The complexities of modern post-industrial society have forced upon governments, regardless of their political structure or ideology, a large measure of planning, and of active intervention in the operations of the economy and the organization of community services. If such planning is to be effective, it requires an information base, continuing analysis of trends and relationships, and evaluation of results or ‘outcomes’. A question of growing importance is what forms of research organization can best meet these needs. At issue are the relation between basic or theoretical and applied or task-oriented research, the links between data collection, analysis and research, the modes of interaction between research and policy-making, the balancing of immediate relevance and the long-term view, and the safeguarding of objectivity and independence in matters of vital importance to the political process.

Education is absorbing an increasing share of the nation's resources. The body of research on the subject is vast. Yet its impact on policy has been diffuse and difficult to assess. Studies directly focused on policy issues are rare. The primary aim of this paper is to suggest some areas where research is needed in view of emerging policy considerations. To put such a discussion in its context we begin by briefly examining the extent to which research has had an impact on education policy. We use ‘policy’ here to mean political and administrative decision-making. We conclude with some remarks on the funding and initiation of educational research.

Let me start this article on the valuation basis of social policy by a negative assertion contradicting the title. To stress the subjectivity of the valuation process, I deliberately use the word ‘valuations’ and avoid the term ‘values’ that is so popular in all social science – except in the combination ‘value-premises’ when certain valuations have been defined and made explicit for use in research.

Should social scientists, in their professional capacity, help to formulate political ideologies, policies and programmes? Or should they – and can they – preserve a professional neutrality? I begin by exploring these familiar questions and conclude that social scientists are as entitled as the next man to debate social problems, but should bear in mind that there is no authoritative solution to most of them.

Efforts to eliminate poverty as a major domestic problem in the United States have a long history. The attack was significantly heightened in 1964 with the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act, the statute designed as the foundation of the so-called war on poverty. In the succeeding years which have encompassed two national Administrations, one Democratic and the other Republican, a variety of means have been brought to bear on the problem. Public-assistance expenditures have spiralled upward and substantial amounts of money and manpower have been funnelled into preexisting and new programmes to increase total employment, improve housing, provide more and better health care, equalize opportunities and outcomes across ethnic and racial groupings, and bring legal justice, safety and security to those who have heretofore lacked the financial means for full enjoyment of these values. Still other anti-poverty programmes are under active consideration, most notably President Nixon's proposal to put an income floor under every American household.

I have borrowed this term from Richard Crossman. When he wrote his contribution to the New Fabian Essays in 1952 he took stock of the present state of socialism, as the original Fabians had done in 1889. He hoped to discover ‘a philosophy of Socialism’ with life in it. But he failed. An obvious place to look for it was in the Welfare State, as it had emerged from the hands of the post-war Labour government. But the Welfare State, he decided, was not socialist; it was ‘the climax of a long process, in the course of which capitalism had been civilised and to a large extent reconciled with democracy’. Later on he referred to the product of this process as ‘welfare capitalism’. He ought to have called it ‘democratic-welfare-capitalism’ because, as I shall argue, democracy deserves to have a position as a third party of independent status, not just to be taken for granted.

This article deals with two supplementary cash grants paid to low-income groups in the Israeli population in the year 1962. Both grants were intended to compensate selected population groups for the discontinuation of universal services previously enjoyed by the entire population. The first grant was intended to compensate low-income employees for the non-payment of a universal cost-of-living allowance after devaluation at the beginning of 1962. The second grant was intended to compensate low-income groups for the abolition of the government bread subsidy in the summer of 1962 and the consequent rise in the price of this staple food.

Social security research is a relatively recent development. The interest in it and the way in which it has developed over about the last twelve years seems to have coincided, on the one hand, with the increasing financial difficulties of the social security systems and on the other with the realization that, in spite of the increase in the social security budget, numerous social problems remain to be solved.

The discussion on goals and goal-setting procedures in town planning which has recently been going on in the social and planning sciences1 is concerned – with a few exceptions – with the general methodological aspects of the problem. Undoubtedly this approach, stressing a typology of planning and the importance of planning environments and discussing the advantages of different goal-setting methods, has stimulated planning methodology and helped to modify strictly normative models2 of planning, which did not take into account that planning is also a social process.3

Present trends and problems in the field of social security in the Federal Republic of Germany may become clearer in the light of past developments. Activities which deserve the modern term ‘social policy’ began in 1794, when a Prussian law set forth the duty of public authorities to secure for every citizen the necessary maintenance (Verpflegung) irrespective of the cause of his distress. This was the first time that public responsibility for the maintenance of the citizen was recognized in Germany, and this was the origin of what is now called the social assistance scheme (Sozialhilfe).

Ideology and public policy are so intimately related that they may only with difficulty be seen separately. This essay attempts to view one kind of ideology, American family values, and predict the manner in which they will affect public policy and be altered by public policy. Whatever its intrinsic hazards, prediction for the last quarter of the century affords relative safety for a few years anyway. The term ‘family values’ is used broadly here to encompass objectives that are professed for families in the United States as well as patterns of family structure and activity to which, by practising them, we show attachment. I begin with a brief review and commentary upon the relationship between family values and public policy to date, concluded with some comments on the role that social scientists and reformers might play. Discussion of the future follows, with one further prescription.

Social policy and taxation have commonly been regarded in Britain as quite separate aspects of government policy. Changes in taxation appear to be decided largely independently of the aims of social policy, and reforms of the social security system are often proposed with no regard to their fiscal consequences. Despite the fact that Chancellors of the Exchequer have recently arrogated the right to announce increases in National Insurance benefits, there is little evidence of co-ordination between the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Security over income maintenance. Yet there is clearly a close relationship between these two arms of government policy, and it is important that any proposal for reform should consider taxation and social policy in conjunction.

I have the honour to address you today in this lecture founded to cherish the memory of L. T. Hobhouse, who was the first professor of sociology in this University and in these islands. He devoted his life to extending the study of social development within the framework of those evolutionary theories which had contained so much of Victorian social thought. He discerned a ‘self-conscious evolution of humanity’, found ‘therein a meaning and an element of purpose for the historical process which has led up to it’, and concluded that the ‘slowly wrought out dominance of mind in things is the central fact of evolution’. His fundamental thesis was that humanity had for the first time reached the stage of self-direction. Hobhouse's approach to sociology was itself a protest against sterile separatism either among the several social sciences or between them and the world of everyday affairs. He was a main contributor in his day to the principles of constructive liberalism and a leading exponent of the ideal of democratic equality. He sought for himself a unity of academic theory and social practice through his lifelong commitments as a journalist and commentator as well as an active participant in the work of Trade Boards and other institutions of the labour market. I do not therefore feel that I should apologize for taking as the theme of this memorial lecture present-day anxieties, enthusiasms and confusions about sexual conduct in their bearing upon Hobhouse's ideals of the liberation of the individual, of self-direction and of democratic equality.

Even in Western industrialized countries which have for several decades spent around 5 per cent of their Gross National Product on health care, interest in planning for health is recent. In countries like the United States, with what is sometimes described as a pluralist system, this is scarcely surprising. When the United States is described more bluntly, as it was for example by Walter Reuther, the incompatibility of planning with the general pattern of delivery is clear: ‘What we have, in fact, is a disorganized, disjointed, antiquated, obsolete, non-system of health care.’ But even in the United Kingdom with the framework for planning provided by the National Health Service, observers have been struck by the failure to develop an adequate planning mechanism in twenty years. This view has not been confined to foreign observers nor to British commentators outside the medical establishment.

This article is concerned with a study of the functioning of the Danish system of Social Security, especially with regard to persons and families who need comprehensive services and cash benefits. The study, which relates to the years 1967-8, has had some influence upon the report of the Danish Social Reform Commission. The major proposals of the commission aim at a radical change in the structure of the social security system. These proposals have been adopted by the Danish government and parliament, and the subsequent transition into a new structure is beginning to take place.

Age, lack of skill, employment in certain industries, all contribute to low pay – but with what weight? The purpose of this study is to present evidence that age and skill have been underestimated and the industrial effect misconstrued as factors in low pay. We then attempt to spell out the handicaps of the low paid in labour markets, of which high rates of unemployment are the main sign.