Rolling Back the State Flashcards
(23 cards)
Local Government
Aims
Reducing size of gov - was 10% of gov spending
Believed ‘socialist’ authorities were trying to defy government
Local Government
Reduction of Funding
Cut from £44m in 1979 to £39m in 1990
1981 - Michael Heseltine, policy of ‘targets and penalties’. Set max targets for spending, if exceeded, then funding reduced
Local Government
Rates Bill (1984)
Cap on local government taxation
Some local councils, eg Liverpool Council (Derek Hatton + ‘Militant Tendency’) openly defied + set illegally high rates
But all gave in, right-wing press criticised, Labour Leader Neil Kinnock publicly criticised ‘militant wing’
Local Government
Local Government Act (1985)
Abolished seven metropolitan councils
Included ‘Red’ Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council - feared attempts to create ‘urban socialism’
Some claim move was politically motivated
Local Government
Local Government Act (1988)
Forced councils to buy in services from private contractors, and accept most competitive offers
Led to reduction in size of local gov, over 400,000 local government employees made redundant 1979-1990
Local Government
Local Government Finance Act (1988)
‘Community Charge’ (Poll Tax) introduced to Scotland (1989) and England (1990)
Designed to replace system of ‘rates’ based on property - flat rate
Local Government
Spending
1979-1990, local spending increased by 15%
As a proportion of GDP, fell from 10% to 8.7%
Local Government
Central Gov
Forced to increase power of central government in order to enforce changes to local government
Role of the state increased
Housing
Housing Act (1980)
Gave council tenants living in house for 3 years the ‘right to buy’ with 33% discount, if lived there for 20 years, 50% discount
500,000 bought homes every year 1980-1989
Over 5 million council homes sold (1980-1997), proportion of state owned houses fell from 31.5% to 23.6% by 1989
Housing
Housing Act (1986)
Reduced local council budgets
Banned local authorities from using money from sale of houses on new housing projects
By 1997, state effectively built no new houses
Civil Service
Thatcher’s View
Didn’t trust or like civil service
Thought it had grown too large, was inefficient, and should be reduced in size
Believed civil service was a powerful elite that must be controlled more directly
Civil Service
Actions Taken
‘Efficiency Unit’ to make civil service more efficient
‘Management Information System’ - monitor + reduce civil service costs (redundancies where necessary)
‘Next Steps’ report that recommended each department set targets to improve efficiency
Civil Services
Savings
By 1989, more than £1 billion of savings, number of civil servants reduced almost 25%
NHS
Inaction
Wanted to slash cost + inefficiency, but public opposition limited this
NHS
Some Reform
1987 election victory gave confidence for radical proposals
1989 White Paper, ‘Working for Patients’ called for creation of ‘internal market’ where health authorities would purchase healthcare services
Part of Thatcher’s legacy, not introduced until after her fall
NHS
Spending
1980-1987, spending on NHS rose by 60%, NHS’s share of GDP rose from 12% to 15% between 1979-1986
Number with private health insurance rose (6.6 mil), only 1% manual workers had private health insurance
Education
Inaction
Little change until her third term
LEAs hostile to change
Education
GCSEs
Keith Joseph (Education Secretary 1981-86)
Raising standards by replacing CSEs and O-levels with GCSEs
Standardised qualification
Announced 1984, first examined 1988
Education
Education Act (1988) - Standards
Kenneth Baker (Education Secretary 1986-89)
Introduced National Curriculum and league tables based on exam results
Aimed to empower parents to select better schools + **Department of Education **to hold them to account
Education
Education Act (1988) - LEA Control
Allowed schools to opt-out of Local Authority control and become ‘grant maintained’ schools
Gave funding directly from central government, controlled own budget
1,200 schools (19%) opted out
Social Security and Pensions
Social Security Act (1986)
Means testing for some universal benefits
Harder to claim unemployment, disability, and housing benefits
Social Security and Pensions
Overall Change
Large rise in unemployment, so social security spending increased
1979, 10% GDP spent on social security, by 1989, rose to 11.1%
Social Security and Pensions
Pensions
Green paper proposed abolition of State Earning Related Pension Scheme created by Labour in 1975
Opposition forced Thatcher to backtrack and introduce moderate reforms
Designed to push people to private pensions but spending stayed almost the same, 6.7% GDP in 1979, 6.5% in 1990
