William Eadson

State enrolment and energy-carbon transitions: Syndromic experimentation and atomisation in England

This article analyses how national governments seek to enrol different subjects and objects in energy-carbon restructuring. It takes analysis beyond consideration of particular subjectivities and governmentalities to consider an expanded range of objects and subjects of governing at a distance. Developing an analytical model of ‘modes of enrolment’ focusing on power modalities, forms of policy integration and policy targets, the article explores five broad modes of enrolment employed in England. The article shows how policy across all modes of enrolment in England has increasingly tended towards disordered, syndromic experimentation and government by-project rather than any systematic programme of government.

Street-level practice and the co-production of third sector-led employability services

Policymakers have promised a personalised approach to improving the employability of disadvantaged groups. The evidence suggests that contracted-out activation programmes in the UK and some other welfare states have instead sometimes delivered a standardised ‘work-first’ model. An alternative approach is exemplified in local employability services targeting lone parents in Scotland, led by third sector–public sector partnerships. Our research on these services suggests a link between programme governance (defined by flexible funding and collaborative partnership working) and effective street-level practice (where caseworkers and users co-produce services to empower parents). The article concludes by identifying lessons for the coproduction of future employability services.

Editorial: PPP special issue – International Perspectives on Fuel Poverty

Despite the commitments of successive UK governments to end fuel poverty by 2016, over ten per cent of UK households were deemed to be in fuel poverty in 2015 (DECC, 2015). Although comparisons over time have been rendered virtually impossible by changes to the way fuel poverty is defined and measured, it is clear that the target of fuel poverty eradication remains elusive., The winter of 2014/15 saw excess winter deaths reach their highest winter levels since 1999/00 (ONS, 2016). Evidence suggests that around a fifth of these 43,500 deaths are attributable to cold homes (Marmot Review Team, 2011) and are entirely preventable. However, excess winter deaths are only part of the picture and fuel poverty is a longstanding and pervasive health issue contributing to wider social and health inequalities. We remain far from a solution to this great social injustice which disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in society.