Introduction: realising the promise of promising practices

This chapter and Chapter Eleven move on from local case studies and specific forms of disadvantage to a more general analysis, drawing on the ‘lessons’ of the case studies and wider available evidence. This chapter is primarily concerned with a review and critical assessment of economic and social policies towards the workfare state up to and since 1997 under New Labour. Chapter Eleven then develops a discussion of policy alternatives beyond it, connecting them to emerging campaigns to combat forms of discrimination and to promote equalities and human rights.

Disputing first the idea that New Labour's welfare policy is entirely a ‘modernising’ project, this chapter locates recent reforms within an enduring British liberal tradition of economic and social policy, arguing that this remains a key weakness on both economic and social justice grounds. It then outlines the broader policy context in which the employment-focused community-based initiatives (CBIs) featured in the earlier chapters expanded under New Labour after 1997. It acknowledges the progress made from the point of view of economically disadvantaged and discriminated-against communities but also identifies a plateau in terms of policy impact on unemployment and ‘worklessness’ from the Labour government's third term after 2005. The government's response has been to rely on supply-side approaches, such as skills training and the intensification of compulsion and sanctions against unemployed and workless people, exemplified by the 2007 Welfare Reform Act and the Freud report (2007). This reliance on the agency of individuals and communities is shown to be deficient as an explanation of ‘welfare dependency’ and/or reluctance to enter the labour market and is therefore a poor starting point for labour market policy. A socially informed structure–agency explanation is developed that gives scope to local initiatives and individual action while recognising the need to address the wider political economy and structural inequalities.

Continuity and change before the contemporary workfare state

The enduring liberal inheritance

New Labour has been critical of the Conservative governments from 1979 to 1997 for allowing unemployment to rise and for failing to provide effective supply-side measures, and has also distanced itself from the previous social democratic era.