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Bringing the Jobless into Work? pp 297–343Cite as

‘Employment First’: Activating the British Welfare State

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Over the past decade there has been radical change in the British welfare state. The Government has introduced a new welfare contract where the ‘rights and responsibilities’ of working age adults receiving state benefits have been redefined to encourage, and increasingly require, their active participation in paid employment. This has involved a parallel ‘activation’ of entitlements and obligations and of the services delivered by welfare state institutions.

This chapter considers the new combinations of job search assistance, obligations and programmes; and ‘make work pay’ reforms, introduced in Great Britain (GB) since 1997. It assesses evidence on the impacts of the strategy and the challenges faced as activation requirements are extended to workless lone parents and people with health problems and disabilities.

The British case merits attention for several reasons. Firstly, New Labour has sought explicitly to synthesise ‘what works’ from both neo-liberal and social democratic welfare traditions with some analysts discerning the emergence of an “Anglo-social welfare model, incorporating and reconciling economic performance and flexibility with equality and social justice” (Dixon and Pearce 2005).

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Abbreviations

BA:

Benefits Agency

CMP:

Condition Management Programme

CTB:

Council Tax Benefit

CTC:

Child Tax Credit

DSS:

Department of Social Security

DWP:

Department of Work and Pensions

ECHR:

European Convention of Human Rights

EMTR:

Effective Marginal Tax Rate

ESA:

Employment Support Allowance

ES:

Employment Service

EZ:

Employment Zone

GB:

Great Britain

GDP:

Gross Domestic Product

Hansard:

Official Record of Parliamentary Proceedings, Written Answer from Minister

HB:

Housing Benefit

HMT:

Her Majesty’s Treasury

HRA:

Human Rights Act

IAP:

Intensive Activity Period

IB:

Incapacity Benefit

IFS:

Institute for Fiscal Studies

IS:

Income Support

JCP:

Jobcentre Plus

JSA:

Jobseekers Allowance

JSAg:

Jobseekers Agreement

LFS:

Labour Force Survey

MSC:

Manpower Services Commission

NAO:

National Audit Office

NDDP:

New Deal for Disabled People

NDLP:

New Deal for Lone Parents

NDPA:

New Deal Personal Adviser

NDYP:

New Deal for Young People

ND25 plus NEP:

National Employment Panel

NI:

National Insurance

NMW:

National Minimum Wage

OECD:

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

ONS:

Office for National Statistics

PA:

Personal Adviser

SSAC:

Social Security Advisory Committee

UK:

United Kingdom

WBLA:

Work Based Learning for Adults

WFI:

Work Focused Interview

WFTC:

Working Families Tax Credit

WTC:

Working Tax Credit

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Portsmouth, UK

    D. Finn (Professor of Social Policy)

  2. The Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Social Law in Munich, Germany

    B. Schulte (Senior Research Fellow)

Authors
  1. D. Finn
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  2. B. Schulte
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 5-9, 53113, Bonn, Germany

    Werner Eichhorst

  2. Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Foreign and International Social Law, Amalienstr. 33, 80799, München, Germany

    Otto Kaufmann

  3. Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Regensburger Straße 104, 90478, Nürnberg, Germany

    Regina Konle-Seidl

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Finn, D., Schulte, B. (2008). ‘Employment First’: Activating the British Welfare State. In: Eichhorst, W., Kaufmann, O., Konle-Seidl, R. (eds) Bringing the Jobless into Work?. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77435-8_8

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