Fit for purpose? …

Welfare reform and challenges for health and labour market policy in the UK

an article by Colin Lindsay and Donald Houston published in Environment and Planning A (Volume 43 Number 3 (March 2011))

Abstract
In the UK, as in some other EU states, the focus of recent welfare reforms has switched from those on unemployment benefits to those receiving sickness/incapacity benefits (IBs), reflecting concerns around the large numbers falling into the this last group. The Labour government elected in 1997 introduced a range of measures to activate those on IBs, setting a target of a one million reduction in the number of claimants by the end of 2015. The Conservative Party similarly came to acknowledge that high levels of IB claiming represented a problem of ‘unemployment hidden as sickness’, and in coalition now proposes even more aggressive supply-side strategies. This paper provides an extensive review of the most recent evidence to identify factors driving the rise in the number of people claiming IBs and, in light of this analysis, assesses whether current policy is fit for purpose. An important conclusion is that any national ‘one-size fits all’ supply-side policy response is blind to the distinctive geography of receipt of IBs and the complex combination of factors that leave some people trapped on these benefits.

Hazel’s comment:
What a place to find an article of this importance to the careers and advice community!!

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Acid test for policy advisers

John McCarthy at the ICCDPP (International Centre for Career Development and Public Policy) alerts us to this piece the The Australian.

It's interesting to observe how the fiery battles between the Left and Right in the 20th century have been replaced today by more modest debates about public policy options. The grand ideologies associated with capitalism and socialism are still active and relevant as moral and intellectual irritants, but they are decreasingly used as benchmarks in political judgment or as stories in the political contest.
That role has been taken up by social, economic, environmental and governance outcomes: growth and employment, measures of amenity and global warming, crime rates, health and education standards, and degrees of citizenship. Our new gurus have even been given a name: "policy wonks".

I've like to have given you the link direct to The Australian because, no offence meant, getting into the ICCDPP site is more often impossible than not! If it was just any old site with occasional useful information I'd probably (no, I'd definitely) give up on it -- as it is it's a major irritant!
But you'll also have to suffer the "major irritant" if you want to read the full story as it's disappeared into the archives at the original source only to re-appear on payment of money!