Tackling concentrated worklessness: integrating governance and policy across and within spatial scales

Spatial concentrations of worklessness remained a key characteristic of labour markets in advanced industrial economies, even during the period of decline in aggregate levels of unemployment and economic inactivity evident from the late 1990s to the economic downturn in 2008. The failure of certain localities to benefit from wider improvements in regional and national labour markets points to a lack of effectiveness in adopted policy approaches, not least in relation to the governance arrangements and policy delivery mechanisms that seek to integrate residents of deprived areas into wider local labour markets. Through analysis of practice in the British context, we explore the difficulties of integrating economic and social policy agendas within and across spatial scales to tackle problems of concentrated worklessness. We present analysis of a number of selected case studies aimed at reducing localised worklessness and identify the possibilities and constraints for effective action given existing governance arrangements and policy priorities to promote economic competitiveness and inclusion

Tackling concentrations of worklessness : highlighting the limits of work-focused organisational cultures in the UK

UK policy makers have increasingly developed area-based employment initiatives. This has culminated in the Working Neighbourhoods Pilot, which targets concentrations of worklessness in twelve deprived communities across Great Britain. Drawing upon detailed case study work undertaken in the Sheffield pilot, I discuss the challenges faced by the Jobcentre Plus agency in tackling such problems. A key finding is that the creation of the agency has placed too much emphasis on the most visible and superficial manifestations of organisational culture. At a deeper level, I find that the culture of the agency limits its ability to respond imaginatively and flexibly to the needs of such communities