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A major boundary change took place in social policy when Statutory Sick Pay replaced Sickness Benefit. When proposed in 1980, it met with much resistance from interest groups but since its introduction in 1983, relatively little attention has been paid to it. This paper argues that there are implications which need to be examined when a shift takes place from welfare state provision to welfare society provision in which the emphasis is on an interlocking of public and private sector arrangements.
There are numerous ways in which the State and private sectors operate either separately or together in the provision of welfare. They range from those in which the State has a monopoly, as is the case for example in supplementary benefits, to those in which it is dominant but co-exists with a separate private sector, as in the case of the National Health Service or education, to those where there are partnership arrangements as for example, between State and occupational pensions, through to those where State provision is devolved to other agencies or where the role of the State is to regulate private provision.

The article offers some explanations for the different responses to recent developments in British social security policy. Lack of opposition to reductions in national insurance benefits in 1980 is contrasted with resistance put up to the employers' statutory sickness benefit scheme. Following Derthick's analysis of American social security policy-making, it is suggested that major policy shifts in the 1980 benefit changes were not recognised because of the ambiguity and technicality of the British national insurance scheme; because of the incremental nature of the politics which surround issues about who loses and who wins within the scheme; and because of the particular characteristics of the practitioner and consumer groupings in social security which do not provide a power base from which to challenge such developments. By contrast the proposal to introduce the employers' statutory sickness benefit scheme visibly and unmistakably affected the boundaries of the public and private sectors and involved external organised interest groups.

This paper presents an analytical framework for comparing patterns of devolution to subnational governments and autonomous social insurance institutions in social security systems. The framework has two components. One is an analysis of financial structures along the dimensions of financial autonomy (indicated by the extent to which the administering institution raises its own revenue or depends on central grants) and financial responsibility (indicated by whether marginal costs are borne by the administering institution). The other component of the framework concerns the assignment of policy-making power; in particular, we contrast the effects of competitive and cooperative modes of devolution. The discussion uses examples from Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. While we looked for 'principal-agent' relationships between central governments and administering institutions, we found that more complex multi-level governance structures prevailed in most cases.

Presents an analytical framework for comparing patterns of devolution to subnational governments & autonomous social insurance institutions in social security systems. The framework has two components: (1) analysis of financial structures along the dimensions of financial autonomy (indicated by the extent to which the administering institution raises its own revenue or depends on central grants) & financial responsibility (indicated by whether marginal costs are borne by the administering institution) & (2) the assignment of policy-making power; in particular, the effects of competitive & cooperative modes of devolution are contrasted. The discussion uses examples from Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, & the US. While looking for "principal-agent" relationships between central governments & administering institutions, it was found that more complex multilevel governance structures prevailed in most cases. 1 Diagram, 24 References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper reviews the methodological issues raised by different commentators' attempts to categorise countries' social security systems into 'regime types' or 'models'. It is argued that there are two major problems with these categorisations: (1) the difficulty of finding empirical counterparts to the theoretical concepts used; (2) the complexity of actual social security systems, arising in particular from the diversity of benefits within each system. Despite these problems, we argue that it is possible to maintain a theoretically-informed approach to the comparative analysis of social security, by adopting a more flexible methodology. The approach presented in this paper identifies some of the main principles on which social security systems are based, specifies their empirical counterparts, and allows each national system to be analysed in terms of its particular conjunction or combination of principles. (European Journal of Political Research / AuD)