Abstract:This article draws on the research of authors participating in this Special Issue, as well as a broader evidence review on how health, disability, labour market inequalities and other factors contribute to high levels of benefit claiming among certain communities. We argue that the evidence points to a complex combination of factors feeding into high levels of disability benefits claiming in the UK and beyond, namely: concentrations of health problems and disability-related barriers; gaps in the employability … Show more
“…Demanding more work‐related activity of welfare claimants reporting employability and health‐related barriers has been a shared policy agenda of successive governments since the early 2000s (Lindsay et al ). The introduction of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as the main disability benefit from 2008 has substantially increased the number of claimants subject to compulsory activation.…”
Section: Context and Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…There is limited state regulation of the content or quality of provision (Ceolta‐Smith et al ) as, in the words of the Minister for Welfare Reform, ‘the black box nature of the WP means that providers are completely free to design the support they offer in order to maximize success’ (Freud , p. 4). An extensive system of performance management and targets at the level of contracted organizations and individual caseworkers is designed to incentivize performance (HoC ; Lindsay et al ). There are again implications for street‐level practice.…”
Section: Personalization and Street‐level Bureaucracy In Activationmentioning
This article discusses factors shaping street-level caseworkers' role in the 'personalization' of activation for people with employability and health-related barriers to work. Rice's (2013) micro-institutionalist framework understands street-level bureaucracy as being defined across three levels: interactions between caseworkers and clients; the environment of the implementing organization that shapes, and is shaped by, these interactions; and the relationship between these two levels of interaction and the wider economic, policy and social context. While building on the foundations laid by previous scholars, we use Rice's framework as the starting point for a preliminary study of street-level bureaucrats' role in compulsory activation. We analyse in-depth interviews with caseworkers and clients involved in the UK government's main activation programme -'The Work Programme'. Our findings support other studies and add to the literature by suggesting that a number of organizational and high-level policy factors have contributed to an increasing standardization of street-level practice.
“…Demanding more work‐related activity of welfare claimants reporting employability and health‐related barriers has been a shared policy agenda of successive governments since the early 2000s (Lindsay et al ). The introduction of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as the main disability benefit from 2008 has substantially increased the number of claimants subject to compulsory activation.…”
Section: Context and Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…There is limited state regulation of the content or quality of provision (Ceolta‐Smith et al ) as, in the words of the Minister for Welfare Reform, ‘the black box nature of the WP means that providers are completely free to design the support they offer in order to maximize success’ (Freud , p. 4). An extensive system of performance management and targets at the level of contracted organizations and individual caseworkers is designed to incentivize performance (HoC ; Lindsay et al ). There are again implications for street‐level practice.…”
Section: Personalization and Street‐level Bureaucracy In Activationmentioning
This article discusses factors shaping street-level caseworkers' role in the 'personalization' of activation for people with employability and health-related barriers to work. Rice's (2013) micro-institutionalist framework understands street-level bureaucracy as being defined across three levels: interactions between caseworkers and clients; the environment of the implementing organization that shapes, and is shaped by, these interactions; and the relationship between these two levels of interaction and the wider economic, policy and social context. While building on the foundations laid by previous scholars, we use Rice's framework as the starting point for a preliminary study of street-level bureaucrats' role in compulsory activation. We analyse in-depth interviews with caseworkers and clients involved in the UK government's main activation programme -'The Work Programme'. Our findings support other studies and add to the literature by suggesting that a number of organizational and high-level policy factors have contributed to an increasing standardization of street-level practice.
“…I would certainly never want to support that view (medium‐sized, education, UK).This quote underscores the contradiction of suggestions by some sections of the political class and the media that unemployed individuals may be in some way ‘defective', but at the same time expecting employers to provide such individuals with job opportunities. Additionally, it exposes the implications of policy rhetoric that focuses solely on problems with the supply‐side without sufficiently engaging with the potential implications for the demand‐side, or barriers arising from it (see Lindsay, Greve, Cabras, Ellison, & Kellett, ; Author). Building on employers' views presented in the preceding sections, the following quote from a large employer highlights how erroneous policy problem construction could, in turn, lead to inappropriate interventions: They sent this lad along and his confidence was zero so he sat there … and other than telling us what his name was, he said nothing all day.…”
This article examines the under‐explored demand‐side of active labour market policies (ALMPs). Based on interview data from a comparative study of the UK and Denmark, the paper analyses employers' perspectives and experiences of ALMPs. In both countries, employers were favourably disposed towards employing unemployed jobseekers but held negative views on conditionality. First, benefit conditionality led to employers receiving large numbers of unsuitable and unfiltered job applications, with associated negative resource impacts. Second, employers perceived this as a product of ‘box ticking' and compliance targets. Finally, employers criticised policy and media rhetoric for focusing solely on the supply‐side and for problematizing unemployed candidates. The paper argues that these crucial, but neglected, employer perspectives demonstrate that the current benefit conditionality regime in the UK risks irrevocably ‘tarnishing' candidates, which undermines, rather than enhances, their chances of securing employment through ALMPs. This unique dataset provides further evidence that the current direction of policy requires urgent and radical re‐thinking.
“…The fact that the LTC/MUS patients tended to be older and male may reflect a context effect, particularly in terms of LTC. South Yorkshire has been identified as an area of disproportionately high incapacity benefit claim rates that reflects the shadow cast by the previous dominance of heavy industry/mining and the physical toll/damage such work creates (Lindsay, Greve, Cabras, Ellison and Kellett, 2015). Caseness rates for anxiety and depression for LTC/MUS patients were high and again show the on-going emotional suffering created by living with LTC/MUS (Goodwin, Davidson and Keyes, 2009).…”
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
