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THE PURSUIT OF WELFARE ENDS AND MARKET MEANS, AND THE CASE OF WORK/FAMILY RECONCILIATION POLICIES Jane Lewis

THE PURSUIT OF WELFARE ENDS AND MARKET MEANS, AND THE CASE OF WORK/FAMILY RECONCILIATION POLICIES Jane Lewis. EXAMPLES OF NEW LABOUR’S NEW POLICY MIX. C ommitment to public services, and more blurring between public and private finance and provision

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THE PURSUIT OF WELFARE ENDS AND MARKET MEANS, AND THE CASE OF WORK/FAMILY RECONCILIATION POLICIES Jane Lewis

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  1. THE PURSUIT OF WELFARE ENDS AND MARKET MEANS, AND THE CASE OF WORK/FAMILY RECONCILIATION POLICIESJane Lewis

  2. EXAMPLES OF NEW LABOUR’S NEW POLICY MIX • Commitment to public services, and more blurring between public and private finance and provision • A return a belief in wages as the best form of welfare and more contractualist policies to get people into work • Commitment to abolish child poverty and an extension of means-testing

  3. IS THIS: • Left or Right? • ‘Social solidarity alongside markets’? • ‘Utter acceptance of the market economy and the forces of globalization’? In part the division in opinion reflects the difficulties of carrying forward a commitment to welfare ends using new forms of governance that are more compatible with market competition

  4. POLICY INHERITANCE • Growth in inequality in income during the 1980s, exceeded only by New Zealand, and in child poverty from 10% of children in 1979 to over one third in 1990 • Low tax, low wage, low skill labour market

  5. POLICY INHERITANCE In face of this inheritance, the tax/benefit reforms of the first term (1997-2001), focused on tax credits for low paid workers, makes sense IN ADDITION – Labour has not been alone in tightening conditionality around work and welfare and moving towards ‘active’ welfare measures

  6. NEW LABOUR’S SOCIAL POLICY IDEAS ‘Modernization’ of social provision – an idea shared at the EU level and part of a more general trend in the restructuring of welfare states: • Social policy as a ‘productive factor’, contributing to competitiveness and growth • Social expenditure justified so long as it promotes social investment

  7. NEW LABOUR’S SOCIAL POLICY IDEAS Labour’s own core ideas: • Opportunity • Responsibility • Community

  8. NEW LABOUR’S IDEAS ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE STATE Caution about the limits to the role of the state (1): • ‘Big government is dead. The days of tax and spend are gone. Much of the deregulation and privatisation that took place in the 1980s was necessary. But everything cannot be left to the market. We believe there is a role for active government’ (Blair, 1998)

  9. NEW LABOUR’S IDEAS ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE STATE Caution about the limits to the role of the state (2): • ‘We politicians are no longer looking for the opportunity to expand government, but government is looking always to expand opportunity. All this is humbling for government because it forces government to recognise its limitations…government must recognise that it does not have the solution to every problem’ (Brown, 2000)

  10. LEADS TO: Continued support for the ‘mixed economy of welfare’ in provision and finance via the private finance initiative and public-private partnerships. New Governance – designed to secure policy goals from an increasingly mixed and fragmented economy of welfare: - Target-setting - Use of ‘league-tables’ to ‘name and shame’ - National standards and the use of performance indicators

  11. BUT: Real commitment to the development of social policy measured by expenditure: NHS budget: - 1997: 33 billion GBP - 2004: 67 billion GBP Education budget: - 1997: 38 billion GBP - 2008 (projected): 76 billion GBP

  12. THE EXAMPLE OF CHILDCARE • 1998 National Childcare Strategy • Free, part-time early years education place for all four year olds (achieved by the end of 2000) • Free, part-time early years education place for all three year olds (achieved by 2004) • 2001 – further aim of creating 1.6m new childcare places by 2004

  13. THE EXAMPLE OF CHILDCARE • 2004 Pre-Budget Report – a further 10 year strategy for childcare, increasing the number of free hours of early years education for 3 and 4 year olds to 15 per week, and increasing the amount of money available for buying childcare via the working tax credit • Governance of childcare: via the mixed economy and local ‘partnerships’ of public and independent sector providers

  14. THE EXAMPLE OF CHILDCARE Results: • Rapid increase in childcare places, but a real sustainability problem • Change in nature of provision, with a decline in childminders and playgroup and an increase in day care centres and nurseries

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