Punitive benefit sanctions, welfare conditionality and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain: transforming claimants into offenders?

A defining feature of U.K. welfare reform since 2010 has been the concerted move towards greater compulsion and sanctioning, which has been interpreted by some social policy scholars as punitive and cruel. In this article, we borrow concepts from criminology and sociology to develop new interpretations of welfare conditionality. Based on data from a major Economic and Social Research Council‐funded qualitative longitudinal study (2014–2019), we document the suffering that unemployed claimants experienced because of harsh conditionality. We find that punitive welfare conditionality often caused symbolic and material suffering and sometimes had life‐threatening effects. We argue that a wide range of suffering induced by welfare conditionality can be understood as ‘social abuse’, including the demoralisation of the futile job‐search treadwheel and the self‐administered surveillance of the Universal Jobmatch panopticon. We identify a range of active claimant responses to state perpetrated harm, including acquiescence, adaptation, resistance, and disengagement. We conclude that punitive post‐2010 unemployment correction can be seen as a reinvention of failed historic forms of punishment for offenders

Mediating the transitions to work : the role of employment and career advisers in comparative perspective

Labour market and career advice and guidance have received considerable recent research and policy attention and have been heralded as part of the new institutional resources required in reformed, active, welfare states. We seek to understand the meaning of such policy enthusiasm by proposing an analysis of guidance as a "governmental technology" particularly suited for new conceptions of social protection and mobilisation for work. We bring in the results of a three years comparative study of guidance services in France, Slovenia, Spain and the UK, particularly in the form of a cross-national typology. Our review of the conceptions of the user and of the governance mechanisms in place, from target related funding to "softer" staff monitoring, show how they combine to shape staff strategies and user conduct into a limited range of stereotypical attitudes, testifying to the dissemination of a norm of adaptation to the labour market.Labour market and career guidance, activation, governmental technology, comparison, conduct.

The impact of Katse Dam water on water quality in the Ash, Liebenbergsvlei and Wilge Rivers and the Vaal Dam

The main purpose of this study is to determine the difference in water quality of the rivers between the Katse and Vaal Dams (Wilge River and Vaal Dam reservoir sub-catchments) after the construction of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. These rivers include the Ash, Liebenbergsvlei and Wilge Rivers. The temporal changes in water constituents, namely: electrical conductivity, chemical oxygen demand, pH, turbidity, ammonia, calcium, manganese and chlorophyll a, at selected water sampling points were analysed to clarify if Katse Dam water has had any impact on the water quality of the Ash, Liebenbergsvlei and Wilge Rivers and the Vaal Dam. The water quality was studied over an eleven-year period from November 1994 until December 2005. This includes a five-year period prior to, and a six-year period following the completion of the Katse Dam. The Ash, Liebenbergsvlei and Wilge Rivers fall within the Wilge sub-catchment, and the Vaal Dam falls within the Vaal Dam reservoir sub-catchment. Both the aforementioned sub-catchments form part of the Vaal River catchment. Physical, chemical and microbiological sampling results were obtained from Rand Water. The results were compared with the in-stream water quality guidelines as set by the Vaal Barrage Catchment Executive Committee. The results of the selected constituents were depicted visually in the form of graphs. Trends in the constituents over the period were then determined. The graphs were divided into two sections namely, pre-Katse Dam (before 1999) and post-Katse Dam (1999 to 2005). Differences in water quality before and after the construction of the Katse Dam were determined from sampling and chemical analysis at six locations, and hence evaluations were made whether the release of Katse Dam water has had a significant effect on the water quality results in the Vaal River System. The water quality results with respect to the different water constituents illustrated a distinct change in water quality over the period. Northwards, towards the Vaal Dam, the difference in water quality became less apparent. Sampling points throughout the study area experienced decreases in: electrical conductivity, chemical oxygen demand, turbidity, ammonia, and manganese. Hence, the release of Katse Dam water into the Vaal River system has had a ii positive influence on the water quality and thus changed the riverine environments in the Vaal River system. The high quality water from the Katse Dam that enters the Vaal River system thus initially increases the quality of the water in the recipient system with a lesser effect downstream. The result is an improvement of water quality in the upper reaches of the Vaal River system and no significant influence on the Vaal Dam itself. However, the change in water quality may have a detrimental effect on the river environment as a result of the increased volume of water entering the system and the resultant soil erosion, which serves for further studies. Consequently, the advantageous high quality water from the Lesotho Highlands is not being optimally utilised, hence the proposed recommendation by Rand Water to alternatively transfer Katse Dam water via a gravity-fed pipeline to the Vaal Dam thereby receiving the full benefit of high quality water, leaving river environments unaltered and possibly lowering purification costs.Prof. J. T. Harmse Prof. H. J. Annegar

The inquest ad quod damnum for the Northfolk Chantry at St. Mary Castlegate, York (1318)

The article transcribes Thomas de Northfolk of Naburn's application to alienate under mortmain a rent in York to support a family chantry. It considers the significance of chantries in general and considers Thomas de Northfolk’s motivations for founding a chantry which may have been connected with the death of his brother

Confronting unemployment in a street-level bureaucracy: jobcentre staff and client perspectives

This thesis presents an account of the roles played by social actors in the implementation of unemployment policy in the UK. Lipsky’s (1980) theory of street-level bureaucracy has been adopted, updated to the contemporary context of the managerial state (Clarke & Newman, 1997) and developed in the specific case of the Jobcentre. The analysis is based on data collected during an ethnographic investigation of one case study Jobcentre office in Central Scotland. The methods consisted of six months of direct observation, interviews with 48 members of Jobcentre staff, semi-structured interviews with 35 users and analysis of notified vacancies and guidance documents. The argument is that front-line workers re-create policy as they implement it. They do so in reaction to a series of influences, constraints and incentives. Users therefore receive a service that is a modified version of the official policy. Users do not necessarily accept the policy that they are subjected to. They do not identify with the new managerialist notion of customer service because as benefit recipients they are denied purchasing power, choice and power. Unemployment policy is not delivered uniformly or unilaterally because front-line staff are active in developing work habits that influence the outcomes of policy. Policy is accomplished by staff in practice by categorising users into client types. This is significant because staff represent the state to the citizen in their interaction. Users are also active in accomplishing policy, whether they conform with, contest, negotiate or co-produce policy. Understanding what unemployment policy actually is, and what it means to people, depends on understanding these social processes by which policy emerges in practice

A hand up or a slap down? Criminalising benefit claimants in Britain via strategies of surveillance, sanctions and deterrence

British policy makers have increasingly sought to intensify and extend welfare conditionality. A distinctly more punitive turn was taken in 2012 to re-orientate the whole social security and employment services system to combine harsh sanctions with minimal mandatory support in order to prioritise moving individuals ‘off benefit and into work’ with the primary aim of reducing costs. This article questions the extent to which these changes can be explained by Wacquant’s (2009) theory of the ‘centaur state’ (a neoliberal head on an authoritarian body), which sees poverty criminalised via the advance of workfare. We present evidence of an authoritarian approach to unemployment, involving dramatic use of strategies of surveillance (via new paternalist tools like the Claimant Commitment and the Universal Jobmatch panopticon), sanction and deterrence. This shift has replaced job match support with mandatory digital self-help, coercion and punishment. In relation to Work Programme providers, there is a contrasting liberal approach permitting high discretion in service design. This article makes a significant original contribution to the field by demonstrating that Wacquant’s analysis of ‘workfare’ is broadly applicable to the British case and its reliance on a centralised model of state action is truer in the British case than the US. However, we establish that the character of British reform is somewhat different: less ‘new’ (challenging the time-tethered interpretation that welfare reform is a uniquely neo-liberal product of late 2 modernity) and more broadly applied to ‘core’ workers, including working class white men with earned entitlement, than peripheral workers