HAS POOR RELIEF DECLINED IN JAMAICA? A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION

Philip D. Osei

Abstract

This paper studied the changing fortunes of Poor Relief, a prototype social security benefit that

was officially instituted in Jamaica in 1886, and managed by the local authorities. It was

discovered that although a number of public inquiries have been conducted into the conditions in

which poor people lived, in general, and into the management of poor relief in particular,

management of the policy did not keep abreast with developments in modern management. Poor

relief has been surpassed by other politically visible modern programmes of poverty reduction. A

general deterioration in economic fortunes of the country has also had a negative impact on the

supply and real value of public investments in poor relief. Poor relief as a public programme,

therefore, requires a serious review.

INTRODUCTION

Poor relief is a prototype social security benefit that is paid to eligible persons under the

law in Jamaica. It was administered as part of the institutions of local government

transplanted by the British colonialists from the metropolis to the Caribbean. In spite of

its presence in the region for over a century, there is a paucity of academic research on

the subject. The most important academic research on poor relief is that done by L P

Fletcher (1992) on the system inherited from nineteenth century Barbados, tracing the

evolution and administration of the policy from 1900 to 1969. For Jamaica too, poor

relief has been an important plank of social and local governance policies for over one

and a quarter centuries. It enjoyed a glorified status under the Elizabethan parochial

system of vestry and justices, but today it has become very unpopular although poverty

reduction, per se, has assumed a new importance in national and international

development policy. In reaction to changing international perspectives on poverty as a

social ill that needs to be eradicated, the Jamaican government has made some policy

responses by enacting a National Poverty Eradication Programme in 1997. This paper

looks at the changing circumstances of the institution of poor relief, its stagnation and its

supersedence by modem programmes of poverty reduction. The term 'decline' will be

defined in terms of deterioration or depreciation in the value of national budgetary

allocations to poor relief, as well as an increase in the number of recipients over one

accounting period (normally one year).

There have been changing international attitudes towards poverty, whereas local

responses towards poor relief have continued to be ambivalent and, to some extent,

hostile. Ministerial pronouncements, especially the one by Arnold Bertram, the Jamaican

Minister of Local Government, Youth and Community Development, at a recent UNDP-

Habitat-sponsored Regional Seminar on Innovative Approaches to Local Development

and Management, held in Montego Bay September 3-6,2000, have been highly critical of

local government capabilities based on their limited resources. Bertram's speech was

almost negative in its stance towards poor relief, but somehow positive on a better

approach to poverty eradication. Bertram decried the welfarist policies of the local

authorities and encouraged the parishes to adopt a developmental policy approach to local

governance. Later on in November 2000 he revealed that were it not for the loans the

government provided to fix roads in St Thomas, for example, council revenues would not

be able to fix one single road. Other parishes, including St Mary and Portland, were also

noted as lacking the economic activity to pay the kind of rates to maintain a local

authority (Daily Observer, November 23,2000: 1&3). For local authorities that are

struggling to provide basic services, huge increases in the welfare bill are highly likely to

pose an undesirable burden for such poor parishes. It is important to find out how widely

the minister's perspective on poor relief is shared by the public.

This research investigates the reasons for disillusionment with poor relief and

assesses how effective the management and impact of poor relief have been historically.

It also examined how regime changes and shifts in development ideology affected the

volume of relief given since the country's adoption of the neo-liberal Structural

Adjustment Programmes in the 1980s. It investigates why poor relief, of the type

delivered through the Parish Councils, has fallen out of favour although other poverty

reduction strategies and enhanced human welfare reforms have remained high on the

agenda locally, and also on the international development agenda. Finally, the research

examines what, if any, plausible alternative policies are being planned to replace the

increasingly unpopular poor relief as delivered by local government authorities fi-om a

central government standpoint.

2 CARIBBEAN AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON POVERTY

Poverty is a complex problem that is in part, at least, a product of the impact of

political processes and policy development. This is Pete Alcock's view of the poverty

problematic. Poverty is described as a political or moral concept in which case it requires

public action (Alcock 1997: 6). According to Henry George, the American social

reformer of the nineteenth century, there is in nature no justification for poverty (1 885).

Poverty is, therefore, a prescriptive concept that suggests an unacceptable state of affairs

that requires policy action. Poverty has been defined in different ways by both academics

and policy makers. For example, it has been broadly defined to encompass the broader

notion of relative deprivation within a society of changing norms and customs (Alcock

1997: 8; Townsend 1979). In deed, the World Bank (1994) believed that poverty declined

in countries that pursued a two-part strategy. The first relates to the promotion of broad-

based growth and the use of intensive labour, the asset that the poor have in abundance.

The second strategy involves using public expenditure and institutions to offer education,

health care, and other social services to the poor. The bank believed that a poverty

reduction strategy for Jamaica needed to do both, paying particular attention to promoting

labour-intensive growth. This suggestion was made because growth had been "so slow in

the past two decades" (World Bank 1994: 14). Patrick Watt of Oxfam Great Britain

(2000) believes that by delivering growth with equity, countries and the international

community would be making the right responses towards eradicating poverty. Watt's

book, entitled bbSocial Investment and Economic growth: A Strategy to Eradicate

Poverty", in concert with this l i e of thought, therefore makes three main

recommendations:

1. To achieve rapid and substantial poverty eradication, public investment in good-

quality basic universal social provision was crucial.

2. Governments should make judicious use of all available resources - both local and

foreign - to promote pro-poor labour-intensive growth and,

3. Pro-poor rural development policies should be promoted by ensuring investment

in physical and communications infrastructure, stable prices for basic foodstuffs,

access to credit and savings facilities and access to relevant technologies (Watt

2000: 9-10).

Similarly, several attempts have been made to theorise poverty according to its

perceived causes. There is an 'underclass model' that is generally discussed in the context

of a broader pathological approach to deprivation (Murray 1990, 1994). The underclass

thesis is a pathological model of social causation that sees poverty as the product of

individual weakness or fecklessness. In line with the belief that informs it the underclass

model posits a policy response that looks at the individual and tries to change attitudes

(Alcock 1997: 36). Diametrically opposed to this view, is the structuralist perspective that

sees poverty as the product of dynamic social forces. Some structuralist theorists believe

that the development of capitalism occasioned the phenomenon of poverty. Capitalism

and the great enclosures of centuries ago in Britain that excluded peasants fiom the land

have been considered as the forces that triggered off poverty.

At the practical level, and based on these explanations of the probable causes of

poverty, policy responses have been pursued in various countries to combat it. For

example, as far as public policy is concerned, Britain had its poor relief and the present

welfare state benefits, and Jamaica has its poor relief programmes that cost the tax-paying

public millions of hard-earned dollars every financial year. This does not mean, however,

that it is only this definition that has informed practice in these countries. Other

competing perspectives have prevailed depending on which party is in power. Reference

is being made to alternating regimes of social democratic and conservative ideologies that

have imposed their own idiosyncratic interpretat ions of poverty.

If poverty persists despite all these efforts, and if the victims are not to blame,

then the failings of antipoverty policies must be sought in the backyard of agencies and

institutions responsible for making them work (Alcock 1997: 39).

The structuralist view does not focus on individuals as victims of their own

fortunes, but on the structural forces that shape those fortunes. Ferge and Millar (1987)

refer to the 'dynamics of deprivation', a term that draws attention to the changing context

in which poverty or deprivation is experienced. There are also the relativist and absolutist

approaches to poverty. Pete Alcock is of the view that poverty, like all social phenomena,

is a product of social change, so if we want to identify the cause of poverty, then we need

to examine the dynamics of social change (1997: 37). Others like Amartya Sen (1981 and

1997) prefer to look at poverty in terms of 'entitlement' and 'human capabilities". New

work has also shown the importance of gender, ethnic and racial inequalities as a

dimension and a cause of poverty (World Bank 2000:33).

Caribbean scholars have also contributed to research on development and poverty

in the region. Sir Arthur Lewis (a renowned development economist), George Beckford,

Neville Duncan, Norman Girvan, Aldrie Henry-Lee, among others, have made substantial

contributions to the analysis of poverty in the Caribbean region. Derek Gordon (1 989)

was the person who first made a pioneering effort at systernatising the method for

measuring poverty in Jamaica. This has been built on by the work of Henry-Lee, Heather

Ricketts and other scholars and practitioners at the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ)

in refining the measurement methodology. These new efforts at conceptual refinement

culminated in the recently published Jamaican Human Development Report in 2000.

The intellectual foundations of poverty analysis in the Caribbean owe a lot to two

protagonists, Arthur Lewis and George Beckford, and to the work of the West India

Commission, popularly called the Moyne Commission. Lewis' concern with poverty was

presented in a memorandum to the Moyne Commission that was established by warrant

on 5' August 1938 "to investigate social and economic conditions in Barbados, British

Guiana, British Honduras, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and the

Windward Islands . . . and to make recommendations" (Quoted in LaGuerre 1991 : 93). A

wide range of issues were covered by Moyne including housing, agriculture, hospitals,

schools, prisons, factories, docks, lunatic asylums, orphanages, leper houses, and land

settlements. It must be noted that the remit given to Moyne was the widest any

Commission of Enquiry had covered in the Caribbean. Lewis saw the problem of poverty

mostly in terms of prices, and the extent to which the British public was prepared to

subsidise a higher price for sugar. Lewis argued that:

' Amartya Sen's contribution to the analysis o f poverty has been well acknowledged in the Jamaican Human Development Report of 2000. See p. 30 of the JHDR especially for how Sen's 1997 thesis about human capacities has influenced the Jamaican thinking about the measurement of poverty.

"If the islands were under French or American control . . . they would have

enjoyed highly protective systems that would have put to shame the poverty of the

British possessions" (Quoted in Laguerre 199 1 : 94).

Lewis saw the answer to improving the lot of ordinary West Indians in the "special

treatment in British markets" of West Indian products. As LaGuerre argues, "in resting

the case for protection on the morality of the metropolitan-colonial relationship, Lewis

was of course invoking the time-honoured doctrine of trusteeship" ( LaGuerre 1991: 94).

But Lewis did not see the answer only in protection, he also argued for the fill

implementation of the recommendations of the Sugar Commission of 1930. He also

recommended an end to monopolies in the region and a turning towards the American

market which he saw as the natural outlet for West Indian products (LaGuerre 1991: 95).

The West India Royal Commission Report (popularly known as the Moyne

Commission report) did a detailed survey of the social and economic conditions of the

Caribbean. It was particularly scathing in its remarks about the absence of a well-defined

programme of social welfare and the status accorded women in society (1945: 230). This

included the management of social services for the poor, especially services for orphaned

children. Moyne was concerned that the environment in which these children were raised

was most unsuitable. The report noted that as a rule the destitute child was in the care of

the Poor Law Authorities and was put up in the Almshouse with the senile and the sick,

or in the reformatory sleeping and working and playing with the delinquent child. It was

discovered that there were, in some of the colonies, children's institutions (Rescue

Homes) to which deserted children were sent. Although elementary reading and writing

were taught here, children had to leave the Rescue Homes at as early as age 14, with no

occupational equipment. Inevitably, some of them soon became applicants for poor relief

and joined the company of those who were permanent occupants of Poor Law Institutions

(1945: 227-28). But there were local solutions that catered to educational and recreational

needs such as the Jamaica Welfare League, that was emulated in the other islands. This

received a nod of approval fiom Moyne (1 945: 299)

For Beckford, in his book -Persistent Poverty, poverty was associated with the

underachievement of "fbll human dignity" (1 972: xx). The Beckfordian perspective on

persistent poverty is centred on persistent underdevelopment in plantation economies of

his time. Beckford saw Caribbean countries as caught up in an underdevelopment trap

that derived fiom their institutional environment, that include the nature of their

economic, social and political organisation. The institutional environment was perceived

to be a legacy of historical forces. To Beckford, what was most crucial in this legacy was

the agricultural dimension of dependency through the plantation influence (Meier 1 996:

158; Beckford 1972: 2 16- 17). External relations feature prominently in Beckford's

theorisation of poverty. But that alone was not enough to explain the persistence of

poverty. He sought to supplement his external relations thesis by examining the "internal

pattern of economic, social, and political organisation to uncover those factors that

constrain development in plantation economy and society" (quoted in Meier 1996: 158).

For Beckford therefore, the meaning of development involves not only a sustained

increase in per capita income, but also more equitable patterns of income distribution and

the emergence of genuinely independent societies (Meier 1996: 158; Beckford 1972: xx).

Most of what Beckford suggested in 1972 still bears much examination today. It

found resonances in most of the policies pursued in the 1980s under structural

adjustment, which were basically geared towards enhancing economic growth but with

little direct emphasis on poverty and equity because poverty was left to fend for itself

(Mosley a gJ 1991 : 33). This is because most economists still believe that poverty

elimination can only happen with sustained rates of growth in national income. In deed, it

was because of the fiee rein given to the uncaring neo-liberal adjustment policies in the

1980s and early 1990s that poverty was further entrenched and became once more a

crucial issue of development at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

There are different types of poverty as the definition of the term itself has shifted

over the years. Nutritional poverty, material poverty, income and non-income (education

and health) poverty, are only indicative of the types identified. Nutritional poverty is

assessed through analysis of income and consumption behaviour, whereas material

poverty is assessed by verieing the absence of certain material possessions that facilitate

good life. The existence of these two categories does not even signifl that there is broad

agreement on the underlying causes and plausible solutions. Poverty reduction policies

therefore have continued to rely on the subjective views of the policy elite and what they

perceive to be the political expedients ofthe time. The World Bank, in its World

Development Report of 1990, viewed poverty as "low consumption and low achievement

in education and health". Accordingly, the World Bank saw the solution or key to poverty

reduction in economic development, "brought about essentially by liberalising trade and

markets, investing in infrastructure, and providing basic social services to poor people, to

increase their human capital" (World Development Report 2000: 3 1).

The World Bank's view on poverty in 1990 was more or less shaped by the

experiences of East Asia, where poverty was noted to have fallen sharply in the 1970s

and 1980s due to increased rates of economic growth. The 1990 report suggested a two-

part approach - labour-intensive growth and broad provision of social services. The

2000J01 World Development Report however, believes in a multidisciplinary approach to

poverty reduction although it still retains the belief in economic growth. The report

maintains that expanding the human capabilities of poor people remains central in any

poverty reduction strategy. It believes that it remains so both for the intrinsic value of

such capabilities as health and education and for their instrumental contribution to other

dimensions of wellbeing, including income. The World Development Report 2000/01

broadens the 1990 perspective in the sense that it argues that attacking poverty requires

actions beyond the economic domain. It is acknowledged that to make any meaninghl

impact on the problem, public action has to go beyond investing in social services and

removing anti-labour biases in government interventions in the economy. In meeting

these challenges the report proposes a framework for action that gives priority to three

important areas - promoting opportunity, facilitating empowerment, and enhancing

security (World Bank 2000: 33).

The 'promoting opportunity' part of the proposal calls for expanding economic

opportunity for poor people by stimulating overall growth, and by building up their assets

and increasing the returns on these assets through a combination of market and non-

market actions (2000: 33). It has been argued that empowerment can be facilitated by

making state institutions more accountable, making decentralisation policies pro-poor by

strengthening the participation of the poor in political and decision making processes, and

making institutions more responsive to human needs while removing social barriers that

result fiom distinctions of gender, ethnicity, race and social status (2000: 33). By

reference to enhancing security, the World Bank was trying to draw attention to the need

to reduce the vulnerability of poor people to ill-health, economic shocks, policy-induced

dislocations, natural disasters (like in the devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch in

Central America and the volcanic eruption in Montseraat that destroyed livelihoods and

displaced thousands of people) and violence, as well as helping them cope with adverse

shocks when they occur (World Bank 2000: 33). The United Kingdom government has

drawn up a White Paper on Eliminating World Poverty, since 1997, in which the

Secretary of State for International Development intends to co-operate with states that are

serious about improving governance and reducing poverty by half by the year 201 5. In

line with this thinking the Department for International Development (DFID) is putting

its money where its mouth is by supporting a major research centre for chronic poverty at

the Institute for Development Policy and Management in Manchester with millions of tax

pounds sterling. Other efforts have also focused on the prospect of micro-credit, taking a

lot of inspiration fiom the Grameen Bank model (see Hulrne and Mosley 1996).

The international perspectives reviewed above illustrate clearly that poverty

reduction is a complex policy area that needs to be approached from a multidisciplinary

angle. Purely market-based solutions can leave sections of the community behind

whereas a social welfare approach alone can prove very expensive and unpopular.

Poverty reduction can be advanced only by ensuring good government and improved

economic management, enhancing human capabilities through adequate provision of

health and education, and building social capital and adopting a caring attitude towards

the infirm and disabled persons who cannot work, through social provisioning. The

Jamaican poor relief has to be assessed in like terms, placing a lot of emphasis on the

importance of issues such as institutional sustainability, adaptability and inertia that help

in explaining the status quo.

3. POLICY TRANSFER AND POOR RELIEF

The Jamaican poor relief is a derivative of policies that were practised in sixteenth-

century England. There were a number of reasons for instituting poor relief in sixteenth-

century England. These included the need to provide social security, alleviate discontent,

and prevent riots and disaffection (Marshall 1968: 10). The Old Poor Law was enacted

somewhere around 1597, and it remained in force until 1834. It was adapted to the

requirements of English rural society. As a system, poor relief was adjusted regularly in

line with price changes in the economy, especially after 1750 (Marshall 1968: lo).

The Old Poor Law in England had a number of characteristics. Firstly, it relied

greatly on the parish as a unit of government, and on unpaid, non-professional

administrators. Secondly, it was characterised by an intolerable despotism by the justices

of the peace or vestrymen. This system was much favoured by the Tory justices, as the

more radical among them put up a strong fight when an amendment of the Old Poor Law

was tabled in Parliament in 1 834. This kind of authoritarian behaviour has been described

in detail, in a study of the last decades of the Old Poor Law in England and Wales by J D

Marshall (1968: 9). The administration of poor relief at the parish level, it was argued,

enjoyed some of the advantages that accrued to any decentralised government. First, the

smallness of the parish ensured face-to-face relationships that could lead to greater

humanity. Similarly, parish administration, at its best, it was argued, represented the

embodiment of a democratic tradition in English life. However this tradition was, in

reality, profoundly modified by the class relationships that obtained in the countryside.

As a sequel, those who paid the rates or administered justice tended to call the tune

(Marshall 1968: 9-1 0). There was also a marked variation in the administration of poor

relief geographically. The disposition of administrators to the poor was not uniform,

some were harsh, others were more humane. However, it has been observed that the

differences in policy or attitudes were sometimes reflected in the differences in trade,

industry and agricultural endowments of the particular locality (Marshall 1968: 1 1-12).

A third characteristic was the profound adherence to the tenets of the Old Poor

Law of 1597-1601, and also, the famous "Act of Elizabeth" of 1601. The Act of

Elizabeth provided that each of the parishes should be responsible for the maintenance of

its poor. It also stipulated that work should to be provided for the able-bodied while the

impotent poor should be state-maintained. The Act also provided that the overseers of the

poor were to be nominated annually, and a poor rate levied upon the inhabitants of the

parish to fund poor relief administration.

Forms of Relief

Relief took many forms including Allowances-in-aid of wages, the Labour Rate

and Roundsmanship. Allowances-in-aid of wages were, for all practical purposes, a state

subsidy or supplement to an earned wage. The amount of supplement was proportionate

to the prevailing price of bread. A minimum family income was established by the local

parish according to fimily size and based on this the amount of subsidy was determined

by the number of a man's dependants if the family income did not reach that minimum. A

scale was published based on this criterion by the justices of Speenhamland County of

Berkshire in 1795 that became the standard by which other counties gave subsidy to

paupers. What became known as the Speenhamland system enabled dependants to obtain

between one-and-a quarter to one-and-a half gallon of loaf a week. The man also had his

wages made up so that he could obtain up to three loaves a week (Levine 1988: 19;

Marshall 1968: 13). This scale became a very important tool in the administration of poor

relief under the Old Poor Law because the model was

borrowed and applied geographically by other counties. However, it was never given a

statutory backing and various localities published their own versions later on. It is

believed that the standards of living and nutrition were rather low in the period under

discussion (Marshall 1968: 13).

Marshall observed that the method of allowances-in-aid of wages was a response

to inflationary crisis in 1795. The method was developed as a clever way of evading the

payment of a minimum statutory earned wage. Allowances had many variants, and it is

on record that after 18 15 some parishes paid them on a family basis only, especially

where child dependants exceeded three (Marshall 1968: 14). For as long as the

Napole~nic Wars continued after 1795 poor relief met with very little criticism. The end

of the war brought its own associated problems, in particular, agricultural depression. The

national expenditure spent on poor relief also reached new and unprecedented levels and

this occasioned a major change in public attitudes towards the poor. There was a

rekindling of "the belief that any form of charity, over and beyond relief in cases of dire

necessity, tended to encourage idleness and vice" (Marshall 1968: 15). One unintended

effect of poor relief was that it was thought to have been the root cause of an unwanted

rural population increase as well as shiftlessness. The problems posed by poor relief were

examined in a series of parliamentary enquiries, eventually culminating in the Poor Law

Commission of 1832-4 (Marshall 1968: 16).

The Commission of Enquiry of 1 832 is known to have conducted the most

detailed social investigation ever undertaken on the British Isles up to that time. The

commissioners were influenced decisively by egalitarian thought and a hypothesis that

"allowances-plus-indiscriminate-parish-relief were widespread and h a r f i l " (Marshall

1968: 18). The survey has been criticised however, as being biased with the actual

analysis lacking the rigour it deserved, and therefore producing somewhat confbsing

conc~usions, as was revealed in a re-examination of the report by Mark Blaug in the

Journal of Economic History in 1964. Later analyses of the report have also accused the

Commissioners of producing conclusions that were impressionistic.

The commissioner tried to verify the suspicion that subsidies and family

allowances encouraged indiscriminate production of children as the Malthusian argument

had it. What Blaug found was that "the allowances were generally paid for a third, fourth

or fifth child, and its amount was related in each parish to the local employment

opportunities for children" (1964: 245). Although opinions varied widely as regards the

strength of any incentive to the production of children, it was very clear that the family

allowances and their incidence were likely to have more demographic import than the

question of supplements to earned wages. The latter is known to have had more relevance

to work incentives in the countryside (Marshall 1968: 19).

The Poor Law Report of 1834 identified the hndamental fault with the system of

poor relief as a moral one. The report implied that the character of honest English

labourers was a weak vessel that could be destroyed by the temptation that poor relief

offered. The argument was that this could be strengthened if government policies were

different. The report induced a belief that denial of aid would induce people to be self-

reliant, and by this means their character would be strengthened and their self respect re-

established, and by this they would be reclaimed for virtue. In effect the report advocated

a 'de-pauperisation' of England by the denial of poor relief. What was interesting about

the recommendations of the poor law report was that they crystallised attitudes and

practices that were already taking place in the land (Levine 1988: 20-21).

Total money payments to paupers were already reduced after 18 18 as the Select

Committee on Labourers' Wages of 1824 and the Committee Reports on the Poor Laws

of 18 17 and 18 18 seem to have persuaded most of the poor law vestries to do away with

them (Marshall, p. 21). It is believed that the Old Poor Law exacted such a heavy burden

on the finances of the state. This is because as has been noted, the period 18 15-1 822 was

one of heavy expenditure in absolute and relative terms, and it was during this time that

attitudes to the poor began to change. But it is important to note that most of the

contemporary objectors to the Poor Law tended to exaggerate the nature of the burden,

especially those anti-Poor Law statisticians. A French witness who appeared before the

Commission in 1832 thought that the relief expenditure was a burden that England could

easily bear (Marshall 1968: 22-24). However, the hardening of opinion against Poor Law

administration and the disorder of the post-war years led to a fbndamental reorganisation

of poor relief on much harsher lines, with a central feature being a deterrent workhouse.

That is why Alcock (1997: 40) notes that policies to relieve poverty had a dual purpose:

to control the poor population as well as grant them some relief that was below half of the

average wage. He argues that a social security system could be more "concerned with

controlling and disciplining the poor as well, or perhaps even rather than removing their

poverty" (Alcock 1997: 40).

The analysis of Marshall with regard to the effectiveness of the Old Poor Law was

that it resulted in the creation of a rather inefficient system of social welfare that was

based on the close relationships of village and hamlet (1 968: 10). This is how Marshall

concluded a section of his study of poor relief under the Old Poor Law:

Whatever the case, it is surely bad history to attribute the ills of a labouring population primarily to administrative arrangements, especially when those arrangements were themselves conditioned by a variety of other social, economic and demographic factors. The administrative factor must of course be taken into account, and it probably contributed to the swelling of poor relief spending in two ways; through general inefficiency, experimentalism and amateurism in the wartime and immediate post-war period, and through the slowness to adjust to falling prices - leading to real gains for relief recipients - in the ten years before 1832. Inasmuch as many paupers were not able-bodied, humanity, rather than misplaced charity, must ha\-e been the gainer filarsha11 1968: 30).

Indeed, later assessments of the Poor Law Report have been scathing in their

criticism of the job that the commissioners did. It has now become quite clear that the

report of 1834 was not primarily an investigation of conditions, a proposal for legislation,

or an administrative innovation. It has been described as "a morality tale or fable", that

saw the universe as wrapped in darkest night to be saved only by a change of the law

(Levine 1 988: 2 1 -22).

Recent analysis of 'human capital formation and intergenerational poverty' by

Sara Horrell and others of the Department of Economics at Cambridge concludes that

were the very opposite of gloomy, and rather encouraging. She concludes that:

Evidence for nineteenth-century Britain shows that being fatherless, and highly likely to be poor, had an adverse effect on children's human capital acquisition. However, policy intervention in the form of the Old Poor Law blocked the transmission of poverty and avoided permanent pauperism. Even at an early stage of development, redistribution emerges as a positive contribution to economic growth, and not a luxury that poor countries can ill afford (Horrell et a1 2000: 1).

This may explain the reason why the Poor Law Report of 1834 was in a distinct sense, a

failure. This is because it did not achieve its own objectives as outdoor relief continued,

especially in time of depression, and in many places there were inadequate workhouse

space to allow the 'workhouse test' to be applied. Even where objectives were achieved

they did not have the predicted consequences. However, ideologically, the report

achieved enormous success as it had great influence on the terms and the very language,

in which the poor were discussed as much so in Britain as in the United States (Levine

4. Poor Relief in Jamaica: An Historical Perspective

It is important to commence this section with a comment on Jamaican local

administration. It is fair to say that a remarkable feature of it is how it has operated in old

and outdated fkameworks. Law reform has not kept abreast with changes in public

management philosophy. This finds expression in the fact that local government

administration nation-wide operates within the framework of over one hundred outdated

laws (Osei 2000).

One would have expected that policy transferors would have learned from the

British poor law policy development. The management of the Poor Law in the small

islands of the Caribbean would have been expected to do better because of the abundance

of negative lessons fiom the English Counties, of comparable size to islands of the

Caribbean regions. But the British Old Poor Law was not the only version that was

poorly administered in the early stages of its introduction. Close to home in the

Caribbean, and in Barbados, as Fletcher notes, local government management at the turn

of the last century was in a bad shape. This in turn affected the administration of poor

relief Changes were only made after 1948 when Sir John Maude presented his review of

the local government system. But unlike Jamaica, the management of poor relief evolved,

leading to the enactment of a Public Assistance Act in 1954, and in 1966 of a National

Insurance and Social Security Act, thus ensuring a comprehensive scheme of social

security. These two laws eventually gave way to the National Assistance Act of 1969

(Fletcher 1992: 266-69).

The turbulent history of the English poor relief was to plague the adapted

Jamaican version of poor practice, as shall be revealed below. In other words, a nuanced

poor relief system was transferred from England with all its blessings and problems.

Like the vestry authority that administered it, the institution of poor relief was a

coercive form of policy transfer, but not a form of conditionality in this case, as the

Marsh-Dolowitz model posits. This is because their explanation of coercive policy

transfer covered the years after direct colonialism (See Marsh and Dolowitz 1998: 40).

This claim can also be inferred from the very fact of the inherently coercive nature and

origin of colonial rule. Poor relief was part of the colonial policy of the English two

centuries after they took control of the island from the Spanish in 1655. The Jamaican

version of poor relief, enacted on 29th April 1886, therefore, had its origins in the New

Poor Law in existence in England and Wales after 1834. The enactment of an Act of

Parliament in 1886 indeed, indicated that the Jamaican version really benefited from the

new thinking and experiences passed on from the era of the Old Poor Law. Poor relief

was administered locally, like in England by each vestry and, later on, by the newly-

formed Parochial Board and Parish Council. The timing of poor relief may have had

something to do with the situation of the old and frail ex-slaves who were poor and had

nowhere to turn to after emancipation in 1834. It may also have something to do with the

Morant Bay uprising of 1864 that brought attention to the living conditions of the

workers on and off the plantations.

A Board of Supervision was established for purposes of the law that consisted of

nine members, three of whom could be people holding any ofice of emolument under the

Government. The Board was a board of appeal as well as an advisory board. The board

members were appointed by the Minister of the governmental agency that was in charge

of poor relief. In fact, the portfolio has shifted every now and then between the Ministry

of Local Government and the Ministry of Social Security and Welfare (Interview, local

government officer, 28 November 2000). The Board appoints its own chairperson, and a

mayor or councillor of any parish cannot be its chairman. The same is disallowed fi-om

sitting as a member of the Board on any investigation of a complaint referred to the

Board against the Corporation or Parish Council of which that person is a member

(Section 4 (1) of the Poor Relief Act 1886). Administration on the ground was carried

out through officers called Inspectors and Assistant Inspectors of Poor who were

appointed by the Parochial Board.

The local authorities generated their own assessment of the poor and established a

set of criteria for eligibility. In the wake of the popular disturbances in 1938 there were

13 Inspectors of Poor were appointed, one in each Parish and 50 Assistant Inspectors of

Poor. As far as accountability is concerned, the Inspector of Poor was responsible, in

each Parish, to the Parochial Board and to the Board of Supervision for the conduct and

efficiency of hislher assistants. The salaries of Inspectors were fixed by the Parochial

Boards and were subject to approval by the Board of Supervision. Under Poor Law 6 of

1886 the Board of Supervision had the right to investigate any matters relating to poor

relief throughout the island, and was empowered to dismiss or suspend an inspector for

negligence, incompetence or unfitness (The Hallinan Committee Report 1938: 2). In that

regard, the Board of Supervision acted to ensure a semblance of professional

accountability. This is because it regulated the activities of the profession as well as

ensured high standards. This type of administrative accountability is described as

'administrative propriety' by Martin Loughlin (1992), who also argues that the

mechanisms of this descriptor are not rooted in ideas of political accountability, but are

rather rooted in notions of efficiency and propriety. This notion of accountability

however goes far beyond financial regularity (Loughlin 1 992). The promotion of

professionalism in Poor Management was meant to ensure adequate performance.

The significance of poor relief to social policy in the country is underscored by

number of public committees that were set up in the early part of the twentieth-century, to

inquire into the effective management and delivery of poor relief including the

Committee on Poor Relief and Management of Poor Houses in Jamaica of 1938, also

known as the Hallinan Committee. In addition to this, there were internal documents that

specifically called for the 'Re-organisation of Poor Relief. The document proposing the

re-organisation of poor relief was prepared by the Board of Supervision in August 1941.

A Memorandum by the Social Welfare Adviser in October 1941 also alluded to proposals

for a General Scheme for the Extension and Re-organisation of Social Welfare Work in

Jamaica.

The 1938 enquiry by the Committee on Poor Relief and Management of Poor

Houses was an important milestone in the development of poor relief in twentieth -

cen:ury Jamaica. The Committee reviewed the management of poor relief in the 1930s by

a survey of the Parochial Boards and by calling individual witnesses. It asked for more

investment in poor relief from the Colonial authorities in England. It revealed two types

of relief that were in operation and that have continued to date. These were outdoor relief

that consisted of weekly cash allowance; and an indoor relief in an alms house. The alms

house eventually came to be used unofficially as an infirmary where the temporary or

chronically sick, were looked after by a medical oficer and a team of nurses. There were

also residential children's homes for the destitute. The standard for selection to the alms

houses were destitution, sickness, having chronically incurable disease, and old age.

According to the report, there were no able-bodied persons in receipt of relief, with the

exception of occasions where women collect it on behalf of children. In some cases the

women were revealed to be sick, but the majority of them were relieved because they

were the sole support of these children. The report intimated that the issue of increasing

number of illegitimate children was becoming a serious social problem in 1938 (Hallinan

Report 1938: 4). Absent fathers did not remit to their children, and there was no such

thing as a Child Support Agency, a recent British experiment, to chase up these

delinquent fathers. The problem was a complex one to which any half-hearted attempts to

resolve were bound to hil. That is why Lady Huggins' Mass Marriage Movement failed

because it barely scratched the surface of the problem of family life among the West

Indian. It required a detailed sociological study which was later to be conducted by Edith

Clarke in 1957 and resulted in her book "My Mother Who h at he red ~ e " . ~

The law provided for a master or matron, or both for each alms house, for a

medical oficer, and for the provision of medicines and appliances. The staff of poor

houses was appointed and may be dismissed by the parochial board. The parochial boards

were managers of these institutions, and the Board of Supervision had only limited power

to recommend and advise in matters respecting to them. Matters were referred to

government only where the board deemed it necessary or desirable to do so (Hallinan

* Edith Clarke's study of the Jamaican family life was h d e d by the Colonial Social Science Research Council in Britain. 'My Mother Who Fathered Me', Edith's book that was published by George Allen and Unwin has been such a success that about five impressions of it have been printed since 1957, the last one being in 1999.

Report 1938: 3). Table 1 below gives the composition of people admitted to poor houses

according to their particular circumstances.

TABLE 1 ANALYSIS OF PERSONS ADMITTED TO POOR HOUSES 1930- 1934

Classification Total Admissions Percentage of Total

Destitution only Chronic Incurable Diseases Syphilis Tuberculosis Mental Disease Pellagra Hookworm Malaria

Fits Adapted from the Hallinan Report of 1938, p. 3.

3761 21 17 3925 1665 254 70

1143 382 46

28.14 15.84 29.37 12.45 1.90 .52

8.55 2.85 .34

The interrelatedness of Hallinan's investigation with that of the Moyne

Commission is clear, but nowhere in the former report is the existence of the latter

acknowledged. Moyne certainly had a lot to say about the administration of poor relief

Moyne was critical of the administrative arrangement for the administration of poor relief

in Jamaica, especially he noted that the expenditure was relatively, while poor relief was

financed and administered by thirteen local government units and each provided its own

staff and its own almshouse. This represented, to Moyne, an unjustified and wastefbl

arrangement that did not lead to efficient administration. However, a counter argument

was proffered, which was to say that although uneconomic, the Jamaican arrangement for

poor relief administration had the advantage of "enabling the inmates to keep in touch

with their fkiends" (Moyne Report 1945: 238). Moyne's observations about the

administration of poor law homes and asylums were, however, generally congruent with

those of Hallinan, especially that the sum allowed for outdoor relief was very small. It

was envisaged that a Jamaican Government proposal for the removal of all sick poor to a

central institution, was to provide the means by which the overhead cost was to be

reduced to make financially possible adequate nursing care (Moyne Commission 1945:

238).

5 . FINANCING OF POOR RELIEF

Poor relief was frnanced out of parochial rates with occasional grants-in-aid fiom

the central government for special services. The central government also provided

medical officers for Almshouses.

Table 2 COST OF ADMINISTRATION COMPARED WITH EXPENDITURE ON RELIEF FOR 1936 (IN POUNDS STERLING)

1 Parish I Total I Number of / Administration I % of cost of

KingstodSt Andrew & Port Royal St Thomas Portland

Expenditure on poor relief

4 1,439

St Mary St Ann Trelawnv

4,235 3.778

I.

St Janles Hanover

NOTES: (1 ) * Administration expenses did not include the upkeep of Alms House buildings and pauper property. (2) The average expenditure on administration in proportion to total expenditure was compared with that of the London County Council for 1935 which was 9.86%.

Outdoor & Indoor poor

3,317

6,220 4,967 2.776

Westmoreland St Elizabeth Manchester Clarendon St Catherine TOTAL

583 506

5;487 3,504

expenses*

6,150

834 698 472

Source: Hallinan Report of 1938, p. 28 and adapted fi-om appendix 12.

4,248 4,325 5,002 4,467

7,591 98,039

administration in proportion to total expenditure 14.84

820 904

773 685

19.36 23.92

956 996 486

792 722 958 636 1,005 11,981

- --

15.36 20.05 17.50

1,058 578

- - -

19.28 16.49

1,022 1,011 810 1,182 1,432 17,405

24.05 23.37 16.49 24.46 18.86 17.75

The table above gives the percentage of cost of administration in relation to actual

expenditure incurred by the parochial boards on poor relief, including details such as

numbers of persons relieved in each parish for the year 1938. According to the committee

the cost of administration was considerably higher than it should be, especially for

Kingston. However, for Kingston, St Andrew and Port Royal the percentage of cost of

administration in proportion to total expenditure was 14.84% fhr better than that of any of

the other parishes. This figure is defensible considering the higher numbers that Kingston

dealt with. Kingston in 1935 (14.84%) was only worse off when compared with London

Table 3 below, however, depicts the growing burden of poor relief on the state

fkom 193 1 to 1936 which may have contributed to the changing public attitudes towards

the poor. This is because increased expenditure on poor relief meant an increase in the

parochial tax rate since the central government only supported poor relief at the fringes.

TABLE 3 SHOWING INCREASE IN EXPENDITURE ON POOR RELIEF FOR THE FIVE YEARS ENDING DECEMBER, 1936 (JN POUNDS STERLING)

- Year

1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936

Outdoor Indoor

Source: The Hallinan Report of 1938, p.28. (Appendix 13)

7546 77 16 7963 8356 8877 968 1

Total

1669 1751 190 1 1985 2089 2300

Increase over last

9215 9467 9864 1034 1 10966 11981

Total Expendi-

Increase over last

year

284 252 397 477 625 1015

ture on Poor Relief (f ) 7161 1 73446 7677 1 77272 82084 84082

year

2593 1835 3325 50 1 48 12 1944

SUSTAINABILITY, ADAPTABILITY AND INERTIA

The financing of poor relief in Jamaica has changed hands, it is now the responsibility of

central government. The local authorities are not able to raise enough money through

rates to sustain local development. Similarly, the Jamaica Labour Party government took

away most of the responsibilities of the Parishes back under central control in 1985, and

together with it the funding. Poor relief is financed annually through special grants made

by the government in the national budget. The financial burden does not therefore fall

directly on the parishes. As such there may be something true about the complaints of

Arnold Bertram who claims that the local authorities are doing far too much in terms of

welfare and very little in terms of real development. This is because the burden of care

falls directly on the central ministry. However, Bertram has not provided any serious

analysis of how the infirm and destitute should eke out a living for themselves or even

what programme should replace poor relief This is the most important social

development problem that faces Jamaica at the beginning of the twenty-first century, that

must be solved through serious thinking and appropriate public action.

So far the reaction to the increasing destitution, especially in the rural areas and

among street children, has been visceral instead of cerebral. From the table 4 below it is

indicated that the number of registered poor fell gradually fiom 14,53 1 in 1990 to 13,275

in 1996 and rose again fiom 14,508 in 1997 to 17,654 in 1998. According to the records,

in 1999 the number of registered poor declined by 22.2 per cent to 13,736. On the

average for the decade, the number of registered poor fell only marginally. In 1992 a total

of 1,249 new cases were approved for assistance under the poor relief programme,

whereas in 1994 the figure was 1,780, and in1 999 the numbers fell to 1,173 persons. The

number that get enlisted and those that exit have fluctuated equally over the years. Most

of this, according to the Social and Economic Survey Jamaica, is explainable by the

number of people who died or whose circumstances changed. This is because in 1998 for

example, 61.0 per cent of the registered outdoor poor were senior citizens. However, a

case can only be made if we assume that the death rate for that group is high.

The type of relief given has risen, fallen and stagnated over the years (see table 3

and 4). In the 1990s the outdoor registered poor automatically qualified for food stamps

under a concurrently running poverty alleviation programme operated by the government.

According to a senior officer at the Ministry of Local Government, other programmes

have been introduced under poor relief as and when they were needed. For example, there

was a rehabilitation programme for people on the borderline of poverty; family

allowance, port workers emergency relief scheme, and food distribution that was

eventually replaced by the food stamp programme3. The non-statutory hnction of the

Board of Poor Relief has now gone to the Ministry of Social Welfare. However,

according to the local government oficer, the necessity for poor relief has continued to

stand. This is because the poor, the infumed and the vulnerable will continue to be with

society for a long time. The other reason which the local government oficer overlooked

or omitted to mention is that the meagre public funds spent on poor relief barely scratches

the surface of the problem. There has been fbnctional fiagmentation as far as the

development of poor relief is concerned, reflecting negatively on the growth of

decentralised management of the programme. For evidence of this, one has to look at the

way other aspects of social welfare have been hived-off and given to the Ministry of

Social Welfare, the ministry that was in charge of poor relief previously. It is also

doubtfbl that interorganisational linkages among the national Poverty Eradication

Programme and the Ministry of Local Government and the parishes are being fully

exploited in the implementation of modern programmes of poverty reduction (see Salmon

2000).

This researcher was interested in the issues of intergenerational poverty v is -h is

the administration of poor relief Reference has already been made to the work of Sara

Horrell(2000: 1) who discovered that public support given in the form of intervention

through poor relief prevented poverty fiom being passed on the next generation.

Theoretically, in the Jamaican experience too, it is the intention of poor relief inspectors

to render support to avoid the children of the registered poor falling back on poor relief

The intergenerational issue needs empirical data to establish which this preliminary paper

is not equipped to do. Registered persons receive weekly income support of between $30

and $60 on the average, for about 12,147 out of the total of 12,509 persons in 1999

(Board of Supervision 1999: 29). Since 1998 an extensive list of different rates at which

this income support is given has been compiled by the parishes and returns sent to the

Ministry of Local Government. The highest rate given at the end of 1999 was $200

(Board of Supervision 1999: 29). Other material support is also given including clothing,

bedding, medical attention, shelter, burial assistance, school supplies and educational

assistance up to the tertiary level for children, especially those with potential to do fbrther

studies (ESSJ 1998: 22.12). An average of $60 a week is woefully inadequate if it is

considered that the statutory minimum wage is $1,800 per week.

interview with Mr Leo Campbell on 28 November, 2000.

Table 4

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE REGISTERED POOR IN THE 1990s

Source: Economic and Social Survey Jamaica. Planning Institute of Jamaica.

The poor relief programme has had an Indigent Housing component as part of

outdoor relief since 1994. Under this part of the programme, a budgetary allocation is

made by the Ministry of Local Government to the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation

and the parish councils under the Local Development Programme. This money is

administered by Members of Parliament (MPs) for use in their respective constituencies.

The Poor Relief Inspectors do investigate the circumstances of those persons

recommended by MPs, and implement the programme of assistance as approved by the

Board of Supervision. The ministry is now fighting to get this section of the budget

disbursed through the parish councils so that they can administer poor relief without

reference to the MPs (interview with local government officer 2000). This move if it

succeeds will diversify an important source of clientelist politics in the public

administration of Jamaica.

It is an indictment of the work of the MLG that poor relief still operates within the

framework of the 1 886 Law. Various attempts, superficial though, have been made to

modernise the law. For example, the almshouses are now called infirmaries, paupers are

now called clients, and those in infirmaries formerly called inmates are now called

residents. These changes have been necessary due to the changing language of

management in the public sector since the 1980s, but the very substance of the policy of

giving poor relief has not been debated in the House.

In 1936 the highest amount was spent on the Kingston and St Andrew

Corporation (KSAC) because it had the largest number of destitute, however, fiom 1997

a lot more is spent on St Catherine than any other parish (ESSJ 2000). As much as

$23,630,000 and $25,709,610 was actually spent on St Catherine in 1997198 and 1998199

respectively, whereas $17,603,806 and $2 1,30 1,868 were respectively spent on services

at the KSAC in the same years. This does not mean however, that St Catherine has

surpassed KSAC in terms of the number of registered poor. This is because at the end of

1999 KSAC had 2,232 registered as against 985 for St Catherine (Board of Supervision

2000: 29).

In 1992 approximately 20 per cent of the poor relief outdoor staff and 45 per cent

of the indoor staffwere retrenched (ESSJ 1993). This is because it was perceived that the

ratio of money spent on administration to that spent on actual service delivery was found

to be intolerably high. These people were given severance benefits on their departure.

Thus, although the system seems to be caught up in inertia, it seemingly has innovative

ways of reinventing itself (Interview, local government officer 2000). Tables 5 and 6

below give a bird's eye-view of how national allocations have been expended in the

1990s. They do not show a consistent pattern of rising costs since 199 1, but it has risen

slightly since 1998 by about $2.898 million.

Even though it has been around for over centuries, poor relief has not really made

any major inroads into eradicating poverty in Jamaica. A number of modern programmes

have competed against it or even superseded it, for example, the National Poverty

Eradication Programme (NPEP) that started in 1997. More money has been spent on the

NPEP since its inception mostly because its objectives seem much broader, and it intends

to empower people by reducing the number of people living below the poverty line in the

short term, within targeted communities in sustainable ways, and also eradicate absolute

poverty in the longer term. It hopes to do this through economic growth and social

development. Because it does not have the 'something for nothing' philosophical base

and is centrally managed, this programme has a popular appeal, but as to whether it is

achieving its objectives needs to be the subject of another investigation. Whereas a total

of $3.2 billion was approved for the NPEP in 1998/99 about $237,999,98 1 was the

revised budget for poor relief in the same year.4

TABLE 5 NATIONAL EXPENDITURE ON POOR RELIEF SERVICES

Source: Estimates o f Expenditure Jamaica 199 1-2000. Planning Institute of Jamaica.

Year

199 1 192 1992193 1993/94 1994/95 1995/96 1996197 1997/98 1998199 1999/2000 2000/200 1

Economic and Social Survey Jamaica (1998: 22.1); Returns to the Ministry of Local Government 2000.

Approved Estimates ($ '000) 1,20 1 1,280 1,250 2,595.0 2,673.0 2673.0 4,627.0 6,110.0 9,008.0 7534.0

Actual Expenditure ($'OOO) 1,141.0 1,348.0 1,928.0 1,141.0 2,528.0 5,623.0 4,627.0 6,110.0 9,008.0

Source: Estimates of Expenditure Jamaica 1994-2000. Planning Institute of Jamaica.

The figures supplied in tables 5 and 6, and the trends they purport to represent,

can be better understood when the figures above are read alongside those in table 7, that

is, the key economic indicators presented for 1981-1 999. The figures in column 2

representing changes in the real GDP indicate a consistent fall in real GDP from 1996 to

1999. By the same token, the nominal exchange rate of the Jamaican dollar against the

US dollar has W e n constantly between 1989 and 1999. To the non-economist, the fall in

real GDP and the nominal exchange rate is ominous and represents, even to the untrained

eye, a fall in the standard of living for most Jamaicans. These negatively affected the

vicissitudes of the supply and real value of all the investments that the Government of

Jamaica made through its poor relief programme, as administered by the local authorities.

1999100

3466.0

201 1 .O

300.0

52.0

25 19.0

660.0

9008.0

1998199

402 1 .O

1200.0

200.0

50.0

400.0

2390.0

61 10.0

1997198

1,420.0

584.0

240.0

40.0

224.0

-

2528

1996197

4,343.0

737.0

231.0

44.0

268.0

-

5623.0

1995196

- -

-

-

-

-

-

Items of Expenditure Compensation of Employees Travel Expenses & subsistence Rental of Property/machinery and equipment Public utility services Purchaseofother goods & services Purchases of equipment (capital

' goods) Total

1994195

970.0

1 28.0

43 .O

- - -

1141.0

Table 7

JAMAICA: KEY ECONOMIC INDICATORS, 198 1-2000

Source: Adapted, with emphasis added, from Dillon AIIeyne (2000: 13) Employment, Growth and Reforms in Jamaica. Santiago: United Nations Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Conclusions

Poor relief as an institutional mechanism for addressing the problem of poverty

has been in operation in Jamaica since 1886. It has not been able to eliminate poverty

because that was not its original intention. From its history, it was rather meant to

% Change in CPI

12.7 6.3 11.6 27.6 25.8 15.0 6.6 8.3 17.2 29.8 80.2 40.2 30.1 26.7 25.6 25.8 9.2 7.9 6.0

alleviate poverty. The administration of poor relief has not seen any radical change in

management style as it still operates within the framework that was evolved in 1 886. The

Nominal Exchange rate 1.78 1.78 3.27 3.94 5.56 5.48 5.49 5.49 6.4 8.2 21.5 22.2 3 1.3 33.2 35.5 37.0 35.58 37.2 41.4

GFCF to GDP Ratio

19.9 22.4 22.7 23.3 25.4 20.3 25.1 29.1 32.4 3 1.3 29.5 35.7 37.4 36.0 37.8 37.0 37.45 34.21 -

% Change in Per-capita Income -0.4 -1.8 2.2 -2.0 -9.3 1.9 6.4 3.7 5.4 3.7 -0.3 0.6 0.2 -0.1 -0.4 -2.7 -2.98 -1.37 -1.12

Year

1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

%Change in Real GDP

0.9 -0.1 4.1 -0.3 -8.0 3.0 7.1 3.9 6.8 5.4 0.7 1.5 1.3 1.1 0.5 -1.7 -2.0 -0.5 -0.4

social foundations of poor relief had religious connotations, and so did its initial

management. As its management has been secularised with the modernisation of

government, attitudes towards giving a chunk of public money in return for nothing has

hardened, even to the point of hostility. Other public programmes on poverty reduction

have also evolved since the early 1990s that have received foreign loans and grants as

well as money fiom the national purse. These new programmes, especially the National

Poverty Eradication Programme (NPEP) enjoy high political visibility. There is a national

co-ordinator of NPEP who is stationed in the Office of the Prime Minister and thus

enjoys the political clout of being in the highest office of the land.

Expenditure on poor relief has remained stagnant and where it has increased, has

done so only marginally. In a distinct sense of the question whether poor relief has

declined, therefore, one can only conclude fiom the foregoing analysis that it has done so

in comparison with the other modern, politically visible, poverty reduction programmes.

More importantly, however, it has declined in real terms when the figures are discounted

for inflation. And as to whether its fortunes are likely to change for the better, it is highly

unlikely that poor relief will ever enjoy the kind of high political visibility that the other

programmes enjoy. This is because the economic relevance of poor relief as a programme

in poverty reduction is suspect. The main reason is that its share of the local government

budget is negligible (J$ 15 1,767,000 which constitutes approximately 14.54% of the local

budget of J$2,207,257,847) (Ministry of Local Government, Ministry Paper 36 of 1999)

and therefore less attractive and defensible politically, although the programme has its

own internal social validity.

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