WE ARE very proud to be able to tell all our readers that today, Henry Langen, co-founder of Welsh Focus, has been accepted into the fellowship of the Centre for Welfare Reform.

The organisation is a network made up of independent Fellows, Authors and Partners. Fellowships are awarded to thinkers, innovators and leaders who have demonstrated a real commitment to equality and diversity, and who have contributed to the reform of the welfare state.

The Centre was established in October 2009 and is based in Sheffield. It is made up of over 70 international Fellows and has published over 200 publications. The organisation is quietly influential in the shaping of new debate and policy in relation to inclusivity and individual citizenship rights across the UK.

This influence extends to 10 Downing Street. Simon Duffy, founder of the Centre for Welfare Reform, along with Julian Le Grand and Jon Glaseby is the co-author of ‘A healthy choice? Direct payments and healthcare in the English NHS’ in the Journal Policy and Politics (2009), a document now recognised as one of the cornerstones of a radical new way of thinking about health care provision.

The ideas behind personal health care plans, first developed as a model in adult social health care are now live within the body politic of the Health Services. Their potential to transform the provision of services on an industrial scale, delivering both efficiency and a much more inclusive approach to the question of costs is breathtaking.

The extension of these concepts from health care into issues around citizenship is seen by some academics as being the first fully fledged attempt to recast the principles behind the Beveridge Report for a New Age.

10 May 2012

Centre for Welfare Reform: Who we are
A healthy choice? Direct payments and healthcare in the English NHS (Le Grand, Glaseby & Duffy)
Sir William Beveridge Foundation: Beveridge Report, November 1942