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the two opposing poles in social policy in terms of the distribution ofresources from the ‘public purse’ – with a clear impact on housing standards.The main theoretical proposition of the thesis is that the adoption ofuniversalist or selectivist social policies emanates principally fromsocial values, and that universalist policies lead to high social housingstandards while selectivist policies lead to lower standards, contrary toarguments regarding a more efficient use of resources throughtargeting them.The data available on the subject was distilled into the comparison betweentwo contrasting periods: 1960s and 1980s. To discern the values of the time,the dominant paradigms as reflected in social and housing policies wereinvestigated. Primary and secondary sources in the form of semi-structuredinterviews, archive material covering policy documents, Cabinet Papers andcommittee reports were reviewed. The findings of the research wereaugmented by examples of social housing of the period, with more detailedreference to two estates built to 1960s and 1980s standards respectively.The two estates taken as major case studies are included as examples ofthe standards of their time and demonstrating characteristics related tospace standards, and environmental and communal facilities.1.1 Research FieldThe field of research straddles social policy and housing standards and itsscope is twofold: state policies and their role in the development of socialhousing in Britain and the standards of housing produced. The time periodunder study is mainly focused on the latter part of the twentieth century.However, in order to find the background to a number of developments in thestudy period, reference is also made to significant events of relevance fromearlier dates.The timeline of state involvement in the provision of housing started in late19th century. Local authorities took a dominant role in the development andPhD Thesis - Jamileh ManoochehriChapter 211

provision of mass-housing from early 20th century and this role becameprominent by the 1960s. In the 1980s this process was reversed and in1988, local authorities were excluded from the development of socialhousing. Their role was effectively passed on to Housing Associations.When enjoying the greatest state support, social housing had grown toaccount for 29 per cent of the country’s housing stock (ODPM, 2003). Withsuch a massive presence, social housing became distinctive as a built formand at the same time it became a reflection of the planning laws, buildingregulations and subsidy regimes and budgets, covering design, planning,construction and land cost. Each of these aspects affected the quality of thehousing produced in some way.The changes in the quality of social housing occurred at certain times whichappeared to relate to the detection or acknowledgment of severe need.During the periods investigated, although the demand for social housing ofacceptable standard was constant, however, the state’s policy towardsfinding a solution to the need for such housing varied at different times –sometimes even opposite.In the study period, fluctuations are evident in the level of state interventionin the provision of public service. In the post war years (WWII), there was ajump in state intervention in some essential services, namely health,education and to various degrees, housing. During the latter half of thetwentieth century, there were rises and sharp falls in this level ofintervention. The answer to the question of what drove these changeshas been commonly given as economic and budgetary considerations.However, when the fate of housing is considered, the economic factorsdo not explain why certain periods produced higher space standardsand similar periods, lower.Although there are always economic reasons for the level of publicexpenditure or welfare provision at any one time, these reasons are notsufficient in explaining the adoption of specific social policies, relating tostandards of provision. Some scholars explain the problems prevailing in thePhD Thesis - Jamileh ManoochehriChapter 212

distribution of the proceeds of the public purse in terms of sexism and racismwithin the legislative and executive institutions (Clapham et al, 1990).However, none of these help explain why at certain times the state is moregenerous in its treatment of those who have the smallest share from thepublic purse and at other times less so, while the economic role of the stateand any prevailing prejudices remain constant.In a broad sense, the degree and manner of state intervention in the form ofsocial policies and the influence of values constitutes the broad field ofstudy.One of the most notable events in social policy development in the midtwentieth century was the creation of the welfare state. Its subsequentsuccess meant that the debates that accompanied its inception becamemuted for a noticeable amount of time, but they weren’t totally silent. Theviews for and against the welfare state were later conducted around twoopposing approaches to social services: adoption of universalist policies orselectivist (targeted) ones. At the heart of this debate, have remained anumber of issues regarding the validity and level of state intervention, theconcepts of equality, entitlement and need, as opposed to exercisingindividual will, choice and freedom.Two diametrically opposed views are prevalent in the debate about the roleof social policies in forming the kind of society we live in: the proponents ofthe welfare system who believe in a prominent role for the state as themanager of the economy with responsibility for alleviating social problemsand those arguing for limited state involvement and an increased role for themarket. The former argue that the state is well-placed to ensure anacceptable standard of life in the society in order to prevent social problemsand also argue that certain goods and services cannot be easily procured byall citizens – housing being one. The opponents of the welfare state arguethat the involvement of the state in the provision of services and goodsweakens the individuals’ sense of responsibility to provide for him/herselfand very importantly it will distort market relations. This is problematic asPhD Thesis - Jamileh ManoochehriChapter 213

they see market relations as the main tool of providing services (Murray,1984; Hayek, 1944).The post-war period in Britain coincided with what much of the literaturerefers to as years of consensus - when there was a level of acceptancebetween the two major political Parties about the need for social welfare.This period has been identified in this thesis as the period of socialdemocratic consensus due to the dominance of social democratic ideas.During this period several milestones were reached in standards in socialhousing and the influential Parker Morris report (1961) was published andbecame even more influential than the earlier Tudor Walters (1918) andDudley (1944) reports in calling for change in the quality of housing.State intervention in the provision of housing was well-established by 1960sand by this time quantitatively, public rented accommodation accounted formore than a third of all dwellings in Britain. The Parker Morris standardsproduced higher quality dwellings and significantly were deemed by SirParker Morris to be universally applicable and not limited to social housing.In contrast to this period, the decades after 1979 were dominated by a policyof the withdrawal of the state from social housing provision. The ParkerMorris standards were dropped and between 1981 and 1993 there were orHousingAssociations - which had replaced Local Authorities as the main providers ofsocial housing - to follow. The period from 1979 till 1997 (the time scale ofthe study) is referred to as the period of neo-liberal consensus as it covers aperiod in which neo-liberal ideas and policies have been in ascendancy.The study of housing built to Parker Morris standards and those built to therequirements set in the 1980s shows a variation in standards - mainlydownward in terms of space standards - a point stressed in much of theliterature, the report by HATC (2006) may be cited as the latest suchexample.PhD Thesis - Jamileh ManoochehriChapter 214

1. 2 Theoretical FieldThe theoretical field of this research is concerned with the correlationbetween social values and social policies, and how these in turn relate tohousing policies. Theoretically, these relations are linked to the issue of therole of the state in the balance of power between labour and capital incapitalist societies.Theoretically, Marxist literature asserts that the state’s social welfare policiesare motivated by self-preservation. The state represents the interests ofcapital and responds to political pressure when its rule is threatened(Miliband, 1977; Gough, 1979; Offe, 2000). The policies that ameliorate thecondition of the working class are seen in this context with Marxist authorsasserting that social welfare policies only prolong the exploitation of labourby capital.However, accepting the intervention of the state as a fact in countries likeBritain, the main question concerns the level and form of this intervention. Asthe main points of divergence in the field of social policy are manifested inthe adoption of universalist or selectivist policies, the circumstances that leadto the adoption of each fall within the theoretical field of this thesis.Whether it is incumbent on the state to intervene via subsidies andregulation to moderate the inequalities resulting from the workings of themarket, or to allow the market free reign - with every service being acommodity for which the market sets the price - are issues that are dealt withdifferently by the marketer or social democratic positions. The corollary ofthe two opposing tendencies or ideological positions has been the adoptionof selectivist (targeted) policies or universalist ones, at different periods.The underlying basis of the disparity between the two different ideologicalpositions is in the interpretation of the role of the individual within the society:the citizen with a right and an ‘entitlement’ versus the customer whopurchases a commodity and a service in the market. From one ideologicalPhD Thesis - Jamileh ManoochehriChapter 215

point of view the market is seen as an enabling agent and from another, asone creating inequality of access to necessary services.Moreover, in the relations between capital and labour, the services that thestate provides are partly indicative of what it deems to be the exchangevalue of labour. The literature attributes different motives for the state’sconcessions towards labour, among them political pressure, threat of unrestand the exchange value of labour, and its share of the public purse arevariable and dependent on historical conditions. As mentioned earlieruniversalism and targeting are the two policy instruments within which thesepolitical and ideological positions are manifested. As the closest example toa universal service, the health service is one of the main pillars of the welfarestate. Education and housing are the other major components of the welfarestate which have been the scene of application of the above policies, tovarious degrees.In relation to housing, the literature recognises a number of featurescommon to the periods in which the state has intervened in housingprovision in Britain. These include the exertion of political power by those inneed (Swenarton, 1981), recognition of poor quality of housing as a cause ofsocial and health problems (Gater, 1937), and the acceptance of the notionof citizenship (Marshall, 1950).In general, changes in social and housing policy are seen as by-products ofthe political position of the government in power and the pressures thatmoderate its actions. The level of the state’s intervention is part of thepolitical direction that social policy is given and it is applied to variousdegrees. In terms of housing, historically, the state has used a number ofmeans in order to alleviate the problem of shortage of housing of sociallyacceptable standards. Since the early involvement of the state in resolvingthe problem of housing for the poor in the 20th century, the measures it hastaken have ranged from ‘slum clearance’, funding for the provision of lowcost housing, provision of state land on which to build low-cost housing andsubsidies to housing providers or tenants who cannot afford market rates.PhD Thesis - Jamileh ManoochehriChapter 216

In these measures, usually taken in social democratic administrations, thestate effectively decommodifies housing by removing it from the usualdemands of the market. While using the public purse to provide theassistance required, the state imposes its own requirements and standardson the stock being produced. These standards are partly dictated by theorthodoxies of the time, partly pressed by professional bodies and thoseinvolved in the construction industry. Space standards, constructionstandards and the environmental quality form aspects of standards or qualityof the housing produced.As mentioned in the Research Field, these standards show a variation atdifferent periods in time. A significant portion of the literature relates thechanges in standards seen in the key policy milestones (Tudor WaltersReport of 1918 and the Dudley Committee report of 1944) to the effect ofwar on people’s attitudes. While some literature attributes increases in thequality of housing to the political influence of those most in need of publiclyfunded housing on the policies that affect their standards, there appears tobe other influences that affect the quality of low-cost housing standards.The great break in housing standards that was seen in the sixties in the formof the Parker Morris report of 1961 became to be seen as ground breakingas it was delivered almost as a proclamation of the need for better housingfor everyone in a modernizing society. The Parker Morris committee calledfor better quality public housing and for improvements in standards in allhousing stock. Although published in 1961 while the Conservative Party wasin government, the Parker Morris was also the product of a time when one ofthe most significant social policies in Britain had become established aspopular and irreversible – the National Health Service with its principle ofuniversality and the welfare state. The publication of the report also falls inthe period identified as the period of social democratic consensus.Although, as in higher education provided by the welfare state, eligibility cestandards,improvements in amenities and the availability of the housing to the majorityPhD Thesis - Jamileh ManoochehriChapter 217

of the population, was a distinct characteristic of public housing at this time.The universalist approach was visible in social policy at this time and it isargued that this was the reason for the improvements in standards. Thesocial democratic period may be said to have started immediately after thewar in 1945 but the first decade running well into the 1950s, was influencedby the needs for reconstruction. In the 1950s the state was pre-occupiedwith its undertaking of building large quantities of dwellings while reducingthe space standards.The Parker Morris report was an example of the universalist approach as itapplied to the public and private sector covering the for-sale and for-letsector. No part of the population was excluded from the better, higherstandards proposed. In 1967, in order to ensure compliance with thisstandard, albeit in an altered form, the government made financialassistance dependent on meeting the recommended standards. The decadeand a half that followed produced social housing of space and amenitystandards generally said to be higher than the previous decades. Theliterature states that the period when the Parker Morris standards ceased tobe obligatory, in 1981, standards in new public housing began to drop. Thisperiod coincided with the dominance of the Conservative Party - and a newideological era. The involvement of the state in the provision of publichousing, especially new-built ones was diminished in this period in order tointroduce the market mechanism in this provision.The 1980s may be referred to as the era of selectivist policies. During thisperiod of market driven social policy, the right of state housing tenants to buytheir rented dwellings became enshrined in law. However, the entry of theonce de-commodified housing into the market was seriously distortedbecause of the incentives on offer for the sale of state-owned housing andthe intrinsic value of the housing units as real estate. In a way, the marketset a new value for the housing stock according to their desirability. Thestatus of social housing shifted from a respectable and common form oftenure to a significantly marginalized one from the 1980s onwards while thePhD Thesis - Jamileh ManoochehriChapter 218

state’s method of dealing with social housing was based principally ontargeted social and housing policies.1.3 Research QuestionsIt is notable that in the periods when public expenditure increased to dealwith the shortage of public housing, this did not necessarily result in higherspace standards. At times the focus was on meeting the demand foradditional dwelling units by building smaller units by cheaper methods ofconstruction. A rise in standards appears to correspond to periods in whichthe resultant dwellings are not aimed at a residual sector of the society butfor anyone in general. The main presumption of this period is the equalentitlement of citizens to socially acceptable standard of housing.The relevant literature in themselves do not explain satisfactorily why policychanges and the shift in emphasis from universalism to targeting occurswhen it does and why the space and environmental standards in publichousing vary a

at the given periods. The policy statements and social and housing policies were also analysed to find the correlation between the string of factors that lead from the state to the final built artefact in the form of social values, social policies, housing policies and social housing standards. In order to verify the findings of the research,