(A) Total number of persons in receipt of poor relief in England and Wales on January 1, and in Scotland on January 15, 1928, 192o and (B) Total numbers in receipt of indoor and outdoor relief in 31 chief urban areas of Great Britain in Jan., 1928. (From Minis try of Labour Gazette.) (C) Unemployed persons (excluding the sick) who were in receipt of outdoor relief in England and Wales, June, 1927. (These figures are based on a return of the Ministry of Health [Cmd. 3006].) Of the total 82% were in 50 large unions, which contain 35% of the population of England and Wales. Over 44% of the men, and over 32% of the women were aged between 3o and 5o. 21% of the men and 151% of the women were under 21. About 5% of both sexes were over 65.
(D) This table shows the total number of vagrants who were relieved in the casual wards (average on Friday nights throughout the year).
(J) Cost of indoor relief per head in 1925-26. England & Wales (average).
(a) Provinces: Per week In workhouse ...... from 8/II Id. to io/ I „ hospitals and asylums . . . 9/112d. to 16/81d.
„ separate institutions for children . " 7/Io-:cl. to 9/old.
(b) London : Per week In workhouse . . . . 9/4d.
„ hospitals and asylums . . 15/4::d.
"Sane indoor poor" ....... . . 19/21d.
Neville Chamberlain began to move in the matter of poor law reform soon after he took office as minister of health in 1925. He carried through a measure which, though its prime object was to amend the rating system, was an important preliminary step towards the abolition of the guardians. Under the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, the parish disappears as the valuation area, the board of guardians no longer appoints the assessment corn mittee, and all the rating functions of the overseers of the poor are transferred to the town and district councils. The Rating (Scotland) Act, 1926, was framed on similar lines; the parish councils are replaced as rating authorities by the town and county councils, and the poor rates are raised by requisition on these.
This legislation was followed towards the end of 1925 by detailed plans for the break up of the poor law. The main points were :— ( I ) Boards of guardians to be abolished.
(2) Registration of births, deaths and marriages to be trans ferred to electoral registration officers acting for counties and county boroughs.
(3) The rest of their functions, and their property (including institutions), liabilities and staffs to be transferred to the county and county borough councils.
(4) County borough councils to provide at their own discretion for the carrying out of the transferred duties.
(5) The county council to be the supervising and controlling authority for all health purposes and to have complete responsi bility for "home assistance" throughout the administrative county. The transferred duties to be carried out "through existing or new committees of the council, assisted where necessary by local sub-committees consisting of county councillors, or partly of county councillors and partly of representatives of the bor ough and district councils of the localities" (or of the metropolitan borough councils in London). But delegation to be allowed to borough and district councils (or metropolitan borough councils in London) of "any transferred service identical in kind with a service already administered by the borough or district council" (e.g., care of infancy and expectant or nursing mothers).
(6) Relief to able-bodied persons to be limited and correlated with unemployment insurance.
(7) The assigned revenue system to be abolished. Block grants, fixed for a term of years, to be paid in aid of transferred and existing health services and distributed to county borough councils on a basis of population qualified by a factor representing low ability to pay. The cost of delegated services to be borne by the borough or district councils to which they are delegated.