Stopping the poor getting poorer: the establishment and professionalisation of poverty NGOs, 1945-95

After the Second World War it was widely believed that the welfare state had eradicated poverty. Within this context, voluntary organisations that represented the needs of the poor did not fare well in terms of funding or government influence. This situation was to change however in response to a number of high profile social surveys written and published in the 1960s. These built on Titmuss’ arguments and challenged the orthodoxy that the Attlee government had abolished want in Britain.2 In the process poverty was re-defined and people were stunned to discover that certain groups within British society, particularly the elderly and large families, had fallen through the gaps in the welfare state and become poorer.3 The account of the establishment and professionalisation of poverty NGOs from 1945 to 1995 that follows is based predominately on my research of the archives and oral histories with members of the staff of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child (NCUMC) which became One Parent Families (OPF) in 1973.