Interdepartmental Committee - The Job

In June 1941 Beveridge was appointed to lead an interdepartmental committee, formed of members of the Civil Service, on Social Insurance and Allied Services:

"To undertake, with special reference to the inter-relation of the schemes, a survey of the existing national schemes of social insurance and allied services, including workmen's compensation, and to make recommendations."

Beveridge famously set out to go far beyond his brief. He sketched out most of the elements of his plan a year before the report was published and before the committee had heard any witnesses.

In the midst of WW2, the committee spent hundreds of hours conducting research, social surveys and interviews with businesses, trade unions, charities and other interested parties. Covering topics of poverty as well as old age and low birth rates and much more.

The report was personal, it was representative of Beveridge's own views and was signed by Beveridge rather than a government minister or department and published on 2 December 1942.