The Rediscovery of Restrictions

Social workers in Britain gained the power to offer financial aid to clients with children through the 1963 Children and Young Persons Act. These powers were extended in Scotland through Section 12 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. However, these powers were also subject to certain limitations: where children were not involved, there had to be exceptional circumstances, it had to be likely that giving financial aid would save the local authority greater expense in the long term and, critically for this case, help could only be given to ‘persons in need’ as defined by Section 94 of the 1968 Act. In practice, some of the restrictions imposed by the 1968 Act were soon forgotten or ignored as local authorities struggled to deal with the demands placed on them. Further, this strategy seemed to get official backing and had the support of other official bodies. However, the issue was re-opened with the miners’ strike of 1984/85 when some authorities used their powers under Section 12 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act extensively to help those on strike. The political controversy surrounding the strike caused the way social work departments were using their powers to offer financial aid to be looked at anew. The result has been the rediscovery of the restrictions of the 1968 Act and a major change to the practice of the previous 15 or 50 years

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