City strategy : final evaluation

The City Strategy (CS) concept was first announced in the 2006 Welfare Reform Green Paper – A new deal for welfare: Empowering people to work. CS was designed at a time of growth in the national economy to combat enduring pockets of entrenched worklessness and poverty in urban areas by empowering local institutions to come together in partnerships to develop locally sensitive solutions. It was premised on the idea that developing a better understanding of the local welfare to work arena would allow partnerships to align and pool funding and resources to reduce duplication of services and fill gaps in provision. The ‘theory of change’ underlying CS suggested that such an approach would result in more coordinated services which would be able to generate extra positive outcomes in terms of getting people into jobs and sustaining them in employment over and above existing provision. CS was initially set to run for two years from April 2007 to March 2009 in 15 CS Pathfinder (CSP) areas, varying in size from five wards in one town through single local authority areas to subregional groupings of multiple local authority areas, across Great Britain. In July 2008, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced an extension for a further two years to March 2011. In April 2009, two local areas in Wales, which were in receipt of monies from the Deprived Areas Fund (DAF), were invited by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to form local partnerships with a similar remit to the CSPs, albeit more limited in scope – to develop locally sensitive solutions to economic inactivity, to the CSPs. During the period that the CS initiative was operational, economic conditions changed markedly with a severe recession, followed by fragile recovery. The CSPs had to cope with ongoing changes in policy throughout the lifetime of the CS initiative, including a General Election and a new Coalition Government at Westminster early in the fourth year. While policy changes are a fact of life for local practitioners operating in the welfare to work arena, the global recession in 2008/09 marked a fundamental change in the context in which local partnerships operated

Implications of technological change and austerity for employability in urban labour markets

Over the last decade two key changes affecting employability, labour market operation and policy delivery are austerity and the expansion of the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), especially web-based technologies. Increasingly, given pressures for cost savings and developments in ICT, employers’ recruitment and selection strategies are at least partly web-based, careers guidance and public employment services are moving towards ‘digital by default’ delivery and job seekers are expected to manage their job search activity and benefit claims electronically. So, what are the implications of austerity and technological change for employability? This article presents a critical review of the literature on ICT and its relation to, and implications for, employability in a context of austerity. A new framework for employability is presented and those aspects of employability where ICT plays a key role are highlighted. It is concluded that in the context of austerity and technological change more is demanded of individual job seekers/workers, as they are expected to take greater responsibility for their marketability in the labour market. This means that individuals’ attributes and skills are of enhanced importance in conceptualisations of employability. ICT skills have a key role to play in employability, but not at the expense of more conventional social skills which remain very important alongside digital literacy

The geography of earnings and incomes in the 1990s : an overview

To date detailed analyses of geographical variations in earnings and incomes in Great Britain have been frustrated by a lack of spatially disaggregated data. The author reviews the scope, strengths, and weaknesses of available data sources and outlines some of the methodologies used to generate estimates of earnings and incomes at the local level. An overview is provided of the main regional and subregional patterns of 'raw' earnings differentials and of the underlying 'deep wage structure' -- once variations in workforce composition have been controlled for. A distinctive regional pattern with the highest wages in London and the South East is evident, although there are also some significant variations in wage levels between neighbouring local areas within regions. As the demand for spatially disaggregated data on earnings and incomes remains unsatisfied despite recent increases in data supply, important concerns about the quality of the information remain

Evaluation of 2009 Oregon crash data reported to the Motor Carrier Management Information System Crash File

This report is part of a series evaluating the data reported to the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) Crash File undertaken by the Center for National Truck and Bus Statistics at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. Earlier studies have shown that reporting to the MCMIS Crash File was generally incomplete. This report examines reporting by the State of Oregon. Because key variables used in the evaluation process are not recorded in the computerized state data files, it was not possible to calculate an overall reporting rate for Oregon. It appears that Oregon reported 28 of 30 qualifying vehicles in fatal crashes, and the 1,120 total vehicles actually reported is reasonably close to the number predicted by a model that estimates the number of vehicles reportable to the MCMIS Crash file. However, it was not possible to evaluate the extent of underreporting or overreporting. An evaluation of timeliness in reporting shows that Oregon tended to upload records to the MCMIS Crash file well after the 90-day grace period ended. Only about 5 percent of records submitted were uploaded within the grace period. Missing data rates are low for most variables, though specific problems were noted with the hazmat variables. Corresponding data elements in the MCMIS and Oregon crash files were reasonably consistent except as noted with the straight truck and truck tractor configurationsFederal Motor Carrier Safety Administrationhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89597/1/102789.pd

Soft spaces and soft outcomes : experiences from City Strategy on local partnership working and measures of success

This article uses the concepts of ‘soft spaces’ and ‘soft outcomes’ previously developed in relation to the study of local economic development and planning and applies them to the related, but not identical, field of localised welfare-to-work initiatives. The specific example of the City Strategy initiative in Great Britain provides evidence of these concepts in action. This initiative foregrounded the importance of local partnership working whereby various stakeholders joined together to operate in soft space to achieve commonly agreed goals. The article considers how local partnerships operate in soft space and the appropriate measures of success to be used when assessing the efficacy of their interventions. It is argued that both ‘soft outcomes’ and ‘hard outcomes’ can be used to understand success; but that assessment of soft spaces only in terms of ‘hard outcomes’ is far from comprehensive

Attracting the best talent in the context of migration policy changes : the case of the UK

Employment projections and skills strategies emphasise the importance of (highly)-skilled labour for competitiveness. A strategic focus on ‘attracting the best talent’ globally may conflict with policies to ‘grow local talent’. This issue is considered in the UK context of a shift from a liberal immigration regime to a demand-led system characterised by increasing restriction, through adjustments to a points-based system to manage labour migration from outside the European Economic Area (EEA). The specific focus is on an annual limit on non-EEA labour migrants introduced in 2011 and tightening of eligibility criteria for entry of (highly)-skilled migrants, amid business’ concerns that this might stifle economic growth. Drawing on twenty employer case studies and literature on skills and migration policy, the article investigates the costs and implications for business in adhering and seeking to adapt to migration policy changes. Such changes pose administrative burdens on employers and limit business flexibility but associated monetary costs to businesses are difficult to quantify. Adaptation strategies and the impact of migration rule changes vary: some firms experience limited impact, some adjust their recruitment behaviour and some feel their underlying business rationale is threatened. Developing local talent is a partial long-term solution