34
MAJORITY REPORT.
and branches does not show to disadvantage. Tn this connexion
we may refer to the evidence of Sir Walter Kinnear in reply to
Q. 748-746.
207. Closely allied to the criticism that the Approved Society
system is unduly costly in administration—indeed one of the
causes for this alleged expensiveness—is the overlapping of effort
for which Societies are frequently condemned arising by reason
of the fact that Approved Societies may carry on business in
any part of the country. In any moderate-sized town the insured
persons may be scattered amongst some hundreds of Societies
and branches, each of which has to make arrangements for the
administration of the cash benefits to members entitled to them.
For example, we were informed that in Liverpool 488 Societies
have members—in Bolton 285, in Brighton 304, in Norwich o13,
in Reading 245, and in Tynemouth 168 (Kinnear, Q. 522).
208. Again, Mr. Alban Gordon says (App. XIII, 7): ““ If any
area is analysed it will be found to contain a large number of
Societies possessing a ludicrously small membership in that dis-
trict. For example, in Dundee (which is an illustration chosen at
random) there are 217 separate Societies (ignoring branches), of
which 99 have less than 10 members in the town, 52 of these
having only one member. These Societies have their Head Offices
at London, Manchester, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Leeds,
Portsmouth, Newcastle, Tunbridge Wells, etc.”’
209. The Scottish Miners’ Federation Approved Society, in
referring to the fact that there are 98 Societies, each with only
one meniber resident in Glasgow, say that ** were the Glasgow
area treated as a single unit in preference to having approved
units studded all over like a cluster of nebula it would be possible
to administer the area at an enormous economic saving to the
mmsured population *’ (App. X, 18). It should be remembered
in connexion with this allegation of overlapping and diffusion of
effort that even where a Society may initially recruit members
only within a limited area, these members may later become
scattered ; further, that in the case of any household comprising
several insured persons, each of these may be in a different
Society, and that the home may therefore require to he visited
by the representatives of a number of competing organisations.
Indeed in the extreme case represented by the National Amulga-
mated Approved Society, members of the same family, although
in the same Society, may be visited by different agents, if their
membership in the National Amalgamated Approved Society has
been effected through the representatives of different companies
interested in that organisation. The fact that the Scheme is
not organised on a geographical basis adds undoubtedly to the
labour involved in the administration of medical benefit, which
must necessarily be conducted on a territorial basis. As the
contributions on which the title to medical benefit depends are
