We accessed state narratives through identifying, collating and reviewing documents such as white and green papers, policy papers and research reports, speeches, parliamentary debates and legislation, committee inquiries and reports, press releases and departmental memoranda, produced by different state actors, by which we mean the UK government and the opposition in Westminster. Documents from the 1940s were collected through searches of dedicated websites such as legislation.gov.uk and Historic Hansard, and access to specific records at The National Archives at Kew. Documents relating to the 2010s were accessed through two main sources. First, the GOV.UK platform of government websites, where we focussed on relevant offices and departments, such as the Office for Civil Society and the Department for Education. Second, we accessed parliamentary proceedings and committee inquiries through targeted searches of the UK Parliament website, which provides comprehensive access to proceedings in both the House of Commons and House of Lords (through Hansard) as well as to the work of parliamentary committees. We searched websites using terms such as ‘charity’, ‘voluntary organisation’ and ‘social enterprise’, to identify hundreds of potentially relevant items. Given the accessibility of online information, a far greater volume of material was available from the 2010s compared with the 1940s. All accessed documents were then collated – see accompanying summary spreadsheet - and skim read, with the most relevant for the project’s concerns about the role, position and contribution of voluntary action being selected for more detailed analysis.Discourses of Voluntary Action was a three-year research project (July 2017 – November 2020) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Discourses of Voluntary Action at two 'Transformational Moments' of the Welfare State, the 1940s and 2010s (ES/N018249/1)) and carried out by researchers at the universities of: Northumbria, Birmingham, Sheffield Hallam, Southampton and UCL. The publication of the Beveridge Report in 1942, and the subsequent establishment of comprehensive welfare services in the UK, has been referred to as ‘a revolutionary moment’. The same term was used to describe the context in which welfare services were dismantled in England in the 2010s. At these two transformational moments, fundamental questions were raised about the respective roles and responsibilities of the state and the voluntary and community sector (VCS) in the provision of welfare services. During the first revolutionary moment, in the 1940s, the Beveridge report proposed a series of measures to address the ‘evils’ of the time. The subsequent restructuring of welfare provision led to significant changes in the structure and focus of many VCS organisations, and a period of intense debate about the nature and extent of voluntary action. In the 2010s, as a result of major national and international events a fundamental renegotiation of the role of the state was initiated and considerable change in the ways in which welfare services were provided in England ensued, with significant implications for the role, responsibilities, funding base, voice and independence of the VCS. Through working closely with VCS partners this interdisciplinary, collaborative study addressed questions about the ways in which key stakeholders (the state, the sector and the public) articulated different discourses and narratives about the role of the VCS in the provision of welfare services and the extent to which these narratives have been contested and/or influential. Public, political/state and voluntary action narratives from a range of archival and documentary sources were compared and contrasted, within and across the 1940s and 2010s. This research was innovative through combining historical and contemporary analysis, contributing to the emergent tradition that recognises the relevance of history to contemporary policy and practice. We were also supported by an Advisory Group composed of experts from the academy and the sector. Research into the roots of the mixed economy of welfare has been hampered by a lack of voluntary organisation archival sources in the public domain, for the most part these tend to be held privately: we were privileged to have had access to the private collections of AgeUK, Ambition/UK Youth, Children England, NCVO, and NCVYS. From our findings, for the 1940s ongoing post-war austerity meant voluntary action was necessary to meet need, while volunteers and voluntary organisations were seen to humanise services. A ‘pragmatic partnership’ was secured, overcoming suspicion on both sides: a settlement of convenience. In the 2010s the state and voluntary organisations have continued to work together, but the relationship - we suggest - became one of ‘antagonistic collaboration’. Further, the notion of a ‘moving frontier’ suggests a firm, singular boundary dividing two separate spheres. Instead, our analysis has demonstrated that there are multiple, fluid, and permeable frontiers: between the state, voluntary action and forms of welfare.

We accessed state narratives through identifying, collating and reviewing documents such as white and green papers, policy papers and research reports, speeches, parliamentary debates and legislation, committee inquiries and reports, press releases and departmental memoranda, produced by different state actors, by which we mean the UK government and the opposition in Westminster. Documents from the 1940s were collected through searches of dedicated websites such as legislation.gov.uk and Historic Hansard, and access to specific records at The National Archives at Kew. Documents relating to the 2010s were accessed through two main sources. First, the GOV.UK platform of government websites, where we focussed on relevant offices and departments, such as the Office for Civil Society and the Department for Education. Second, we accessed parliamentary proceedings and committee inquiries through targeted searches of the UK Parliament website, which provides comprehensive access to proceedings in both the House of Commons and House of Lords (through Hansard) as well as to the work of parliamentary committees. We searched websites using terms such as ‘charity’, ‘voluntary organisation’ and ‘social enterprise’, to identify hundreds of potentially relevant items. Given the accessibility of online information, a far greater volume of material was available from the 2010s compared with the 1940s. All accessed documents were then collated – see accompanying summary spreadsheet - and skim read, with the most relevant for the project’s concerns about the role, position and contribution of voluntary action being selected for more detailed analysis.