A beta bailout: the near future of state intervention

Soundings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (75) ◽  
pp. 37-54
Author(s):  
Craig Berry ◽  
Daniel Bailey ◽  
Katy Jones
Keyword(s):  
State Intervention ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
New Public ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Near Future

This article asks what kind of state intervention is needed for a post-Covid recovery. The government bailout will seek to sustain a modified form of neoliberalism, but what is needed is a bailout for society from the wreckage of the neoliberal paradigm. The outlines of a strategy for the UK economy are presented: at its heart is a radical industrial policy that prioritises social infrastructure, a green transition and providing quality employment opportunities, while paying particular attention to the functioning of the foundational economy. An active labour market policy (ALMP) is also needed, which turns away from a focus on conditionality for those on benefits, and instead focuses support on industries less affected by the pandemic and its implications for demand, including through securing a workforce that is ready to populate them. Conditionality should, on the other hand, be imposed on firms receiving government support. Bailout 2.0 must also involve intervention designed to create new public assets, managed via new forms of democratic ownership.

Resisting Closures and Winning Wages in the 1960s and 1970s

2019 ◽  
pp. 197-228
Author(s):  
Jim Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Mining Communities ◽  
Scottish Parliament ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The Government ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Uk

The 1984-85 miners’ strike in defence of collieries, jobs and communities was an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the change in economic direction driven in the UK by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative governments. The government was committed to removing workforce voice from the industry. Its struggle against the miners was a war against the working class more generally. Mining communities were grievously affected in economic terms by the strike and its aftermath, but in the longer run emerged with renewed solidarity. Gender relations, evolving from the 1960s as employment opportunities for women increased, changed in further progressive ways. This strengthened the longer-term cohesion of mining communities. The strike had a more general and lasting political impact in Scotland. The narrative of a distinct Scottish national commitment to social justice, attacked by a UK government without democratic mandate, drew decisive moral force from the anti-Thatcherite resistance of men and women in the coalfields. This renewed the campaign for a Scottish Parliament, which came to successful fruition in 1999.

State Intervention and Mental Well-being Among the Unemployed

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTIAS STRANDH
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Unemployment Benefit ◽  
Unemployment Benefits ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
Mental Well Being ◽  
Positive Effect

Although the relationship between unemployment and poor mental well-being has long been an area of interest within behavioural science, the role of state intervention in the unemployment situation has not been thoroughly investigated. This article investigates how unemployment benefit systems and active labour market policy measures affect mental well-being among the unemployed in Sweden. The study uses a longitudinal and nationally representative survey of 3,500 unemployed Swedes. Three different types of active labour market policy measures involving the unemployed were studied, ‘activation’, ‘vocational training’ and ‘work-place participation’ measures. Of these only involvement in ‘workplace participation’ was found to have a clearly positive effect on mental well-being among those participating. Of the two Swedish unemployment benefit systems, the more generous income replacement Unemployment Benefits and the less generous flat rate Cash Unemployment Benefits, only access to income replacement Unemployment Benefits was found to mediate the mental well-being impact of unemployment. The positive effect of access to income replacement Unemployment Benefits was further accentuated when unemployment was prolonged. Those with access to this benefit system seemed to suffer no further deterioration of mental well-being, while the mental well-being of the rest of the unemployed further deteriorated.

State intervention in UK economy could increase

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Permanent Damage ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Recovery

Subject COVID-19 UK economic impact. Significance The UK economy is already contracting sharply as a result of the restrictions imposed by the government to contain the spread of COVID-19. In response, the UK government has announced a major programme of fiscal measures to reduce job losses and business closures. This is not designed to prevent this immediate fall but intended to reduce permanent damage to the economy. Impacts If the COVID-19 crisis persists beyond a few months, the policy response could become more complex and politically divisive. The economic and social recovery from COVID-19 will be crucial for the prime minister's survival prospects. COVID-19 has significantly increased the chances of an extension to the Brexit transition period beyond December 2020.

scholarly journals Full Employment in a Green Society

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-55
Author(s):  
Steve Dawe
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
The Uk

This article is an attempt to re-conceptualise Full Employment. The UK context is the main geographical focus. A normative route to the rehabilitation of Full Employment is offered - recast here as ‘Green Full Employment’ - utilising a variety of Green perspectives from sociology, politics and economics. This contribution to the debate about Full Employment is ‘normative’, because without ethical values we may lack a moral compass to motivate policies. Green Full Employment is presented here not simply as a potential ‘active labour market’ policy, but as a contributory facet of the on-going ‘Green Industrial Revolution.’ Inevitably, this reconceptualization raises questions about the value of many forms of contemporary work and what purpose they serve. The potential resistance of neoliberal forces to Green Full Employment is noted, before future lines of research are suggested.

Delivering active labour market policy through vouchers: experiences with training vouchers in Germany

2005 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Bruttel
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
New Public ◽  
Active Labour

In recent years, new public management has reached public employment services. This article analyses the use of training vouchers for jobseekers in Germany as a means of delivering active labour market policy. While vouchers are familiar in other fields of public services, the approach is completely novel in active labour market policy. The article contrasts the proclaimed advantages of vouchers in general (i.e. jobseeker choice and provider competition) with the problems of training vouchers in particular. Initial evidence suggests that information asymmetries, a lack of providers in certain areas and restricted opportunities for policy coordination are obstacles to full achievement of the positive effects hoped for by proponents of the training voucher. The article concludes that improving the existing contracting-out system may have been a better path to higher efficiency.

Introduction

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon Bogdanor
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
New Public ◽  
Reinventing Government ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk

‘Joined-up government’ has been a topic of important discussion in the early twenty-first century as much as it was in the end of the twentieth century. Reinventing government was a move towards the ‘new public management’ which revolved on the importance to stimulate a business situation in the government and to apply the disciplines of the market to the public sector. The joined-up government on the other hand advocated a more holistic approach. It not only sought to apply the logic of economics but also the insights of other social sciences such as sociology and cultural theory to reform and change public service. This book focuses on the joined-up government strategy of the UK government. This strategy sought not only to bring together the government departments and agencies but also a number of various private and voluntary bodies for a common goal. The chapters in this book discusses the various barriers to the joined-up government such as contrasting perspectives of the central and local government, the conflicting departmental interests, and the diverging interests of the professionals.

The Demand-Side of Active Labour Market Policies: A Regional Study of Employer Engagement in the Work Programme

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
JO INGOLD ◽  
MARK STUART
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Welfare To Work ◽  
Regional Study ◽  
Regional Survey ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Employer Engagement ◽  
Work Programme ◽  
The Uk

AbstractIn 2011, the UK Coalition government introduced its flagship welfare-to-work programme, ‘The Work Programme’ (WP). Based on a ‘payment by results’ model, it aims to incentivise contracted providers to move participants into sustained employment. Employer involvement is central to the programme's success and this paper explores the ‘two faces’ of this neglected dimension of active labour market policy (ALMP) analysis: employer involvement with the programme and the engagement between providers and employers. This paper draws empirically from a regional survey of primarily private and third sector SMEs, and from interviews with providers and stakeholders about provider engagement with SMEs and large employers. Findings indicate that SMEs had recruited few staff through the WP and had little awareness of it, and that providers engaged in intense competition to access both SMEs and large employers. Employers are critical to the success of ALMPs, but an underpinning supply-side ideology and a regulatory context in which business interest associations are weak policy actors means that their involvement is based on implicit and flawed assumptions about employers’ interests and their propensity to engage.

scholarly journals Active labour market policy in the UK: At a (local) crossroads?

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Orton ◽  
Anne E Green
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Local Labour ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Uk

Active labour market policy has developed into a widely used and seemingly embedded approach to addressing worklessness, both in the UK and internationally. But the future of UK active labour market policy looks far from certain. Some recent developments suggest demise and diminution. But at the same time there is also evidence of more positive points, including increasing recognition of the importance of employer involvement and activity at local level. Possible future trajectories are considered in the light of emerging developments, and two potential scenarios for future UK active labour market policy are posited: ‘less support, more sticks’ and an ‘active local labour markets approach’.

scholarly journals Party government and policy responsiveness. Evidence from three parliamentary democracies

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimiter Toshkov ◽  
Lars Mäder ◽  
Anne Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Party Government ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk

AbstractDoes party government moderate the responsiveness of public policy to public opinion? Analysing a new dataset, we examine whether the ability of governments to respond to the public on 306 specific policy issues in Denmark, Germany and the UK is affected by the extent of coalition conflict and by the fit of the considered policy changes with the government preferences. We find a systematic but relatively weak positive impact of public support on the likelihood and speed of policy change. Contrary to expectations, a higher number of coalition partners are not associated with fewer policy changes nor with weaker responsiveness to public opinion. We also find no evidence that responsiveness to public opinion is necessarily weaker for policy changes that go against the preferences of the government. Rather, it appears that public and government support for policy change are substitute resources.

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