The Beveridge report revisited: where now for the welfare state?

After unprecedented public spending cuts, we revisit Sir William Beveridge’s welfare state 70 years on and explore the modern evils that society professionals must battle and defeat

Seventy years ago, as the allies were driving Nazi forces back across Europe, Britain was preparing for eventual peace and reconstruction. The nation was gripped not only by dispatches from the front but also by the Beveridge report, the blueprint for what was to become known as the welfare state.

In proposing a system of cradle-to-grave social security, improved education and a national health service, the report lacked nothing in ambition. Its author, Sir William Beveridge, declared that “a revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not patching”. Overnight, he became a national hero.