Informal, voluntary and statutory services: The complex relationship

The argument of this paper is that equitable social care can eventuate only with the acceptance of a greater role for public sector services. In debates about the development of social care, politicians in industrial societies who stress the virtues of family care are either unaware of the costs to families of providing that care, or are cynically expecting a major shift in social provision and social resources, with the result that those least able to provide adequately will find greater burdens thrust upon them. Responses to the exclusions experienced by people in the 1980s will require greater state intervention because families may have the willingness, but not the capacity to provide the high level care required by dependent relatives and because the voluntary sector is too diffuse and diverse to plan, develop and deliver the bulk of the services.