No abstract

In recent years mental deficiency policy and the wider issue of the history of people with learning difficulties have attracted much attention. Important publications by Mathew Thomson, Anne Digby, Mark Jackson, David Wright and others have led to a reassessment of mental deficiency provision. 1 These scholars have firmly placed mental deficiency services within a mixed economy of care, with statutory and voluntary sector organizations providing institutional and community-based services in cooperation, and also in competition, with one another. The politics of service-delivery provided an important strand of analysis in Thomson's The problem of mental deficiency, but he did not seek to investigate any one institution, preferring instead to concentrate on the wider debates that informed service-development. 2 This enabled him to link changes in the sector to much wider social, economic, political and intellectual trends in ways that have stimulated a great deal of interest and research. To date most attention has concentrated on case studies of specialist institutions before 1914 and the development of community care in the twentieth century. This leaves something of a gap in the literature because institutions (created before and after 1914) are relatively neglected in studies of the implementation of the 1913 and 1927 Mental Deficiency Acts. The place of such institutions within the mixed economy of care therefore remains uncertain. This paper places institutions at the core of provision after 1914 and suggests diversity in schemes of institutional and community care as a new way of understanding the relationship between the two. Within the mixed economy of care there were groups identifiable as ''purchasers'' and ''providers'' of care, if we borrow twenty-first-century terminology. The key purchasers of care were the local authorities with statutory responsibilities for mental

No abstract

Since the onset of the COVID-19 health crisis, and associated stringency measures, governments have acted in support of businesses and individuals by activating fiscal stimulus measures and introducing or expanding social protection programs. Initiatives to collect, analyze and monitor social protection responses have generated a wealth of evidence on the most aspects 1 The note presents preliminary findings for discussion and only reflects the personal views of the authors. We are grateful to Penny Williams, Amjad Zafar Khan, Delphine Prady and David Coady for precious comments and support. Almenfi and Gentilini are with the World Bank; Breton, Dale and Richardson with UNICEF; and Pick is with the OECD.

No abstract