Welfare Rights and Wrongs: The Limits of Local Antipoverty Strategies

Outline This article discusses the development of local authority anti‐poverty initiatives in Britain over the last two decades, setting them in the context of previous targeted anti‐poverty activity in this country and in the United States, and focusing in particular upon the important role played by welfare rights within local anti‐poverty work. The article also describes in some detail the initiatives in the welfare rights field undertaken by Sheffield County Council in the 1980s as part of its more general commitment during this period to challenging poverty and deprivation in the city and improving welfare services. It is argued that Sheffield provides an example of many of the strengths, and weaknesses, of the welfare rights theme within local authority anti‐poverty action; and that from this lessons can be drawn for the role of welfare rights in future anti‐poverty initiatives here and elsewhere. In conclusion the more general limitations of local anti‐poverty strategies are discussed, contrasting ...