Transcript MEGA-PROJECTS RECONSIDERED:

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

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
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
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
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
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
NEW LABOUR’S SOCIAL
POLICY IDEAS
Labour’s own core ideas:
 Opportunity
 Responsibility
 Community
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)
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)
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
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
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
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

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