Ines Newman

Work as a route out of poverty: a critical evaluation of the UK welfare to work policy

At a time when more workless people in the UK are being mandated into highly conditional welfare to work programmes, this article engages with critiques of neoliberalism to argue that such policies cannot be shown to have a major impact on outcomes but are pursued for political reasons. Through a systematic review of the assumptions underpinning current welfare to work programmes in the UK, it is suggested that policy has increasingly been driven by a desire to embed a new consensus in which it is accepted that life should be shaped by work and that the unemployed have responsibility for tackling their own unemployment. This consensus marginalises the voice of the workless and wider criticisms of neo-liberalism and reduces the scope for oppositional political organisation. The analysis indicates three areas where contestation and broader study will be important in the future to protect the well-being of the unemployed. They are: welfare reform and the attempt to shape the whole welfare system to embed a work ethic; the demand side of the labour market including requirements on employers; and the empowerment of the unemployed.

Introduction: The Future of Local Economic Development

Analyses the debates and contradictions in the governments sub-national policy for economic development and regeneration. This book highlights the implications for local economic development agents, particularly those with a concern for social justice.

Surviving in a cold climate: Local authority economic strategy today

When the first proposals for a new economic development power were produced it appeared that local authorities were to be under a legal obligation to draw up an annual local economic strategy. Furthermore they would have to consult the business community on their strategy. The concept started a debate in the Economic Development Unit in Harlow. The Unit had deliberately resisted requests to write a strategy over the last couple of years, producing a work programme with outputs which could be monitored instead. This article gives a personal view on that debate and does not necessarily represent the views of the Harlow District Council. If a local strategy was to be produced, the task involved addressing four questions. Firstly, what is a local economic strategy as opposed to a work programme? Secondly why at the beginning of the 1990s is it so hard for someone on the left, as I would classify myself, to produce such a strategy? Thirdly if such a strategy can be produced what objectives and policies should it contain and finally what processes should be involved in producing a strategy? These issues are examined below.

Greater London enterprise board: Vision and reality

This article debates the innovative role in the private sector defined for GLEB by the London Industrial Strategy. It suggests that there are substantial problems at both the theoretical level and the level of implementation with the concept of municipal enterprise boards. It concludes that there is a need for further discussion on the objectives of municipal enterprise boards and more assessment of their role in relation to other possible economic initiatives at the local level.

Irene Bruegel (1946–2008): Gender and Local Economic Development

‘As an individual, I have always taken the view that the values, beliefs and history of researchers inevitably inform research. If research is to be useful these should be available to the reader to enable them to evaluate what is being said.’ (Bruegel, 1998, p. 12) This statement by Irene Bruegel, who died at the early age of 62 on 6 October 2008, provides a starting point for this article, which seeks both to remember the life of an exceptional academic and activist and to evaluate her contribution to local economic development. Irene will be missed by many of us as a friend, a colleague and an activist who could persuade us out of our comfort zone to join her fights for equality and justice. In this article however, I want to focus on the debt Local Economy owes her and to highlight her contribution to the role of gender in shaping labour markets. She was involved in Local Economy from the start, writing in the first volume on the failure of local economic strategies in the 1970s and early 1980s to consider the service sector and ‘women’s jobs’. ‘Production is only considered useful – and the jobs real jobs – when they are largely men’s jobs’, she argued, reflecting on the fact that only 15% of the Greater London Enterprise Board’s (GLEB) investment had gone into the service sector, although 80% of the jobs in the capital were in the service sector at this time (Bruegel, 1987, Vol. 1 No. 4).

Naomi Eisenstadt, Providing a Sure Start, The Policy Press: Bristol, 2011; 178 pp.: 9781847427298, £21.99 (pbk)

to demonstrate job readiness. The growth in the paid workforce in the VCS is outlined in Chapter 4, while the sheer diversity of the VCS sector is outlined in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 is concerned with volunteering in a place-based community context, and draws on rich case study material from Brightville in the East Midlands. In Chapter 7 the focus shifts to communities of interest and a case study of Age UK is presented. Chapter 8 concludes, with reflections on the scope of the book and some thoughts on prospects for the future. Given ongoing cuts in public services and the necessity for greater reliance on informal help, the book ends with the question of whether the understanding of volunteering will change in the 21st century. The methods used in this book will provide useful insights for a re-examination of this question in a decade or so from now.

Harlow Cooperative Development Agency: Self-Build Housing Project

CANTERBURY BUSINESS SCHOOL 1992a: Report on a Survey of Freight Agents and Customs Brokers to the East Kent Initiative. Canterbury Business School, April 1992. CANTERBURY BUSINESS SCHOOL 1992b: Report on a Survey of Employees of Freight Agents and Customs Brokers in East Kent to the East Kent Initiative. Canterbury Business School, May 1992. CANTERBURY BUSINESS SCHOOL 1992C: Report on a Survey of Freight Agents and Customs Brokers to the East Kent Initiative. Canterbury Business School, October 1992. CHANNEL TUNNEL JOINT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE 1991a: Kent Impact Study 1991 Review, Study 3: Direct effects of the Channel Tunnel on Ports and Ferries in Kent. Reports commissioned by the Channel Tunnel Joint Consultative Committee from PA Cambridge Economic Consultants, Halcrow Fox and Associates and MDS Transmodal, June 1991. CHANNEL TUNNEL JOINT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE 1991b: Kent Impact Study 1991 Review, The Channel Tunnel A Strategy for Kent. Report commissioned by the Channel Tunnel Joint Consultative Committee from PA Cambridge Economics Consultants, Halcrow Fox and Associates and MDS Transmodal, June 1991.

Local government: Big business

Cochrane, A. 1993: Whatever Happened to Local Government? Buckingham: Open University Press, £10.99 paper.