Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:05:43.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Welfare Grunters and Workfare Monsters? An Empirical Review of the Operation of Two UK ‘Work Programme’ Centres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2017

JOHN DAVID JORDAN
JOHN DAVID JORDAN*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Work, Care and Justice, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool L16 9JD email: jordanj@hope.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Workfare increases requirements on welfare claimants: a major shift in UK social welfare policy post-1980s. Political, academic and cultural debates surround the ethical basis, and practical operations, of workfare schemes. Moreover, the UK government has claimed that workfare provides value for money in an age of austerity, ‘help and support’ for the long-term unemployed, and ‘incentives’ for increased claimant job-seeking. This article presents results gathered from sociological research into the UK's ‘Work Programme’ workfare scheme in order to contextualise these debates and contribute to wider academic and social policy workfare analyses. It finds a complex picture: a largely pointless scheme, resented by many participants, but providing a basic social service for some others.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 583 - 601
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (2012), Work Programme Performance Statistics: Inclusion Analysis. Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion. URL: http://stats.cesi.org.uk/website_documents/initial_WP_Performance_InclusionComment.pdf Accessed 20/3/12.Google Scholar
Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (2013), Government Work Experience Schemes: What Are the Differences? URL: https://www2.learningandwork.org.uk/keypolicy/government-work-experience-schemes-what-are-differences Accessed 30/5/16.Google Scholar
Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (2014), DWP Work Programme: how is it performing? URL: http://cesi.org.uk/sites/default/files/response_downloads/WP_stats_briefing_SEPT14_MASTER.pdf Accessed 27/10/15.Google Scholar
Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (2015), Government hasn't measured how well Payment by Results is working, says National Audit Office. URL: http://cesi.org.uk/social-inclusion-news/2015/jun/government-hasnt-measured-how-well-payment-results-working-says-natio Accessed 25/10/15.Google Scholar
Centre for Social Justice (2013), Signed on, Written off: An Inquiry into Welfare Dependency in Britain.Google Scholar
Daguerre, A. (2004), ‘Importing Workfare: Policy Transfer of Social and Labour Market Policies form the USA to Britain Under New Labour’, Social Policy and Administration, 38, 1, 41–56.Google Scholar
Department for Work and Pensions (2011), Work Programme: Equality Impact Assessment. London: HM Government. URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/220250/eia-work-programme.pdf Accessed 25/10/15.Google Scholar
Department for Work and Pensions (2012), The Work Programme. London: HM Government. URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/49884/the-work-programme.pdf Accessed 25/10/15.Google Scholar
Department for Work and Pensions (2013), Work Programme: Minimum Service Delivery. London: HM Government. URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/401645/provider-minimum-service-delivery.pdf Accessed 25/10/15.Google Scholar
Digby, A. (1989), British Welfare Policy: Workhouse to Workfare, London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Dostal, J. M. (2008), ‘The Workfare Illusion: Re-Examining the Concept and the British Case’, Social Policy and Administration, 42, 1, 19–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dwyer, P. (2000), Welfare Rights and Responsibilities, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Dwyer, P. (2002), ‘Making Sense of Social Citizenship: Some User Views on Welfare Rights and Responsibilities’, Critical Social Policy, 22, 2, 273–299.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A. (1998), ‘A Communitarian Perspective on Sustainable Communities.’ Warburton, D. [Ed.] Community and Sustainable Development: Participation in the Future, Earthscan: London.Google Scholar
Fletcher, D. (2011), ‘Welfare Reform, Jobcentre Plus and the Street-Level Bureaucracy: Towards Inconsistent and Discriminatory Welfare for Severely Disadvantaged Groups?’, Journal of Social Policy 10, 4, 445–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuertes, V. and Lindsay, C. (2015), ‘Personalization and Street-Level Practice in Activation: The Case of the UK's Work programme’, Public Administration, 94, 2, 526–541.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1998), The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.Google Scholar
Herd, D., Mitchell, A. and Lightman, E. (2005), ‘Rituals of Degradation: Administration as Policy in the Ontario Works Programme’, Social Policy and Administration, 39, 1, 65–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HM Government (2011), Grayling Launches a Revolution in Back to Work Support.Google Scholar
Hoover, K. (2003), Economics as Ideology: Keynes, Laski, Hayek, and the Creation of Contemporary Politics, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.Google Scholar
House of Commons Library (2016), Work Programme: Background and Statistics.Google Scholar
Jessen, J. and Tufte, P. (2014), ‘Discretionary Decision-Making in a Changing Context of Activation Policies and Welfare Reforms’, Journal of Social Policy, 43, 2, 269–288.Google Scholar
Party, Labour (1997), New Labour because Britain deserves Better.Google Scholar
Layard, R., Nickell, S. and Jackman, R. (1994), The Unemployment Crisis, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lodemel, I. and Trickey, H. (2000), ‘A New Contract for Social Assistance.’ Lodemel, I., Trickey, H. [Eds.]. An Offer You Can't Refuse: Workfare in International Perspective, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, E. (1994), ‘Flexibility and Polarisation.’ White, M. [Ed.] Unemployment, Public Policy and the Changing Labour Market, London: Policy Studies Institute.Google Scholar
Mead, L. (1986), Beyond Entitlement, London: Collier Macmillan Publishers.Google Scholar
Mead, L. (2005), Welfare Reform and Citizenship. Mead, L., Beem, C. [Eds.]. Welfare Reform and Political Theory, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Murray, C. (1984), Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980, New York: Basic Books Inc.Google Scholar
National Audit Office (2012), The Introduction of the Work Programme. London: HM Government.Google Scholar
National Audit Office (2014), The Work Programme. London: HM Government.Google Scholar
National Audit Office (2015), Outcome-based payment schemes: government's use of payment by results. London: HM Government.Google Scholar
Newton, B., Meager, N., Bertram, C., Corden, A., George, A., Lalani, M., Metcalf, H., Rolfe, H., Sainsbury, R. and Weston, K. (2012), Work Programme Evaluation: Findings from the First Phase of Qualitative Research on Programme Delivery. Department for Work and Pensions. London: HM Government.Google Scholar
Office for National Statistics (2014), Self-employed workers in the UK–2014. London: HM Government.Google Scholar
Order for Economic Cooperation and Development (1981), The welfare state in crisis.Google Scholar
Pateman, C. (2005), Another Way Forward: Welfare Reform, Social Reproduction and Basic Income. Mead, L., Beem, C. [Eds.]. Welfare Reform and Political Theory, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Patrick, R. (2014), ‘Working on Welfare: Findings from a Qualitative Longitudinal Study into the Lived Experiences of Welfare Reform in the UK’, Journal of Social Policy 4, 43, 705–725.Google Scholar
Peck, J. (2001), Workfare States, New York: The Guildford Press.Google Scholar
Public and Commercial Services Union (2014), Five Times More Sanctions than Jobs on Government's Work Programme.Google Scholar
Sanger, M. (2003), The Welfare Market Place: Privatisation and Welfare Reform, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press.Google Scholar
Shildrick, T., Garthwaite, K., Webster, C. and MacDonald, R. (2013), Poverty and insecurity: life in low-pay, no-pay Britain, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Smith, I. (2010), Reforms will Tackle Poverty and get Britain Working Again, HM Government. URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/reforms-will-tacklepoverty-and-get-britain-working-again Accessed 31/10/15.Google Scholar
Sunley, P., Martin, R. and Nativel, C. (2001), ‘Mapping the New Deal: Local Disparities in the Performance of Welfare-to-Work’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 26, 4, 484–512.Google Scholar
Trickey, H., and Walker, R. (2000), ‘Steps to Compulsion Within British Labour Market Policies.’ Lodemel, I., Trickey, H. [Eds.]. An Offer You Can't Refuse: Workfare in International Perspective, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Vegeris, S., Adams, L., Oldfield, K.. Bertram, C., et al. (2011), Flexible New Deal Evaluation: Customer Survey and Qualitative Research Findings, Department for Work and Pensions.Google Scholar
Wacquant, L. (2010), Crafting the Neoliberal State: Workfare, Prisonfare, and Social Insecurity. Sociological Forum, 25, 2, 197–220.Google Scholar
Walker, R. and Chase, E. (2014), ‘Separating the Sheep from the Goats: Tackling Poverty in Britain for over Four Centuries.’ Gubrium, Erika K. and Pellissery, Sony and Lodemel, Ivar [Eds.]. The Shame of It: Global Perspectives and Anti-Poverty Policies. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Westergaard, J. (1995), Who Gets What? The Hardening of Class Inequality in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar