View report page

135
SECTION V
COMMUNITY CARE
It is now the pattern of society that a man no longer furnishes
from his own resources all those services which he and his family
require to live a full and satisfying life. Instead, he is prepared
to pay for many of these services to be provided by specialists
employed by the community as a whole and it is right and proper
that he should have some voice in their operation.
Naturally, the optimum size of a community for any specific
service is open to reasoned argument but, even so, it is possible
that different services require different levels of population for
their efficient and economic performance. In addition, there is
the fact that the historical, traditional and conventional influences
serve to cloud the issues. As a result, what ought to be a simple
but effective system for the provision of these services tends to
become a complicated, abstruse and. on occasions, forbidding and
distant colossus.
Although, following the publication of a bewildering array of
official reports such as the Mallaby. Maude, Seebohm, etc., local
authorities, generally, have been galvanised into activity, it is as
well to remember that a number of forward-looking authorities had
already begun to examine their organisations some considerable
time before these reports made their appearance.
In particular, the need for a realignment of the health, welfare
and social services in Greenwich was apparent from the time of
the inauguration of the new Borough and this fact has been
stressed in each of my reports since. In all fairness, therefore,
Greenwich cannot be justly accused of "jumping the gun" in this
respect.
Broadly speaking, it should be the aim of local government to
satisfy the social needs of the local community and so improve
the quality of its life. However, when one considers that local
authorities are bound by statute to provide certain services and to
constitute certain committees and appoint certain officers because
central government reserves the right to prescribe certain standards
of personal and environmental standards for the citizen at large,
one can realise what a difficult task this has now become. Where
to a greater extent the local authority is allowed discretion, it finds
itself circumscribed by economic and fiscal restraint. Even more
confusing, to authorities and staffs alike, must be the sequence of
policy changes brought about by this financial stringency.