Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- One The transformation of the welfare state? The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government and social policy
- Two The coalition government, public spending and social policy
- Three The changing governance of social policy
- Four The coalition, social policy and public opinion
- Five Health policy and the coalition government
- Six The coalition government, the general election and the policy ratchet in education: a reflection on the ‘ghosts’ of policy past, present and yet to come
- Seven Coalition housing policy in England
- Eight Social security under the coalition and Conservatives: shredding the system for people of working age; privileging pensioners
- Nine Welfare and active labour market policies in the UK: the coalition government approach
- Ten ‘It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it’: adult social care under the coalition
- Eleven Family policy: the Mods and Rockers
- Twelve One step forward, two steps back: children, young people and the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition
- Thirteen The coalition and criminal justice
- Fourteen Equalities: the impact of welfare reform and austerity by gender, disability and age
- Fifteen Social policy, the devolved administrations and the UK coalition government
- Sixteen Conclusions
- Index
Nine - Welfare and active labour market policies in the UK: the coalition government approach
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- One The transformation of the welfare state? The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government and social policy
- Two The coalition government, public spending and social policy
- Three The changing governance of social policy
- Four The coalition, social policy and public opinion
- Five Health policy and the coalition government
- Six The coalition government, the general election and the policy ratchet in education: a reflection on the ‘ghosts’ of policy past, present and yet to come
- Seven Coalition housing policy in England
- Eight Social security under the coalition and Conservatives: shredding the system for people of working age; privileging pensioners
- Nine Welfare and active labour market policies in the UK: the coalition government approach
- Ten ‘It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it’: adult social care under the coalition
- Eleven Family policy: the Mods and Rockers
- Twelve One step forward, two steps back: children, young people and the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition
- Thirteen The coalition and criminal justice
- Fourteen Equalities: the impact of welfare reform and austerity by gender, disability and age
- Fifteen Social policy, the devolved administrations and the UK coalition government
- Sixteen Conclusions
- Index
Summary
Introduction
From the mid-1980s onwards, the UK social security system has become increasingly residual in nature, with the language of contracts pervading most areas of welfare, as evidenced by the creation of Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) in 1995/96. By the mid-1990s, a crossparty consensus had emerged concerning the need to move away from a passive welfare system based on entitlement to unemployment benefits towards an active welfare model based on responsibilities, encapsulated in the notion of the moral obligations of citizenship. There has been a marked shift away from an approach based upon the duty of the state to support its citizens towards one concerned with the enforcement of a citizen's obligation to participate in the labour market (Harris, 2010). Under the new welfare contractualism (White, 2000; Freedland and King, 2003; Griggs and Bennett, 2009), social rights can be understood as consisting of rights to reasonable access to benefits, rather than unconditional rights to welfare benefits as such. This new welfare contractualism has become a strong area of bipartisan consensus, not least because New Labour under Tony Blair had promoted a ‘work-first’ approach based on the active monitoring of claimants. Work over welfare (Haskins, 2006), or how to enable the non-working poor to enter or re-enter the world of paid employment, has been at the heart of welfare reform changes over the past three decades. Here, we can identify two different views of the causes and cures for welfare dependency of the issue, which gave rise to different sets of policy prescriptions in the 1980s and 1990s:
• Behavioural deficiencies – economic inactivity, underemployment and long-term unemployment (all different phenomena in labour market terms) are the result of a lack of work ethic and/discipline on the part of the non-working poor. From this perspective, entry-level jobs are available and welfare claimants need a combination of hassle and help to take them up. The issue of unemployment is explained in terms of behavioural deficiencies. The portrayal of the non-working poor as lacking the drive and motivation to take up available jobs means that there is an emphasis on churning people into low-paid jobs or maintaining them in a perpetual state of jobreadiness (Peck, 2001, p 12).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Coalition Government and Social PolicyRestructuring the Welfare State, pp. 201 - 220Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016