166 
MAJORITY REPORT. 
the account of the Administration of Medical Benefit given in 
Section C of Appendix I submitted by the Ministry of Health. 
There will be found a full official account of the successful 
administration during 13 years of a very complicated system— 
and part at least of that success must be attributed to the local 
administrative bodies. The British Medical Association, repre- 
senting the bulk of the doctors who are in contract with the 
Committees and in daily touch with their officials through the 
administration of medical benefit, make no adverse criticism of 
their performance and many Societies express themselves as 
thoroughly satisfied with this part of the machinery. 
Two REASONS FOR ABOLITION. 
375. Tf, then, medical benefit has been a success, and if the 
Insurance Committees have been responsible for its local ad- 
ministration, the question may well be asked, Why abolish these 
bodies? To this we shall attempt to give a two-fold answer. In 
the first place unification of local effort on health services is, as 
we have indicated in Chapter V, a consideration that should, in our 
view, be paramount whatever the success of the isolated pieces of 
machinery which now exist. In the second place the evidence 
we have heard convinces us that whatever may have been the 
position at the outset and whatever the aims of the framers of the 
Act, in real fact these Committees have not now sufficiently 
extensive or sufficiently important duties to justify their existence 
as independent administrative bodies. In 1912, when the Scheme 
was launched, much may have been gained from the impetus and 
interest which might be expected from specially constituted 
bodies. But that stage is long past. The duties are now of a 
routine character and could equally well be performed by the 
same officials working under the control of the Tiocal Authority. 
376. To the first of these considerations—the need for unifica- 
tion—we need not here devote any space as the principle has 
been fully discussed in Chapter V, and does indeed, we believe, 
command general acceptance. We therefore immediately turn 
to the second consideration and inquire what, in fact, is the 
present work of an Insurance Committee and what are the views 
as to the future of these bodies placed before us by critical wit- 
nesses. For a full description of the powers and duties of Insur- 
ance Committees we may refer to the Ministry of Health 
statement (Section C of Appendix I), to the evidence of the 
Federation of Insurance Committees (App. XXXVI) and of the 
Scottish and Welsh Associations of Insurance Committees (Apps. 
XXXVIT and XXXVIIT respectively). These are descriptions 
of the general system. For a picture in closer perspective of the 
routine work of, on the one hand, an urban Committee. on the 
other of a county Committee, we would refer to the statements 
supplied by the Tondon Insurance Committee (App. XCVIIT)