved the way for the rise of an elite form of politics and professional bureaucratisation which have undermined the development of meaningful social relationships and devalued mutual forms of support and reciprocity. As Glasman (Reference Glasman2011: 31) contends, it is important to:

From a Blue Labour perspective, then, the establishment of the welfare state by Attlee's post-war governments (1945–51) should be seen not as a crowning achievement of the Labour movement in its historic effort to tame capitalism, but, rather, as a potentially destructive force that has undermined the emergence of a more deeply rooted and highly valued ‘relational’ and participative form of socialism, represented by, say, the 1899 Dock Strike, or the more recent London citizens' campaign for a living wage (Glasman, Reference Glasman2011; Stears, Reference Stears2011).

In an effort to counter what they regard as impersonal, legalistic and ‘inhumane’ forms of state welfare, Blue Labour recommends a shift from central direction and control to more localised forms of decision making and control where allocations of scarce resources such as housing can be made in accordance with community preferences rather than remote forms of administrative fiat (Glasman, Reference Glasman and Derbyshire2013).

Blue Labour's criticisms of New Labour have focussed in the main on its continued reliance on a state centric form of social democracy and its reluctance to empower local communities. This differs markedly from the criticisms of those on the more radical left who, as noted above, have focussed on the failure of the Blair/Brown governments to pursue a welfare strategy characterised by a deeper commitment to egalitarian, universal, publicly funded and provided services.

Let us now turn to Purple Labour and its critique of the Statist Social Democratic approach to the welfare state.

Purple Labour and the Statist Social Democratic approach to the welfare state

Purple Labour is a revisionist strand of opinion that has emerged from a broad range of New Labour sympathisers who are associated with groupings such as Progress and Policy Network. As such, they are much less critical of New Labour's economic revisionism, contending that global economic change still needs to be embraced rather than resisted. They accept, however, that the light regulatory structures that were put in place to drive the economy forward provided inadequate protection for many citizens when the global financial crash took hold in 2008. Purple Labour has a more liberal, cosmopolitanism outlook and does not share Blue Labour's fears about the adverse social and economic impact of immigration. They believe that Blue Labour's ‘faith, family and flag’ masthead represents a forlorn appeal to a world that has passed. As Peter Mandelson contends, ‘the future is not going to come from the sort of populist, anti-immigrant, Europhobic, anti-globalisation language used by Blue Labour’ (Reference Mandelson and Philpot2011: 37). However, Purple Labour shares Blue Labour's desire to ‘revive Labour's decentralising tradition of participation, self-government and “moral reform”’ (Philpot, Reference Philpot and Philpot2011: 12). The abandonment of a state centric social democracy is seen as both intellectually feasible and compatible with Labour's traditions. As the editor of The Purple Book, Robert Philpot, contends:

The fact that many Purple Labour supporters, such as former Cabinet ministers Douglas Alexander, Liam Byrne, Caroline Flint, Tessa Jowell, Peter Mandelson, Alan Milburn and Jacqui Smith, are now distancing themselves from some of the SSD welfare measures of the New Labour governments from 1997 to 2010 is significant. Freed from the constraints of collective Cabinet responsibility, they are now, like others in the Purple Labour ‘movement’, openly supportive of a more relational form of social policy (see Mulgan, Reference Mulgan2010, Reference Mulgan, Cooke and Muir2012; Reed and Brant, Reference Reed, Brant and Philpot2011; Richards, Reference Richards and Philpot2011). According to Jon Wilson, for example, what is now needed is ‘a state that treats people as people, not as statistics or units of management. This means public institutions which are better at cultivating relationships, where reciprocity and mutual responsibility count’ (Reference Wilson2012: 6).

Two other developments are also likely to have persuaded some of the more pragmatic Purple Labour supporters to distance themselves from the SSD approach to the welfare state. First, contemporary polling evidence suggests that the public are becoming more sceptical of the egalitarian citizenship principles originally outlined by T. H. Marshall (see Marshall, Reference Marshall1950; Lodge and Muir, Reference Lodge, Muir, Diamond and Kenny2011). According to the ‘Open Left’ project undertaken by Demos, some 25 per cent of the voters who deserted Labour at the 2010 General Election were critical of the role of the central state (Darlington, Reference Darlington2010; although also see Whiteley, Reference Whiteley2012). In a similar vein, Policy Network found that the British public concurred with the views of their fellow citizens in other advanced industrialised democracies that the central state is no longer able to protect citizens from the adverse impact of corporate market activity (Policy Network, 2011).

Secondly, it is recognised that any future Labour government will find it difficult to generate sufficient tax revenues to meet the escalating cost of the welfare state, given demographic and other pressures. With little likelihood of significant productivity gains in labour-intensive social services, Purple Labour accepts that some hard policy choices are likely to meet projected shortfalls in funding. Greater reliance on non-state funded provision is seen as inevitable, as is the possibility of increased diversity and inequity in service provision.

The relational/associational challenge

As was noted above, one of the key criticisms levelled at the SSD approach to the welfare state by Blue and Purple Labour is its failure to give sufficient attention to the relational and associational aspects of social policy, which earlier Labour thinkers promoted as vital ingredients of socialist endeavour (see Stears, Reference Stears2006; Cottam, Reference Cottam2011). It is contended that the deep-rooted ‘imperial’ mind-set of Fabian ‘statists’ led to a disregard, or even disdain, for non-expert opinion and populist sentiment (see Bevir, Reference Bevir2011). The technocratic emphasis on the egalitarian ‘delivery’ of welfare resulted, it is argued, in a failure to recognise the importance of the relational aspects of such provision. Those supportive of the SSD perspective should acknowledge that there was a tendency to underestimate the importance of the relational aspects of welfare provision. Too great an emphasis on service delivery did result in insufficient attention being paid to the expressed needs of service users. For SSD advocates, the strengthening of the user voice is the remedy for this shortcoming, not the wholesale rejection of state provision. In defending their approach, SSD enthusiasts could also remind their Blue and Purple critics that one of the reasons why luminaries, such as Richard Titmuss (Reference Titmuss1970), believed so passionately in the statist National Health Service was precisely because of its ethical value base. For Titmuss, the NHS embodied relational welfare and the commonality of human experience that was absent in atomised forms of market exchange (although see Reisman, Reference Reisman1977). For Statist Social Democrats, there is no self-evident reason why all citizens, regardless of social background or geographical location, should not, given appropriate resource levels and well trained staff, have access to high-quality unitarist social services in which they are treated with respect and are encouraged to form valuable relationships with the welfare professionals and administrators they come into contact with. Indeed, SSD supporters would argue that Blue and Purple criticisms of the relational deficiencies of ‘statism’ would be better directed at non-egalitarian, neo-liberal inspired forms of New Public Management (which gathered momentum under New Labour) that served to deskill and devalue caring professionals, alienate service users and legitimate the notion that vital tasks such as caring for older citizens could be performed by low paid, poorly trained staff or by other exploitative forms of ‘co-production’ (see Beresford, Reference Beresford2008; Griffiths et al., Reference Griffiths, Foley and Prendergrast2009; Muir and Cooke, Reference Muir, Cooke, Cooke and Muir2012). Interestingly, this emphasis on a neo-liberal rather than SSD ‘causation’ of a ‘relational’ deficit appears to have had greater resonance in Wales and Scotland, where the case for increased devolution in the former and independence in the latter has been based in part on the need to preserve the egalitarian welfare arrangements associated with the SSD approach (see Foley and Ramand, Reference Foley and Ramand2014; Fusco, Reference Fusco2014: Hassan, Reference Hassan2014; Marquand, Reference Marquand2014; see also Jackson, Reference Jackson2014).

As noted previously, a major reason why both Blue and Purple Labour are such strong advocates of localism is that they believe that citizens will continue to feel alienated from the political process unless active steps are taken to encourage citizens to participate more fully in local decision making and priority setting. Stears (Reference Stears2011) contends that the postcode differences in service provision that will inevitably result from deliberation of this kind are a price worth paying to secure political re-engagement of this kind. Similarly, many within Purple Labour believe that the devolution of power to local communities will prove more effective and legitimate than the uniform prescriptions of ‘detached’ state planners and officials (see Brett, Reference Brett2012). While Purple Labour is less enthusiastic about the more radical forms of local autonomy that some more enthusiastic localists advocate, believing that variations in services should be limited by a framework of national standards, they are supportive of initiatives such as those introduced, for example, in the London borough of Newham. Council house allocations in this borough are determined by ‘status’ (for example, membership of the armed forces), contribution (caring duties or service to the local community) and length of time on the waiting list, rather than need per se. While SSD proponents accept that the design of equitable allocation systems for scarce resources such as council housing are inherently difficult, they contend that increased supply and transparent and uniform procedures, coupled with elected representation, are essential features of an egalitarian welfare state. Allowing non-elected community ‘leaders’ and others to influence local policy agendas runs the real risk of advantaging powerful and articulate groups at the expense of lower income groups and those less confident about participating (Lowndes and Sullivan, Reference Lowndes and Sullivan2004), thereby embedding discriminatory practice. Innovative ideas like participatory budgeting often disadvantage those who are unable to be involved in such processes because of their need to work long hours or because of onerous caring responsibilities. Increased variations in local service provision, which risk a return to the settlement laws of previous eras (see Slack, Reference Slack1995), can also ‘entrap’ citizens in particular geographical locations because of fears that a proposed move to another town or city will mean the loss of valuable services. Finally, following Crosland (Reference Crosland1956), those supportive of the SSD approach can point to the limited historical evidence regarding a deep-rooted desire amongst the British public for ever-more intensive forms of civic engagement. After the Second World War, Statist Social Democrats foresaw a surge in public enthusiasm for increased participation in local affairs. In practice, though, citizens seemed to prefer domestic pursuits rather than civic interaction (see Fielding et al., Reference Fielding, Thompson and Tiratsoo1995; Black, Reference Black2003a, Reference Black, Callaghan, Fielding and Ludlamb; see also Putnam, Reference Putnam2001, for a modern US perspective). Arguably, it may well be the case that contemporary citizens want to be able to access a uniform range of high-quality social provisions in times of need, but would rather not have to engage in time-consuming local debates about service reconfigurations, even if this limits their associational opportunities (see Lawrence, Reference Lawrence2013).

Universalism and diversity

A second major criticism that Blue and Purple Labour have directed at the SSD approach is its failure to respond or adapt to growing diversity in British society. This is not just a matter of ignoring the dynamic, though uneven, changes in the ‘ethnic’ composition of many British towns and cities (see Soutphommasane, Reference Soutphommasane2012; Goodhart, Reference Goodhart2013), but also of failing to grasp the more varied forms of personal identity that have developed. The question, ‘who are you?’ is likely to give rise to more multi-textured responses in 2014 than it would have done fifty years previously, when identity was arguably more closely allied to class, occupation or geographical location. For Blue and Purple Labour, the failure of Statist Social Democrats to respond to, and engage with, growing diversity has left them defending an outmoded welfare system in which uniform types of provision, such as comprehensive schools, no longer serve the expressed interests of modern citizens. While Statist Social Democrats accept the need for rules and regulations to be modified in order to ensure that minority groups are not ‘inadvertently’ excluded from accessing particular services, they have been reluctant to promote separate forms of provision which prioritise differences over similarities. The National Health Service is seen as an exemplar in this regard. Patients are treated on the basis of their medical condition rather than on the basis of social class, gender, ethnicity or other personal characteristic. Although ‘diversity’ critics have argued that ‘difference-blind rules and institutions’ are problematic in heterogeneous as opposed to ‘homogeneous’ nations (Anttonen et al., Reference Anttonnen, Haikio, Stefansson, Sipila, Anttonnen, Haikio and Stefansson2012), Statist Social Democrats maintain that the challenges of heterogeneity are not of sufficient magnitude to justify the abandonment of universal principles. Instead, they argue that while reasonable adjustments should always be considered, diverse forms of provision based on gender, sexuality, faith or culture should be resisted if public confidence and support for the welfare state is to be maintained (see Rothstein, Reference Rothstein2011). Equally, they contend that attempts to exclude some higher income groups from universal benefits to which they are ‘entitled’ by virtue of a particular contingency should also be resisted. Eligibility for a universal benefit is based on the contingency itself not the income of the prospective recipient.

Welfare pluralism

For both Blue and Purple Labour, uniform national services are ill suited to meet the diverse needs of local communities. Accordingly, greater budgetary devolution is recommended so that communities can plan and commission their own services, rather than rely on inflexible forms of national provision. The devolving of responsibility to localities will, it is argued, enable communities to construct an appropriate mix of informal, third sector, public and for-profit services that can best meet the needs of local citizens in affordable ways. In common with civic Conservatives, such as Blond (Reference Blond2010) and Norman (Reference Norman2010), Blue and Purple Labour are keen to see a revival of mutual organisations which provided a wide range of ‘social’ services prior to the creation of the post-1945 welfare state (see Finlayson, Reference Finlayson1994). Membership/employee owned and controlled organisations of this kind are seen as providing opportunities for welfare professionals to design and deliver innovative, responsive and effective local services. Central Surrey Health has, for example, been held up as an example of how a modern ‘welfare’ mutual might operate. Owned and run by some 700 former NHS staff, this organisation secured a £20m contract to provide a range of community services in mid-Surrey in 2007. A smaller scale social enterprise, Southwark Circle, has also attracted positive support. Established in 2009 in response to the patchy nature of support for older people in a south-east London borough, this membership-based social enterprise provides residents with reliable help for everyday tasks, such as shopping and gardening, thereby helping them to maintain their independence (see Cottam Reference Cottam2009). While such schemes appear superficially attractive, Statist Social Democrats would point to the fact that one of the key reasons for establishing a welfare state was to counter the uneven coverage and variable quality of non-state welfare provision in previous eras (see Bogdanor, Reference Bogdanor2012). From a SSD perspective, the non-state sector has a number of inherent weaknesses. Despite differences in the governance and goals of the non-profit and for-profit sectors, both sectors operate along ‘business’ lines and both will have to cease trading in the event of a major funding shortfall. A recent example of such a failure was Southern Cross, which was forced to close its care homes after running into serious financial difficulties leaving residents and their funders having to make alternative arrangements at short notice. Statist Social Democrats contend that the mutualisation of state services is all too likely to prove to be the first step on the road to the privatisation and fragmentation of public services as evidenced by the policy agenda of the current neo-liberal Conservative-led coalition government (see Jacobs and Manzi, Reference Jacobs and Manzi2012; Clarke and Cochrane, Reference Clarke and Cochrane2013). Certainly, many smaller non-profit concerns have been unable to compete with their larger and better funded for-profit rivals in securing NHS contracts. Indeed, despite its early success in securing public funding, Central Surrey Health was unable to ‘outbid’ the private conglomerate Virgin Care for a subsequent NHS contract in North and West Surrey. Moreover, once public services are contracted out, it is likely to prove very difficult to restore state monopolies in these fields, not least because of trans-national competition rules (see Pollock, Reference Pollock2004; Player and Leys, Reference Player and Leys2011).

The Blue and Purple Labour view that local control, negotiation and ownership of social services will engender deeper forms of public affection for, and attachment to, the welfare ‘state’ (see Holtham, Reference Holtham, Gamble and Wright1999; White, Reference White, Diamond and Kenny2011) is also treated with scepticism by Statist Social Democrats. While the local ownership of institutions may increase the level of community solidarity, one predictable consequence of this will be that historic inequities between localities will prove even harder to resolve. It is difficult to imagine a cohesive local community agreeing to the relocation of a much-loved local hospital on the basis that this will guarantee a more equitable service for their more distant regional neighbours.