Transcript Governance of activation policies and the challenge of the

Governance of activation policies
and the challenge of the crisis:
illustration on the Czech case
FLEXWORK
international conference
Amsterdam 24-25 October, 2010
Tomáš Sirovátka and Rik van Berkel
Focus of the paper
• Trends in governance of activation policies in 9
countries (2000-2010)
• The effect of the reforms
• The crisis as challenge – continuity of the
trends ?
• The trends in the Czech Republic: substance
and governance of activation
Governance of activation - key trends
2000-2010 (9 countries)
• Governance reforms typically enable or underpin the
substantive reforms in activation and often come in
one package
• Substance of activation – rather labour
flexibilisation, work first than human resource
development (the overall trend of recommodification, WS retrenchment)
• Governance of activation:
• Marketization – competition, efficiency and
effectiveness of service, quality and flexibility,
responsiveness to client needs (competitive
markets?, creaming and parking?, work first,
administrative burden)
Governance of activation - key trends
• Decentralization + (re-)centralization –
tailored and innovative solutions in local
conditions (?coordination of actors,
accountability standards)
• New public management - concentration on
the results and effects, new forms of control,
regulation and strategic management (?
appropriate choice of performance indicators
and the managerial and administrative
capacity of the principal of performance
steering and incentivizing)
Governance of activation
• Network governance - exchange of
information, service coordination and
integration, services more accessible and userfriendly (? diverging objectives or different
cultures, management styles and ways of
service delivery)
• The role of implementation conditions in
shaping the real trends of governance of
activation policies is pivotal
Overview of governance reforms
Trends in governance regimes (as distinguished in
Considine 2001):
Seem to continue during crisis even in 2010-2013
1. Procedural governance (central regulation – more
or less, universality): most countries show a
decrease, decentralisation (+ rec-centralisation)
2. Market and corporate governance (outsourcing
and steering on goals/targets): most countries
show an increase
3. Network governance (cooperation between social
partners and interagency cooperation, empowering
clients): mixed developments across countries
(All countries are mixed regimes, different mixes)
The Effects
Process effects:
voice and choice
individualised services
rights and responsibilities
Output effects:
coverage and reach
service content/quality
range and variety
Outcome effects:
job placement
(job retention and quality)
(cost effectiveness)
Overview of effects
1. Outcome net effects are rather disappointing,
mostly aiming at quick reintegration (cost
containment, lack of professional quality and caseloads)
In some cases public services have better outcomes
than private
2. Output effects: more persons covered but effects
differ for different groups. Especially creaming/preselection is disadvantaging vulnerable groups
Quality did not increase, rather investment in
training is decreasing (as well as job subsidies)
Overview of effects
3. Process effects: in some countries more
individualised attention, but also diminishment of
rights (stricter conditionality of benefits)
All in all, the results don´ t convince that the
expectations to the gov. reforms are met
 Learning in governance (less marketisation,
recentralisation, experimentation)?
 Implementation needs capacities, regulation…
problem of costs
 Some countries learn better, some learn less:
divergence during the crisis ?
 Several studies: strong path dependency in
substance of employment policies
Czech Republic:
crisis and acceleration of the trends
• The center-right governments tried to push the
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country down a more market-liberal path (20082013)
Crisis - window of opportunity for changes which
were intended anyway
Given lack of popular support to radical neo-liberal rather than systemic change Series of chaotic reforms implemented
(accompanied with a rhetoric of systemic change)
That would help the situation decompose and build
more fertile ground for a more systemic change in
the future
‚Compost model of policymaking‘ (Saxonberg and
Sirovatka, fortcoming)
10
Activation reforms: substance
• Substance – from protection towards
activation, workfare
• Classen et al. (2012): the Czech Republic has not
recognised the crisis as a structural challenge
• employment policy does not pay so much attention
to the ‘outsiders’, rather protection of the existing
employment is a priority
• Kurzarbeit + labour market training on workplace in
2009-2010, with great numbers of the participants,
close to 4% of labour force. A similar scheme was
started in 2012
Towards workfare
• In August 2007, the authomatic revaluation of
subsistence and existence minimums was cancelled
and is now only at the discretion of the government
• From January 2009 after six months, the social
assistance benefits recipients were automatically
entitled only to an existence minimum instead of a
living minimum (one third lower)
• if they participated in public works for a total of 2030 hours per month were they entitled for a living
minimum plus a supplement in the amount of 30% of
the difference between an existence and a living
minimum,
• if they worked more than 30 hours, they received a
bonus to the existence minimum in the amount of
half the difference between the living and existence
minimum
Activation: workfare
• most of municipalities did not offer sufficient
opportunities to the social assistance recipients to
participate in public service jobs: in 2009, only 10%
of the municipalities organised these activities
(MPSV, 2010).
• From January 2009, after five months of
unemployment, the employment offices are obliged
to implement individual action plans with the
unemployed (but only formal).
• A failure to fulfil the obligations of this individual
contract (or a refusal of it or a refusal of the
vocational training programme) implies a removal
from the register and reduced entitlements for
social assistance benefits (at most the existence
minimum).
Activation: workfare
• The period covered by unemployment benefits was
shortened from 6 to 5 months (and from 9/12 to
8/11 months in case of the unemployed over 50/55
years of age) while the level of benefits was increased
in two first months from 50% replacement rate to
65%, left at 50% for the second two months and 45%
for the remaining month(s).
• period spent on studies is not recognised more as a
substitute of work record for the purpose of
unemployment insurance entitlements: this measure
excluded school leavers from the entitlements for
unemployment benefits.
• In 2011 positive incentives in the form of bonuses
to the living minimum or to existence minimum in
case of participation in public service (30 or 20 hours
per week) were cancelled
Activation: workfare
• instead, all unemployed (not important if they are
social assistance recipients or unemployment benefit
recipients) may be obliged after 2 months of
unemployment to participate in public service in
amount up to 20 hours per week (which in fact
corresponds to part-time job)
• The refusal leads to exclusion from all entitlements
to unemployment or social assistance benefits.
• since the beginning of 2012 nearly 61 thousand have
participated, but in November 2012 the
Constitutional Court has cancelled the institute of
public service as compulsory activity of the benefit
recipients
Deterioration of ALMPs
• The scope of ALMP measures was rather
modest before the crisis (2008)
• Crisis did not bring contra-cyclical reaction
• In 2008, the participants in active
employment policy measures accounted for
26.3%, in 2009 it was 19.1%, in 2010 22.5%, in
2011 19.1%, and in 2012 9.6% of the
unemployment stock.
• due to cuts in ALMP expenditure and due to
governance reforms of Public Employment
Service implemented during 2010-2012
Governance reforms
• Governance - chaotic reforms, drastic deteriotation of
implementation conditions, administrative capacity,
budget cuts
• objective of re-centralisation, this is stronger
subordination of local employment offices to the
centre of PES and shifting more competences from
local/municipal to regional level in order to control
better the expenditure
• in 2012 streamlining services through institutional
integration with social assistance, as well as through
outsourcing job mediation to private providers.
• the reduction of staff in 2012 was more than by 60%
compared to 2011 when it was in competence of
municipalities in area of social assistance
Governance reforms
• Failures in basic functions like delivering the benefits
were emerging not speaking about individual case
work (IPPs)
• The 2012 draft state budget counted on staff cuts in
Employment Offices to 6,565 employees – it foresaw
cost savings of CZK 400 million and staff cuts of 1,953
people.
• New forms of controls - in the second half of 2011
the duty was imposed on the selected unemployed
to show themselves in given time periods at so called
Czeck Points (established at post-offices) in order to
make illegal work for them impossible.
A turn-off in 2013?
• weak position of vulnerable groups in the labour
market is recognised there as well as some negative
impacts of the governance reforms
• the claim to increase the personnel capacity of
employment offices by about 500 employees, and
strengthening of the individual approach to the
unemployed.
• (Employment Plan), see MLSA (2013): employment
opportunities (in the form of work experience 12
months) for the youth and to protect employment in
companies threatened by the crisis by support to
part-time working (Kurzarbeit) combined with
vocational training, and other.
• ALMP expenditure are provided in amount 7.9
Conclusions
• Common trends in governance reforms (also
similar substance reforms)
• Still differences between countries, path
dependency and policy learning
• The crisis: continuation or diversity ?
• Czech Republic: continuity in key trends, some
become even stronger
• Discontinuity: radical activation, chaotic
governance reforms, reversals in policy ?
• Thank you for attention