The boundary between voluntary and statutory social service in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

In the debate between the charity organisation society and the new forms of personal service societies that grew up during the Edwardian period, disagreement centred on the nature of the boundary to be drawn between state and voluntary action. The paper reviews the theory and practice of the COS and suggests that while the new societies had much in common with the COS regarding their methods, the nature of their ‘partnership’ with the state was significantly different. While the COS operated a division of labour based on client groups, the new societies preferred a task-based division. The paper argues that while the new societies were determinedly more civic-minded and pragmatic regarding their attitudes towards state welfare provision, they offered no coherent rationale for voluntary effort to replace the theory developed by the COS.