Implementing the European Employment Strategy in the Uk: Delivering Employability at The
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IMPLEMENTING THE EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT STRATEGY IN THE UK:
DELIVERING EMPLOYABILITY AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
Colin Lindsay
Employment Research Institute, Napier University, Edinburgh, UK
Paper presented at ETUI/Complutense University, Madrid Seminar on:
The Regional and Local Dimension of the European Employment Strategy
Contact:
Colin Lindsay
Employment Research Institute
Napier University
66 Spylaw Road
Edinburgh EH10 5BR Tel: +44 (0) 131 455 5109
e-mail: [email protected]
IMPLEMENTING THE EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT STRATEGY IN THE UK:
DELIVERING EMPLOYABILITY AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
Abstract
The local and regional dimension of the European Employment Strategy has emerged as an important issue for Europe’s supranational institutions, member state governments, and local policy actors. This paper examines issues arising from the implementation of the European
Employment Strategy at the regional and local level in the UK. The specific focus is on policies relating to the ‘employability’ pillar – arguably the central element of the Strategy as it was formulated between 1998 and 2003. The paper discusses the background to the
Strategy, the importance of the employability pillar, and its implementation in the UK, through national government policies and regional and local frameworks (in the latter case with particular reference to the organisation of European Social Fund Objective 3-supported initiatives). It is argued that, while there are some signs of increased decentralisation and partnership-working, central government continues to dominate the design and delivery of employability-related policies in the UK. Further progress towards the development of inclusive, partnership-based policy frameworks is required if effective local strategies for promoting employability, as advocated within the European Employment Strategy, are to be fully implemented.
2 IMPLEMENTING THE EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT STRATEGY IN THE UK:
DELIVERING EMPLOYABILITY AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
1. Introduction
The European Employment Strategy has recently been redesigned and redeveloped in an attempt to address the challenges of the next decade. The 2003 EU Employment Guidelines emphasise three ‘overarching themes’ (replacing the previous ‘four pillars’ approach): full employment; quality and productivity at work; and cohesion and an inclusive labour market.
Alongside these new thematic priorities, the European Commission has stressed the importance of the inclusion of local actors in the development and delivery of policies implementing the European Employment Strategy.
Prior to the development of the new Guidelines, the Commission’s communications on ‘Acting locally for employment – a local dimension for the European Employment
Strategy’ (2000a) and ‘Strengthening the local dimension of the European Employment
Strategy’ (2001) highlighted the consensus among policy makers that a consistent and strengthened approach to delivering the European Employment Strategy at the local level was required. For the Commission: “While the local development of employment was once considered as marginal compared to macro-economic and structural strategies, it is now widely accepted that the mobilisation of local actors can considerably contribute to the success of employment policies” (European Commission 2001: 3). The Commission justifies such an approach on a number of grounds, including that:
employment policies are more often than not designed centrally but implemented locally;
local actors, from small and medium enterprises to municipalities, can significantly
contribute to regional cohesion, innovation and entrepreneurship and introduce new forms
of employment creation;
3 the promotion of social inclusion, equal opportunities and gender equality requires social
support and democratic participation at the local level.
At a more fundamental level, it has also been noted that where there are important geographical issues (such as low population density, remoteness or natural handicaps) affecting the labour market outcomes experienced by individuals, then a local dimension is clearly necessary within employment policies. The Commission has acknowledged that the
European Employment Strategy has largely relied upon efforts at the European and national level. However, since its inception the Luxembourg process has increasingly incorporated a local dimension, particularly through the Guidelines’ calls for the involvement of local authorities and social partners. A more consistent approach emerged from the Lisbon
European Council of March 2000 and was codified in the Employment Guidelines of 2001, calling for member states to: “encourage local and regional authorities to develop strategies for employment in order to fully exploit the possibilities offered by job creation at local level and promote partnerships to this end with all the actors concerned” and elsewhere arguing that “All actors at the regional and local levels, including the social partners, must be mobilised to implement the European Employment Strategy by identifying the potential of job creation at the local level and strengthening partnerships to that end” (European
Commission 2001: 6).
The idea that the social partners and other local actors should have a more prominent role in implementing the European Employment Strategy has increasingly been reflected in
National Action Plans, although these have rarely articulated a detailed role for local policy makers. As the Joint Employment Report for 2002 notes: “The development of the territorial dimension of the EES has entered a phase of consolidation. In addition to the NAPs, regional action plans are in place in four Member States. Territorial Employment Pacts remain important in a few Member States, but much could still be done to develop the partnership approach at local level” (European Commission, 2002: 7).
4 The local and regional dimension of the European Employment Strategy has therefore gradually emerged as an important issue for Europe’s supranational institutions, member state governments, and local policy actors (ranging from the social partners to local and regional governments and third sector organisations). The aim of this paper is to examine issues arising from the implementation of the European Employment Strategy at the regional and local level in the UK. The specific focus is on policies relating to the ‘employability’ pillar – arguably the central element of the Strategy as it was formulated between 1998 and 2003.
Following this introduction, part 2 of the paper briefly discusses the background to the
European Employment Strategy; the importance of the employability pillar; and the manner in which the ‘open method of co-ordination’ which defines the Strategy’s implementation has provided scope for the emergence of greater flexibility and devolution to the local level. Part
3 discusses the Strategy’s implementation in the UK, through national government policies and regional and local frameworks (in the latter case with particular reference to the organisation of European Social Fund Objective 3-supported initiatives). Part 4 presents a case study of the operation of the Objective 3 Partnership in Scotland, comparing the partnership’s approach to joint-working with that of central government, and identifying the extent to which EU-supported local initiatives compliment and ‘add value’ to national employability policies. Finally, the paper draws conclusions and compares approaches to social and civil partnership-building within national and regional/local approaches to delivering the Strategy’s employability pillar.
2. The European Employment Strategy and the Employability Pillar
The concept of employability and the European Employment Strategy
The European Employment Strategy (EES) is the outcome of a policy process that has been described as a necessary response to the fundamental challenges faced by the European social model in the 1980s and 1990s (Goetschy 1999), but also as an acknowledgement of the need
5 for a strengthened ‘social dimension’ to economic policy, particularly given the fiscal discipline imposed by the process of economic and monetary union (Foden and Magnusson
2003). The Strategy’s key elements, having emerged from the Extraordinary European
Council on Employment (the so-called ‘Jobs Summit’) which took place in Luxembourg in
November 1997, were formalised as ‘Employment Guidelines’ in 1998 and have since been reviewed and renewed on an annual basis. The Guidelines initially suggested that policy action should be taken under four ‘pillars’: adaptability; employability; entrepreneurship; and equal opportunities. This structure then informed member states’ National Action Plans
(NAPs) on Employment.
The employability pillar quickly emerged as of central importance to member states’ implementation of the EES (Goetschy 1999, 2001). By 2000, the Joint Employment Report of the European Council and Commission had already expressed concern over the ‘uneven’ implementation of the EES (European Commission 2000c). But for some, the emphasis on employability at the national level merely reflected a similar bias within the EES itself – the
Strategy’s focus on entrepreneurship, employability-raising and overcoming welfare dependency were seen as echoing so-called ‘Third Way’ thinking (Kenner 1999), or at least
“a compromise between traditional social democratic views and ‘Blairite’ ideas of the ‘Third
Way’” (Mosher and Trubek 2003: 72). Nevertheless, given the pressures exerted on the
European social model by the ageing of member states’ populations and the persistence of mass unemployment during the 1980s and 1990s, it was perhaps inevitable the national governments and European institutions would prioritise measures promoting access to employment: “It followed that the goal of increasing labour force participation became central, and attention focused primarily on increasing and improving labour supply. Thus, the employability pillar of the Strategy came to occupy the most significant place” (Foden and
Magnusson 2003: 6).
The formulation of the concept of employability as applied within the EES has faced sustained criticism. For Serrano Pascual (2001a, 2001b), the concept of employability as understood within the Strategy and many NAPs evokes a ‘traditional’, reactionary
6 understanding of unemployment, which seeks to blame the jobless individual’s predicament upon his or her inadequacies, rather than a lack of opportunity within the labour market.
Controversy over the concept of employability, and a renewed interest among national government’s in achieving full employment has resulted in ‘employability’ becoming less visible as an explicitly stated policy goal. Nevertheless, the promotion of employability in the workplace and among young people, the unemployed and other potentially disadvantaged groups in the labour market remains an important objective for the new EES (European
Commission 2003b).
Whereas the original EES included employability as a pillar of its approach, the more flexible, longer-term strategy now advocated by the European Commission speaks of promoting more and better ‘investment in human capital and strategies for lifelong learning’.
However, this and many of the Commission’s other guidelines for implementing the Strategy
(or so-called ‘ten commandments’) reflect the pre-existing focus on employability, including: the promotion of active and preventative measures for the (especially long-term) unemployed and inactive; improving financial incentives to make work pay; and promoting active ageing
(European Commission 2003a). It should also be noted that the implementation of European
Social Fund-supported labour market and training projects continues to be informed by the concept of employability (see below)
The EES and the ‘open method of co-ordination’
As noted above, employability policies remain of considerable interest within the context of the EES. Whether explicitly stated as a pillar of the originally-formulated Strategy or as currently implemented within structural funds-supported local projects, employability forms a central theme in EU-led approaches to dealing with labour market disadvantage. However, the implementation of the EES has provoked as much interest and debate as its content. We have seen above that the European Commission has increasingly focused its efforts on the development of a ‘local dimension’ for the Strategy. This initiative has fed into a process that
7 was already prioritising a system of implementation for the EES that emphasises (at least in theory) sunsidiarity and local and national flexibility in the delivery of policies.
The so-called ‘open method of co-ordination’ (OMC), which has defined the implementation of the EES since 2000 arguably represents a radical departure from traditional
EU modes of governance, and a shift towards a more open, flexible and participatory approach to policy making (Goetschy 1999, 2001; Mosher and Trubek 2003). It is an model that encompasses both the established ‘OECD approach’ whereby member state policy interventions operate within an overarching strategy designed at EU level, and the
‘mainstreaming’ approach, whereby the EU seeks to implement new policies through pre- existing policy domains and spending programmes (Wallace 2000; Kavanagh and Richards
2001; Gore 2004).
The use of a broad-based strategy, articulated through specific guidelines and national action plans raised the prospect of a more responsive and collaborative policy environment, with the change from ‘hard’ to ‘soft’ law (Hodson and Maher 2001) marking a paradigm shift towards a more flexible form of governance that nonetheless linked EU, national and local approaches (Goetschy 1999). The objective was the creation of an environment where member states and European institutions could interact and shape the EU level agenda, in sharp contrast to a ‘hard law’ approach that seeks to impose regulation and requires member states to legislate (Rubery 2002). Thus, it was hoped that the OMC would result in a range of benefits, including: broader participation in policy making; integration across policy domains and co-ordination across multiple levels of government; an increased role for the social partners and other local and regional actors; opportunities for benchmarking and ‘policy learning’ between member states; a greater acceptance of diversity under structured but unsanctioned guidance from the Commission (de la Porte et al. 2001; Ferrera et al. 2001;
Trubek and Mosher 2001; Goetschy 2002).
The OMC has proved to be a partial success. For example, the EES has demonstrated its flexibility – prior to development of new 2003 Strategy there had already been a shift away from the initial priorities and towards a stronger emphasis on new themes such as
8 occupational and geographical mobility, job quality and lifelong learning (Goetschy 2002).
However, it has also been suggested that in some cases the development of NAPs (a supposedly crucial part of the EES process within the member states) has come to be seen as
“a bureaucratic reporting task, not an opportunity for policy reflection” (Mosher and Trubek
2003: 79), while the reporting itself can become ‘extraordinarily anodyne’ (de la Porte et al.
2001).
More fundamental concerns have been raised regarding the manner in which a strategy that is not enforceable allows member states to select those elements that national governments wish to emphasise, heralding a shift away from uniform standards and enforceable regulation – “at worst, a smokescreen behind which the welfare state may be dismantled” (Mosher and Trubek 2003: 64). Of course, from a neo-liberal perspective, the mere existence of the EES still represents an attempt to extend the Commission’s influence and micro-manage economic and social policy from the centre (Addison 2002). Through the
OMC approach and an increased focus on ‘strengthening the local dimension’, it was hoped that member states would arrive at flexible and responsive policy solutions. An examination of the British case reveals some progress, but still significant barriers to the full realisation of this vision.
3. Delivering on employability: the British approach
The national dimension
The current UK NAP on employment (DWP 2002) highlights a number of policies developed by national government under the employability pillar. At the centre of British approach remains the ‘Jobseekers’ Allowance (JSA) regime’, which makes active job seeking a condition of the continued payment of unemployment benefits (as administered by the public employment service, Jobcentre Plus). However, a range of more sophisticated employability- raising measures have also been added to this so-called ‘stricter benefit regime’. A national
9 minimum wage and tax and benefit reforms designed to ‘make work pay’ have been introduced, although take up of tax credits among low paid workers has been disappointing in some areas, perhaps due to bureaucratic and technical delays in the processing of claims. The
New Deal is the main active labour market policy, offering a range of programmes of training and support, under varying degrees of compulsion to: young people unemployed for more than six months; those aged over 25 and unemployed for more than 18 months; those aged over 50 and unemployed for more than six months; lone parents; and the disabled.
In terms of structures for delivery of national policies on employability the public employment service, Jobcentre Plus, remains a dominant force, although local partnerships have been responsible for the planning and implementation of the New Deal in 144 delivery unit areas across the UK since the programme’s introduction in 1998. Whilst there is considerable variation in the size and composition of New Deal partnerships, partners tend to have been drawn from key actors including Jobcentre Plus, individual local employers, the trade union movement, local Learning and Skills Councils (LSCs) and Local Enterprise
Companies in Scotland, voluntary sector organisations, education and training providers and careers advisory services. In reality partnerships exist at two different levels within the New
Deal’s structures. At the strategic level, partnerships are concerned with the needs and priorities of the local community and with monitoring and reviewing progress. At the delivery level, smaller and more specialised ‘taskforce’ groups have been established in order to provide the wider strategic steering groups with feedback regarding the design of specific
New Deal options, and to take day-to-day decisions on the implementation of the programme.
However, while partnership has been promoted as a guiding principle under the New
Deal, control over vital elements within the process of decision-making and policy implementation has largely been retained by the agencies of central government. Prior to the programme’s national ‘roll out’ in April 1998, the government charged Jobcentre Plus with overall responsibility for leading the delivery of the New Deal at the national level.
Accordingly, it was local Jobcentre Plus managers who were given the important task of establishing initial partnership frameworks and approaching potential participants. The public
10 employment service’s unique ability to co-ordinate policy nationally and its experience in large-scale programme delivery had thus guaranteed it a crucial strategic role in the process of local partnership formation and development. That said, recent reforms have relaxed some of the regulations affecting the implementation of the New Deal, allowing for a greater role of local authorities, especially in providing supported training for the ‘hardest to reach’ unemployed (Rich 2003).
The ESF and employability: delivering employability in the regions
In parallel with local partnerships delivering the national government’s welfare to work strategy, new regional and local policy structures have been developed. An important (but not the only) role for these policy structures relates to the administration of European Social
Fund-supported programmes promoting employability and other objectives of the EES. The
European Social Fund (ESF) plays an important role in supporting active labour market policies across EU member states. In 2000 it was estimated that 8% of all expenditure on active labour market policies across the EU came from ESF funds, without accounting for the facilitating and leveraging role that these funds can play (European Commission 2000b). The
2000-2006 programme will see ESF funds worth €80 billion granted across the EU. The ESF
Division, which is part of the Joint International Unit within the Department for Work and
Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), has overall accountability for ESF in Great Britain.1 ‘Government Offices’ are responsible for managing and making payments for the fund for the regions in England, the Scottish Executive in
Scotland and the National Assembly for Wales in Wales.
As in many other EU states, ESF funding in Britain is distributed in accordance with three main ‘Objectives’. Of these, Objective 3 has the broadest geographical reach – funding is available to all areas not falling under Objective 1 (see Table 1). The Objective 3
1 The remainder of this paper will refer to mainland Great Britain. Northern Ireland has its own arrangements for the delivery of labour market and employability policies and the administration of EU funding programmes.
11 Programme is less concerned with the development of the economic and industrial infrastructure than the modernisation of learning and training systems, and the effective delivery of services to disadvantaged groups in the labour market. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the Objective 3 Programme in Britain has had a considerable impact on the development and delivery of active labour market policies, and particularly local strategies to promote employability. Indeed, the broad aims of the Objective 3 Programme reflect the pillars of the original EES, with its first two priorities mirroring key themes under the employability pillar:
tackle long-term unemployment;
help young people and those at risk from not being able to find work;
improve training, education and counselling for lifelong learning;
encourage entrepreneurship and adaptability in the workplace; and
promote equal opportunities and improve the role of women in the workforce.
Below, we will examine how the EES, as implemented through the Objective 3
Programme in one part of Britain (Scotland), influences the development of local partnerships to promote employability, and how regional and local policies ‘fit’ with the national government’s welfare to work agenda. It may first be of value, however, to briefly review and compare the policy structures that govern the implementation of employability and training policies in Scotland and England (the latter covering the vast majority of the British population).
The regional and local dimension: England
Britain has a complex structure of mechanisms for the delivery of employment policies at the regional and local level. The situation has been further complicated since the establishment of the devolved legislatures and executives in Scotland and Wales in 1999. These countries now have their own arrangements for the development and delivery of local labour market
12 strategies (the Scottish example is discussed in some detail below), while the implementation of the national welfare to work policies discussed above remains a ‘reserved’ power, with central government (the Department for Work and Pensions) and its executive agencies (in this case, the public employment service, Jobcentre Plus) in control.
Returning to regional policy, the vast majority of the British population are covered by England’s policy structures. Here, sub-national level strategies on employability, and particularly the delivery ESF-supported initiatives, is co-ordinated by nine Regional
Development Agencies (non-departmental public bodies falling under the remit of the
Department for Trade and Industry) in partnership with Regional Government Offices
(bringing together national government officials from all major departments) based in the same areas. More specifically, in all regions in England, the EES agenda has been taken forward by RDAs through the development of regional models based on implementing the
Strategy (as represented in the NAP) and a range of other central government policy objectives, particularly concerned with supply-side issues of skills development. ‘Frameworks for Regional Employment and Skills Action’ (FRESA), have been designed in each area. In most areas the RDA co-ordinates the implementation of FRESAs. The implementation process is overseen by local committees (‘Regional Employment and Skills Forums’) chaired by the RDA and involving the national Government Office for the region, local authorities, the social partners and other stakeholders.
An example of the representation on these regional forums is provided below, in this case the membership of the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Employment and Skills Forum
(working in a northern English region):
‘Yorkshire Forward’ (the RDA);
Government Office for Yorkshire and Humber;
‘ Yorkshire and Humber Assembly’ (the region’s strategic partnership for planning and
development, involving all local authority leaders and representatives of major social and
economic policy actors);
13 Local authorities and local education authorities;
Learning and Skills Council (LSC) local offices;
Jobcentre Plus (the public employment service);
Confederation of British Industry (CBI – the national employers’ representative
organisation);
Trades Union Congress (TUC);
Voluntary sector representatives;
Private sector company representatives;
Yorkshire Universities (representative organisation of Higher Education providers);
AOC Yorkshire and Humberside (representative organisation of Further Education
providers);
Private sector training representatives;
Chamber of Commerce (employers’ organisation focusing on promoting business in the
region);
Sector Skills Councils representative (national organisations co-ordinating training and
analysing skills needs on a sectoral basis);
Learndirect (a national, government-funded provider of mainly on-line training advice
and services).
In this case, the regional partnership implementing the NAP for employment clearly has a role for the social partners as well as other major public and civil organisations. The only points of concern relate to the partnership’s role and the balance of its membership. As with Learning and Skills Councils, Regional Employment and Skills Forums may be viewed as having a largely ‘hands off’ role, concerned mainly with oversight and strategic issues. The implementation of FRESAs and the individual policy programmes that carry forward their objectives is likely to be heavily influenced by RDAs and Government Offices. Furthermore, although there is trade union representation on the forum, the membership reflects the pre-
14 existing employer-dominated approach in the UK, with individual employers, sectoral organisations and lobbying groups for business interests included.
In the Yorkshire and Humber region, as elsewhere in England, a parallel committee deals with the strategic arrangements for the delivery of Objective 3-supported projects.
Again, the ‘Objective 3 Regional Committee’ has a membership drawn from a range of social and civil partnership organisations, including the TUC, local LSCs and sectoral interests (but not individual employers or the CBI). However, here the leadership role of RDAs and particularly Government Offices is even more clear. The national government’s ‘Community
Support Framework’ for employability and human resource development activities delivered through ESF Objective 3 notes that the programme will be ‘managed by the Government
Offices for the regions in partnership with RDAs’ (DfES 2001). In summary, it would appear that the English regions have seen a degree of devolution in terms of the development of local labour market strategies, but that national government’s regional representatives retain a crucial role in directing policy, with partnership working limited to the interpretation of strategic frameworks for action.
The regional and local dimension: Scotland
There is no direct equivalent of the RDA structure in Scotland. Local Enterprise Companies
(LECs) co-ordinate some elements of policy at the local level, particularly the ‘Training for
Work’ programme, which provides training for those unemployed for between 6 and 24 months (including some members of the New Deal client group). There have been some recent moves to increase strategic-partnership-working at the local level. There are 22 LEC areas across Scotland, and within each area ‘Local Economic Forums’ (LEFs) were formed at the request of the Scottish Executive in 2001. These forums have been charged with resolving overlap and duplication in local economic development through improved partnership working and by engaging the business community in service design. Their membership comprises key public and private sector representatives, including: local authorities; LECs;
15 tourist boards; representatives of Further Education and Higher Education; Federation of
Small Businesses; Chambers of Commerce; Jobcentre Plus; Scottish Executive community development and careers guidance agencies.
In terms of membership, these LEFs clearly resemble the English RDA network, although it should be noted that they are apparently without trade union or TUC representation. The remit of the LEF’s is also much more restricted, and is largely limited to improving communication and co-operation between agencies, rather than implementing policy. In particular, when it comes to the implementation of employability policies supported by the ESF Objective 3 Programme, LEFs have little or no role – here, Scotland has a single co-ordinating partnership covering all eligible areas (see below).
Other partnership structures to promote employability at the local level in Scotland are piecemeal. The Scottish Executive has encouraged local authorities to develop their own plans for implementing the EES, but progress in this area has been limited. In 2001, seven
Scottish areas (of 29 local authorities across the country) produced ‘Local Employment
Action Plans’ under the auspices of a policy development initiative of the Convention of
Scottish Local Authorities, the umbrella organisation promoting local authorities’ interests in
Scotland (Scottish Parliament 2002). However, in many areas, employability-related initiatives continue to fall within the boundaries of much more general economic development strategies operated by local authorities. In depressed labour markets, employability initiatives are more often linked to localised programmes designed to target social exclusion. For example, in 48 deprived local communities (sub-local authority level) the Scottish Executive has provided additional funding for the formation of ‘Social Inclusion
Partnerships’, often led by local authorities alongside voluntary sector service providers, which support a range of local anti-poverty and access to employment projects.
Yet these disparate initiatives are dwarfed by the large-scale national programmes
(such as the New Deal) operated by Jobcentre Plus in partnership with local service providers.
Employment policy is a ‘reserved area’ (i.e. under the control of the UK government and outside the remit of the Scottish Executive). As a result, the implementation of the NAP in
16 Scotland, as in England, is heavily influenced by Jobcentre Plus, and therefore by central government. As noted above, the Scottish system is also characterised by a centralised organisational structure for the implementation of ESF Objective 3, including those priorities linked to the employability pillar of the EES. However, the Scottish model does apparently provide an example of good practice with regards to the inclusion of civil partners, and the
Objective 3 Partnership’s independence from central government (itself perhaps a function of the reserved status of employment policy) has resulted in the development of a number of innovative and progressive local initiatives that ‘add value’ to national programmes.
The Scottish Objective 3 Partnership (a non-departmental public body) is charged by the Scottish Executive with the responsibility of distributing funds to eligible projects and driving forward the broad agenda set out in the ESF Community Dupport Framework and
Operational Programme (Scottish Objective 3 Partnership 2000; DfES 2001). Programme management executives (PME) administer each of five different priority policy areas, including one focusing on ‘raising employability’. However, there are strong partnership structures governing the allocation and targeting of resources. Although administered day-to- day by the PME, at the strategic level the Partnership is governed by a monitoring committee
(dealing with strategic and policy matters) and a management committee (dealing with the allocation of funds to local projects). In both cases membership is drawn mainly from public and voluntary sector organisations. The membership of the monitoring committee, for example, includes similar organisations as would be found in the equivalent English regional committees:
Scottish Executive;
Anniesland College (a local FE college in Glasgow);
BTCV (a leading environmental charity);
Community Enterprise in Strathclyde (a support service for organisations operating
within the social economy in the west of Scotland);
17 Angus Council, East Renfrewshire Council and Scottish Borders Council (local
authorities in the north, west and south of Scotland);
Equal Opportunities Commission;
Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh;
Paisley Chamber of Commerce (employers’ organisation focusing on promoting business
at the local level in the west of Scotland);
Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire (a LEC in the west of Scotland);
Scottish Enterprise National (co-ordinating organisation for LECs);
Scottish Trades Unions Congress;
Tourist Board Training Ltd (a third sector training provider);
Workers’ Educational Association (a trade union supported charity promoting workplace
learning).
However, perhaps more importantly the smaller ‘advisory groups’ that make recommendations on individual applications for funding within each of the Objective 3
Programme’s ‘priority areas’ (see below) include a majority of members drawn from public and voluntary sector service providers experienced in delivering programmes at the local level. This level of peer review and partner-involvement in the operation of ESF Objective 3 appears unique to the Scottish case. It would appear that the limited powers of the Scottish
Executive in the employment policy field (although Executive ministers still formally authorise payments to projects) may have contributed to the emergence of an organisational framework that, while centralised, is genuinely inclusive and informed by experience at the local level. Given the potential benefits of such an approach, we now finally turn to a more detailed discussion of the implementation of the employability pillar of the EES through the
European Social Fund in Scotland, the extent of partnership-working within local projects, and synergies with national active labour market policies.
18 4. Delivering employability through ESF Objective 3 in Scotland
Implementing the EES at the local level
The Scottish Objective 3 Partnership’s strategic programme document identifies three main driving forces behind its actions: the EES and UK NAP; the objectives of Scottish Executive policy in this area; and the specific problems and challenges faced by local labour markets in
Scotland: “Whilst the plan is consistent with both European and UK policy frameworks the
Operational Programme also takes fully into account the Scottish policy and labour market context in developing the aims and objectives of the programme” (Scottish Objective 3
Partnership 2000). Although the Partnership’s work addresses all three of these overlapping agendas, the Objective 3 Programme itself can be seen as an explicit response to the UK NAP and thus the EES. The Programme supports local projects in five ‘Priority’ areas:
Priority 1: ‘Raising employability’ (specifically targeting those unemployed for 6-24
months, and those aged over 40 and unemployed for more than two years);
Priority 2: ‘Addressing social exclusion’;
Priority 3: ‘Lifelong learning’;
Priority 4: ‘Towards a competitive economy’;
Priority 5: ‘Addressing gender imbalance’.
In reality these is considerable overlap between Objectives 1 and 2, with a recent shift towards support for projects under the latter. The shift in policy at national level, which has seen the New Deal expanded to target a broader range of client groups, has therefore been reflected in the Objective 1 Partnership’s increasing focus on ‘addressing social exclusion’
(which in turn has seen ESF funding targeted at more ‘hard to reach’ groups, rather than the
‘core’ long-term unemployment client group). These changes partially reflect the decline in registered unemployment and long-term unemployment in the Scottish and UK labour
19 markets, but the continuing problem of high levels of ‘disability’ and inactivity among older people of working age (a problem highlighted in the UK NAP).
Delivery through local partnerships
It has been argued above that partner-involvement in the organisation and implementation of
Objective 3 in Scotland (including Priority 1 policies on ‘Raising employability’) provides an example of good practice, with organisations that are involved in delivery at the local level fully represented in funding decisions and the development of longer-term strategies.
Partnership is also prioritised at the delivery level within employability-focused projects supported by the Scottish Objective 3 Partnership. Indeed, partnership is the first of five
‘general principles’ informing the work of Objective 3 in Scotland, along with: sustainable development; economic sustainability; innovation; and equal opportunities. Nor is the concept of partnership merely used as a buzzword within strategic documents – local policy actors making applications for funding are evaluated on their commitment to partnership alongside nine other criteria. As a manager administering employability initiatives within the Scottish
Objective 3 Partnership noted:
“Partnership is a big element of our projects. It’s one of our criteria, and we look for different partners bringing relevant expertise. We’re looking for real partnership. All our projects are assessed on that basis. We’re looking for ties with partners who can help with recruitment, job seeking, training. We also have an interest in external partnerships. Is the applicant a member of the relevant Local Economic Forum? The local lifelong learning partnership? The local SIP board?”
As suggested here, the potential benefits of effective partnership-working are seen as extending well beyond the strategic bodies that oversee the allocation of funds. Local partnerships are viewed as the only effective way of delivering holistic employability policies
20 that often require a broad range of expertise in order to provide basic, vocational or key skills training, job search advice, counselling, and other services for the unemployed. In more general terms, a partnership approach is advocated in an attempt to promote: the emergence of more responsive policy solutions tailored to the problems and opportunities of local labour markets; the effective sharing of local knowledge, resources and expertise; the opportunity to develop more integrated and long-term approaches; and the legitimisation of, and mobilisation of local support for, new initiatives.
Adding value to national programmes
Those administering the Scottish Objective 3 Partnership Priority 1 (‘Raising employability’) programme are therefore concerned that the ESF should provide support for innovative, local, partnership-based projects, designed to improve the employability of long-term unemployed and otherwise disadvantaged job seekers. However, there is little doubt that Objective 3 employability projects operating locally overlap to a considerable degree with existing national government welfare to work policies. Indeed, ‘adding value’ to national government programmes has emerged as an important role for the ESF. A manager administering employability initiatives within the Scottish Objective 3 Partnership was unequivocal:
“ Strategic integration is the first thing that we are looking for. Priority 1 is designed specifically to work alongside the government’s welfare to work programme.”
To this end, Priority 1 ‘Raising employability’ funding in Scotland was initially targeted at projects dealing with those unemployed for between 6 and 24 months – the core client groups for the government’s New Deal and Training for Work programmes. As the
New Deal has expanded to target ‘harder to reach’ groups (as described above), increased emphasis has been placed on Priority 2 ‘Addressing social inclusion’ projects designed to assist the same groups. Resources allocated by local Jobcentre Plus managers under
21 programmes such as New Deal can now be used as ‘matched funding’ to lever in additional financial support from the ESF. Furthermore, with the ESF Objective 3 Partnership not bound by the same targets, budgetary restrictions and client groups as national government programmes, this additional funding can be used add value by increasing the flexibility of labour market interventions, so that:
the target groups for interventions can be broadened (e.g. to take in the non-registered
unemployed);
the training experience can be lengthened and can take a longer-term approach (because
Objective 3 is not subject to the same output-oriented funding arrangements that lead to
the prioritisation of early job entry within standard government welfare to work
programmes);
in-work training can be improved (e.g. by paying participants a ‘training allowance’ at or
near the normal salary for a full-time job in the same area);
additional services can be offered (e.g. aftercare counselling and support for those who
have successfully entered work after a period of long-term unemployment).
It has been suggested that the majority of New Deal partnerships in Scotland have benefited from ESF Objective 3 funding (under either or both of the employability and social inclusion priorities) with benefits such as those described above following. It is difficult to test the claim fully – a mid-term review of the Programme’s performance in Scotland has been completed, but not yet published by the Commission. However, it is possible to point to a number of cases of good practice where local partnerships, operating within national programmes and supported by additional ESF funding, have provided innovative solutions to the barriers to work faced by disadvantage job seekers.
22 6. Discussion and conclusions
The British approach to implementing the EES, and particularly employability-related policies, remains heavily centralised. Area-based partnerships developed to implement national welfare to work strategies and administer EU-supported local projects have provided a role for the social partners, but trade union involvement in particular remains largely restricted to representation on strategic committees. Locally-based public and voluntary sector agencies have found an important and practical role in the delivery of national policies such as the New Deal, but overall control of the implementation process rests with the public employment service. The strong influence of central government agencies is also apparent in the implementation of regional policies in England, where regionally-based Government
Offices play a lead role. Again, the involvement of other partners tends to be limited to the delivery of specific services (often on the basis of a sub-contracting arrangement) or membership of advisory and oversight committees.
The Scottish model for the delivery of ESF-supported projects shares many of these features, but arguably allows for a more inclusive approach to strategic decision-making, with a greater role for local, community-based service providers. It may be that the division of power in Scotland between the public employment service (which has reserved powers over the implementation of employment policy) and the Scottish Executive (which manages structural funds allocations) has allowed for the emergence of a more independent central authority for administering ESF Objective 3, with benefits in terms of local representation and responsiveness in decision-making. However, delivering on employability at the local level is clearly also about working with, and adding value to, the national government’s welfare to work programmes, which continue to dominate the employability policy landscape in Britain.
Returning finally to the issue of social partnership and the local dimension of employability policies, it is clear that there is still much work to do in Britain, where current arrangements reflect centralised policy structures and the traditionally limited role of social
23 partners (and especially the trade unions) in labour market and training policy. Nevertheless, while it remains to be seen whether the apparently more inclusive New Deal and Learning and Skills partnerships (which guarantee trade union representation) will pave the way for a new era of multipartite co-operation in the UK, the fact that these partnerships have been established at all represents a considerable step forward (Lindsay and Mailand 2004).
Furthermore, the employers’ and trade unions’ representative bodies (the CBI and the
TUC) continue to work jointly on NAP policy recommendations – recently focusing their efforts on how to ensure that labour market agencies such as the public employment service,
Jobcentre Plus, effectively bring together job seekers from minority ethnic groups and employers, especially in sectors and areas where businesses may not be ‘reaching’ minority ethnic job applicants through current recruitment methods (DWP 2002). Perhaps even more significantly, trade unions have increasingly engaged in the ‘in-work employability’ agenda, in terms of the promotion of workplace learning. Addressing basic skills gaps in the workplace has become a major priority for the TUC and several of its main member unions.
Trade union learning representatives have concentrated on campaigning for improvements in training, especially for low skilled workers. For the TUC, ‘basic skills training is the first step on the ladder to higher skills, enhanced employability and better pay’ (TUC, 2002).
As for employability policies for those who are out of work, local partnerships are likely to continue to play an important role in establishing frameworks for action and delivering specific projects. There are clear benefits in adopting such an approach, linked to the development of more responsive local policy solutions and the pooling of expertise and resources. There is also evidence that partnerships between providers of national welfare to work strategies such as New Deal and other local policy actors can effectively ‘lever in’ EU funding, with benefits in terms of the flexibility and content of training programmes.
Nevertheless, if the shift towards an EES with a genuinely strong ‘local dimension’ is to be completed, there must be a renewed commitment to the devolution of decision-making in the
UK, and an ‘opening out’ of partnership processes that currently continue to be dominated by central government and its executive agencies.
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27 Table 1 Focus of ESF and other Structural Funds in the UK
Objective 1 ESF and all other Areas where GDP per capita is < 75% of the European Remote areas of south-west England; south and west
Structural Funds average; outlying regions; sparsely populated areas of Wales (the Highlands of Scotland has ‘special
programme’ status, phasing out in 2005, allowing the
pooling of resources across all Objectives) Objective 2 Mainly ESF and Areas adjusting to industrial change; declining rural areas; Selected areas of the south-west and east of Scotland;
ERDF urban areas experiencing severe problems; depressed areas most of east of Wales; much of north-east England
affected by the decline of fishing industries Objective 3 ESF only Supporting projects focusing on the modernisation of All of population outside Objective 1 areas.
education, employment and training EQUAL ESF only Supporting projects assisting those in and out of work All of population outside Objective 1 areas.
experiencing disadvantage and inequality in the labour
market
28