This book explores some of the debates about citizenship and welfare. It is motivated by a desire to investigate and analyse competing accounts of citizenship's social element, at both social scientific and more specifically welfare service user levels. The latter is included in an attempt to allow some ‘bottom-up’ views into what is largely a debate dominated by social scientists and politicians. In order to do this the book draws heavily on a qualitative analysis of 10 different focus groups (see Appendix) that were purposively sampled according to a number of different criteria (eg ethnicity, gender, disability and age). It should be noted from the outset, however, that the book is not a comparative study which specifically highlights the impact that such criteria have on the varying accounts of citizenship and welfare given by the respondents. The inclusion of a number of different voices within the text is an attempt to carry out as inclusive a piece of research as possible. An important aim of the study is to move discussions about citizenship away from a purely theoretical level and allow the practical concerns of citizens (particularly those who are heavy users of public welfare services) to become an integral part of current debates concerning citizenship and welfare (compare Beresford and Croft, 1995). The term ‘welfare service user’ is used as a shorthand to denote ordinary citizens who are not normally involved in the formulation or implementation of welfare policies.

Although the empirical fieldwork that informs part of this book is largely (but not exclusively) focused on a body of respondents who have experience of having to rely on state-provided benefits and services for their day-to-day survival, the study recognises that ‘welfare’ is about more than that which Titmuss referred to as ‘social welfare’. In his essay ‘The social division of welfare’ (1958), Titmuss argues that the state has a duty to meet the varying needs of its citizens. This it attempts to do, not with a single approach, but through three parallel systems of welfare, ‘social,’ ‘fiscal’ and ‘occupational’, each of which must be considered in any discussion of the welfare state. By focusing their attention almost exclusively on Titmuss’ ‘social’ component, it has been easy for certain politicians and commentators to set a narrow agenda when debating welfare reform.