Influencing Social Policy: The Effectiveness of the Poverty Lobby in Britain

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Abstract
This article looks at income maintenance pressure groups in Britain (the ‘poverty lobby’) and provides an assessment of their impact on policy in the 1970s. It is based on focused interviews with the leaders of 42 national pressure groups, MPs, Ministers, and senior civil servants. There is a discussion of conceptual and methodological problems involved in measuring effectiveness and a review of the theoretical literature on the role of pressure groups in the British political system. The study adopts a reputational approach to measuring effectiveness rather than a series of case studies. A number of specific successes are highlighted as well as examples of ‘agenda changing’ by groups. An explanation is provided in terms of the environment within which groups were operating, the strategies they adopted, and the resources they had available. The state of the economy was a particularly important factor in the 1970s as was the ability of groups to undertake joint action and form alliances with producer interests. The article concludes that the groups in the 1970s were influential rather than powerful and had more effect in the first part of the decade than at the end.

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