| 1911 | National Insurance Act
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| 1920 | Unemployment Insurance Act
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| 1925 | Widows' Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act
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| 1934 | Unemployment Assistance Act
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| 1940 | Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act
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| 1945 | Family Allowances Act
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| 1946 | National Insurance and National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts
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| 1948 | National Assistance Act
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| 1961 | Graduated contributions and pensions introduced
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| 1966 | Earnings linked additions for unemployment, sickness and maternity benefits (abolished 1980)
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| 1966 | National Assistance Board replaced by Supplementary Benefits Commission; Supplementary Benefit reformed.
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| 1967 | National scheme of rate rebates administered by local authorities
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| 1970 | Family Income Supplements Act.
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| 1971 | Attendance Allowance introduced
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| 1971 | National Insurance Act. Provided for invalidity benefit, for age additions for over 80s and for a non-contributory retirement pension for the over 80s.
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| 1972 | National scheme of rent rebates administered by local authorities, became Housing Benefit in 1983.
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| 1973 | Social Security Act. Established the basic scheme of social security contributions and benefits replacing the NI Acts and II Acts and Old Cases Act. Made further provisions for occupational pensions, established the Occupational Pensions Board and the contributory reserve pension scheme under a Reserve Pension Board for not recognised pensionable employment.
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| 1975 | Social Security Act. Consolidated the Social Security Act 1973 providing the basic scheme of contributions and benefits with NI (Industrial Injuries) Acts 1965 to 1974.
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| 1975 | Child Benefit Act. Replaced family allowances with the new benefit of child benefit.
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| 1975 | Social Security Pensions Act. State Earnings Related Pension Scheme to be introduced from 1978, provided for earnings-related retirement pensions to be averaged over the highest-earning 20 years of the working life. Enabled those contracting-out in occupational pension schemes a reduction in the rate of their contributions.
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| 1976 | Mobility Allowance introduced
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| 1976 | Supplementary Benefits Act. Consolidated the Supplementary Benefits Acts from 1966 to 1975.
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| 1980 | Social Security (No.2) Act. Reduced and abolished certain benefits and removed the earnings link at uprating for pensions. Abolished earnings-related supplements. Abated unemployment benefit in respect of occupational pensions.
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| 1982 | Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982. Introduced statutory sick pay paid by employers to cover short term periods of sickness and new provisions for the grant and payment of subsidies for rate rebates, rent rebates and rent allowances.
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| 1983 | Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudication Act 1983. Introduced adjudication officers to replace insurance and benefit officers.
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| 1985 | Social Security Act. Amendments for occupational pensions, social security, SSP extended from 1986 to first 28 weeks, changes to industrial injuries prescribed diseases.
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| 1986 | Social Security Act. Modified SERPS in several ways resulting in reduced entitlement for those reaching state pension age from April 1999 onwards, including abolition of the best 20 years provision and 50 per cent reduction in the amount widows can inherit from April 2000. Also restructured Widows' Benefit for those widowed from April 1988 to target help immediately on bereavement and provide continuing help to older widows and widows with children.
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| 1987 | Statutory Maternity Pay replaced maternity allowance, for most mothers, by partial earnings-linked SMP.
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| 1988 | Income Support introduced common personal allowances and automatic premiums for age, disability and family needs, backed up by a cash-limited Social Fund. Family Credit and Housing Benefit restructured.
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| 1989 | Social Security Act. Amendments on contributions, abolished the Treasury Grant, made changes to the rules for unemployment benefit eg actively seeking work, abolished the earnings rules for those receiving a retirement state pension, made changes to income- related benefits, allowed for the recovery of benefits from compensation payments in respect of accidents, injuries and diseases and made changes to oocupational and personal pension provisions.
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| 1990 | Social Security Act. Made amendments to occupational and personal pensions, introduced a Pensions Ombudsman and Registrar of Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes. Provides for grants for energy efficiency for certain homes.
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| 1991 | Social Security (Contributions) Act. Introduced a contributions liability (Class 1A) for cars and fuel made available for private use.
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| 1991 | Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Act. Introduced these two new benefits for disabled people.
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| 1991 | Child Support Act. Introduced child support scheme from 1993 and provided for assessment, collection and enforcement of periodical maintenance payable by certain parents for children not in their care and for collection and enforcement of certain other kinds of maintenance.
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| 1992 | Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act. Consolidated the social security contributions and benefits enactments.
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| 1992 | Social Security Administration Act. Consolidated the administration of social security and related matters.
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| 1993 | Pension Schemes Act. Consolidated pension scheme enactments.
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| 1994 | Statutory Sick Pay Act. This abolished the 80 per cent reimbursement rate and also extended entitlement to SSP to women aged 60 to 64. In addition, the test period for MA was extended to 66 weeks (from 52 weeks) by including the 14 weeks immediately before the Expected Week of Confinement (so the contribution conditions changed from 26 weeks in 52 weeks, to 26 in 66 weeks).
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| 1994 | Social Security (Incapacity for Work) Act. Benefits for people incapable of work because of sickness and disability were comprehensively restructured. The changes affected both the access conditions—the nature of the test of incapacity itself—and the level and structure of the benefit. Incapacity Benefit was introduced, and the earnings-related additional pension was abolished except for residual cases.
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| 1995 | Pensions Act. Covered occupational pensions, certification of pension schemes, rights and duties, partly to cope with the aftermath of the Maxwell affair and partly because of the European Court of Justice judgement in the case of Barber. It also provided for an equal state pension age to be phased over the decade 2010 to 2020.
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| 1995 | Child Support Act. Made changes to the provisions for child support maintenance, other maintenance and child maintenance bonus.
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| 1996 | Jobseekers Act. Abolished unemployment benefit and introduced the new Jobseeker's Allowance: a contribution-based and income-related benefit for the unemployed.
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| 1998 | Social Security Act. Introduced a new social security decisions and appeals process. Other changes covered contributions, restructuring the employers' charge and increasing the starting point for employers National Insurance contributions and abolition of the "entry fee", a new Class 1B NI rate was introduced, brought certain other payments into liability eg share options, inspectors and enforcement powers, pensions and other minor benefit changes.
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| 1999 | Social Security (Transfers of Functions etc.) Act. Transferred the work on contributions policy, collection, enforcement, decision making and appeals form DSS and the Contributions Agency to Treasury and the Inland Revenue.
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