Labour's Approach Research Articles

New Labour's Approach to the Voluntary Sector: Independence and the Meaning of Partnership

A major problem for voluntary organisations service providers under contract has been their independence in regard to both the relatively narrow issue of the terms and conditions of service provision, and the broader issue about the part voluntary organisations might play in policy shaping and democratic renewal. I examine the way in which New Labour has developed its ‘partnership’ approach to the voluntary sector since 1998. I argue that better terms and conditions have been secured for voluntary organisations providing services, and that large and umbrella organisations now have more impact on the implementation of central government policy. However, the more equal partnership required for a policy-shaping role in the sense of agenda-setting is likely to remain elusive, while at the local level there are tensions between the idea of voluntary organisations as agents of ‘civil renewal’ and as service providers.

THE SOCIAL EXCLUSION DEBATE:

This article explores the UK government's approach to combating social exclusion since 1997. It considers the philosophy and political economy underpinning New Labour's approach, and explains the policy prescriptions that follow from these principles. The government's social exclusion agenda has provoked a wide range of controversies and debates in the academic and political communities and the article explores key areas of contention. The story of New Labour's political economy of social exclusion is interspersed with discussion of eight controversies and dilemmas, representing a range of critical responses to Third Way thinking about social inclusion. It is concluded that New Labour's approach to social exclusion is contractarian, offering conditional access to the mainstream to outsiders. It is distinct from and in opposition to traditional socialist and social democratic politics.

‘Integration with diversity in modern Britain’: New Labour on nationality, immigration and asylum

Does New Labour's multicultural introduction of the 2002 White Paper ‘Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain’ mark a progressive shift in migration policy? Analysing policy debates surrounding the 2002 legislation through a discourse theoretical perspective, this paper assesses how far New Labour practices an integrative approach to nationality, immigration and asylum. Locating the analysis historically, the paper first reconstructs New Labour's normative framework through the adaptation of Berry's model of refugee acculturation. It then goes on to problematise claims to a multicultural ‘integration with diversity’, arguing that processes of ‘assimilation through segregation’ are indicative of a primary monoculturalism within New Labour's approach. In showing how a complex of inclusions and exclusions maintains this exclusivist approach, the paper suggests that the ideological concealment of monoculturalism is evidence of a reactionary and conservative response rather than a radically progressive one.

Urban Policy in the New Scotland: The Role of Social Inclusion Partnerships

This paper seeks to address a number of important questions that arise from contemporary urban policy developments within Scotland. First, how far the recent and developing urban policies, most noticeably Social Inclusion Partnerships, of the Scottish Executive are influenced by or diverge from the strategies pursued by previous Conservative and Labour governments. Secondly, how far urban social policy, in a Scottish context, continues to be characterised by discourses of area/community pathology. In order to contextualise these issues, the paper will begin with a brief discussion of New Labour's general approach to ‘urban issues’ before concentrating on a case study of the Greater Pollok Social Inclusion Partnership. This will enable an examination of the extent to which ‘community involvement’ under New Labour's social inclusion partnership initiative is markedly different from recent Conservative governments' urban policies in Scotland.

Justifying conditionality: the case of anti‐social tenants

The measures that New Labour have introduced to punish and prevent anti‐social behaviour need to be discussed in the context of the broader debate about conditionality in welfare. This paper outlines briefly three arguments that have been put forward to justify conditionality in welfare, the contractualist, the paternalist and the mutualist justifications. It then considers the force of these arguments in respect of New Labour's approach to anti‐social tenants. The paper concludes that it is possible to formulate a powerful case for the kinds of measures that New Labour is currently taking by integrating elements of the three justifications. It is argued that it is a mistake to view such measures as necessarily disciplinary in intent or in effect. Measures to enforce the obligations that people owe to each other are not incompatible with policies to widen opportunities for self‐fulfilment and to reduce social exclusion. On the contrary, they can be seen as two sides of the same coin.

Using Repertory Grid Technique with Participants in Parenting Programmes--A Pilot Study

Parenting programmes have become a core element of New Labour's approach to strengthening families. Although parenting programmes originally were focused on the parents of young children, they are now also seen as an important intervention to support parents of adolescents. This paper suggests that repertory grids can be an illuminating method for identifying the aspects of construing parenting of adolescents that are influenced through participation in parenting programmes, as well as an aid to reflection. Reporting on the use of repertory grids in one project, it was found that the parenting programme significantly influenced anxiety about parenting, and also affected other factors associated with inconsistent and harsh parenting. It is suggested that repertory grids can usefully be added by practitioners to the methods used to evaluate parenting programmes.

Whatever Happened to Stakeholding?

In 1996 Tony Blair declared in a speech in Singapore that stakeholding would define New Labour's programme in office. This speech provoked much interest in the UK among a centre‐left keen to forge a ‘third way’ alternative to state‐centred social democracy and free markets. Conservative politicians, however, subjected New Labour to a barrage of criticisms. Startled by the scale of the negative reaction, Blair stopped referring to stakeholding. A common judgement is that stakeholding got no further than the starting block. This paper challenges this, contending that the progress of stakeholding has not in fact been halted under New Labour. Policies such as Network Rail, foundation hospitals and the Child Trust Fund indicate that stakeholding remains a part of New Labour's approach. Recognizing the stakeholder dimension to policy is important because it opens up a new front in the reform of public services in Britain.

New Labour, Gender Mainstreaming and the Women and Equality Unit

New Labour's approach to gender mainstreaming is perhaps best exemplified through the work of the Women and Equality Unit (WEU). In this article we chart the development of the Unit and varied initiatives in which it has been involved and provide a preliminary assessment of the Unit's work. We start with a discussion of Labour's approach to mainstreaming. This provides a context for a profile of the work of the Women's Unit (WU) between 1997 and 2001 and its successor the WEU, between 2001 and 2002. We consider the work of the Units in relation to the government's reforms to the policy-making process, focusing upon location, issue territory and connectivity. Using these three criteria our appraisal of the work of the WEU draws attention to three issues: firstly, the institutional uncertainty surrounding the status of the Unit; secondly, the degree to which the remit of the Unit has been unlike that of other cross-cutting units in addressing a broad gender agenda rather than specific policy areas, but that this is now shifting with the increasing focus on economic issues; and thirdly, the extent to which the Unit is reliant on non-feminist actors within the decision-making elite to help pursue its aims. We will suggest that the Unit may have made a small, but significant, contribution to the development of gender mainstreaming processes. Its contribution has been greatest where gender equality policies coincide with government priorities. Its contribution to the process of mainstreaming gendered perspectives into all policy-making is much harder to discern.

The emergent role of the link worker: a study in collaboration

Partnership working is integral to New Labour's approach to modernising health and social care services for vulnerable groups such as children with complex needs. This paper draws on an initiative from Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in which strategic and operational change have been promoted across the health and social care community in order to provide co-ordinated assessment and care for children with complex needs and their families. The introduction of link workers has been central, key contacts for families and professionals alike who are drawn from a wide range of backgrounds. The political imperative for partnership, combined with the commitment and commonality of purpose of front-line staff, has proved sufficient to facilitate inter-professional working without many of the enabling factors that are often regarded as important, such as co-location or parity of status. However, a number of organisational barriers to sustainability remain and the degree to which a strong operational lead can secure the necessary breadth of strategic resource allocation and support remains questionable.

New Labour and youth justice

The paper discusses the reasons for the large amount of critical commentary that New Labour's reforms of the youth justice system have attracted. It explores the extent to which there is something ‘new’ about these reforms, suggesting that there are important differences when New Labour's approach is compared with its predecessor's. It then discusses the main lines of critical commentary on the reforms, concluding that much of it is over‐abstract and insufficiently empirically informed. The paper concludes with some ambiguous evidence on what the impact of the reforms has actually been. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Joy of Joining Up: Modes of Integrating the Local Government Modernisation Agenda

Since 1997, local government in the United Kingdom has found itself at the sharp end of an ambitious programme of potentially far-reaching reforms known collectively as the ‘local government modernisation agenda’ (LGMA). These initiatives are intended to promote ‘joined-up government’ and holistic service delivery—two of the hallmarks of New Labour's approach to public service improvement. To date there has been very little analysis of the ways in which local authorities are approaching this task at a corporate level. The authors examine the theory and practice of joining up policymaking and service delivery in local government. They draw upon an analysis of the perspectives of key actors involved in the formulation and implementation of current local government reforms at the national level and the experiences of a sample of authorities that have been among the most active in seeking to integrate the various elements of the LGMA at local level. The evidence suggests that the superficially attractive logic of more integrated policymaking and service provision, which runs so strongly through current reforms, belies the multidimensional nature of joined-up working. The presentation of the LGMA as a coherent package of reforms therefore disguises the degree to which different forms of joining up may conflict. In particular, the push for closer vertical integration between local and central government, with ever-tighter control being exerted from the centre over priorities and performance, is seen as constraining progress towards more effective horizontal joined-up working at a local level.

The UK public sector modernization agendaReconciliation and renewal?

The New Labour government came into power in May 1997 with an agenda to reform public services. The key strategy to achieve reform was the concept of modernization. Central to this is the rhetoric of renewal through collaboration, partnership and inclusion. Based upon the authors' research and consultancy activities, this article will explore the emergent modernization programme in policy terms, and also in terms of the organizational consequences for health, welfare and other public agencies.Our argument is that though it was brought in as an antidote to the ‘excesses’ of Thatcherism, the momentum of modernization is being maintained by recourse to centralist and managerialist strategies and prescriptions. We recognize that New Labour's approach is paradoxical because modernization at its heart espouses the principles of fairness, effectiveness and decentralization; yet it seeks to deliver these in ways which are sometimes experienced by public sector workers and users as disempowering and controlling.

Themed Section on the Policy Process and Social Policy

Despite the frequent comparisons and discussions of continuity between the Conservatives' social policies and those of New Labour, it is certainly true that the mechanisms which each has used to develop and implement social policy have been rhetorically, and often practically, different. Under the Conservatives the emphasis on markets and marketisation, with the centrality of the ‘consumer’, was reflected in social policy including through devices such as privatisation, compulsory competitive tendering, the creation of internal markets, managerialism and the use of ‘Next Steps’ agencies for delivery. New Labour's approach has made familiar terms such as ‘joined-up’ government, ‘evidence-based’ policy, ‘partnership’, ‘modernisation’ and ‘democratic renewal’. And, whatever might be said about their social policies, New Labour have shown a degree of radicalism in their governmental and constitutional reforms, most notably perhaps through devolution to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the passing of the Human Rights Act. At the same time, the EU has been developing as a political and decision-making entity with an emerging social dimension, that has, as Duncan argues here, the potential for some impact on UK social policy.

New Labour and New Surveillance: Theoretical and Political Ramifications of CCTV Implementation in the UK

This paper examines the implications of New Labour's approaches to crime and disorder on CCTV implementation. It concentrates on the usage of CCTV as one of the government's many initiatives, which are intended to address crime and disorder, including the fear of crime. In particular, the impact of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) - the cornerstone of this government's approach to crime reduction - on the generation of such strategies is examined. The paper revisits neo-Marxist and Foucauldian analyses of the so-called surveillance society through an appraisal of the complex relationship between structure and agency in the formulation and implementation of anti-crime and disorder strategies. Drawing on fieldwork data the paper considers the activities of practitioners at a local level by focusing on the influence of central government, local communities and 'common sense' thinking based on certain criminological theories. It is argued that a myriad of micro-level operations, obligations, processes, managerial concerns (particularly conflict resolution and resource issues), structures and agency - as well as the indirect influence of central government - shape CCTV policy. Ultimately, the creation of new local policy contexts under the CDA emphasise the need to consider incremental and malleable processes concerning the formulation of CCTV policy. In turn, this allows a re-examination of theoretical accounts of surveillance, and their attendant assumptions of sovereign or disciplinary power.

Employability, globalization and lifelong learning--a Scottish perspective

This paper seeks to explain, or at least put in political context, the current approaches to Lifelong Learning as developed by the New Labour government, by locating them in the process of internal ideological transformation of the Labour Party. Secondly, it seeks to identify the strands in current New Labour thinking in relation to Lifelong Learning. The paper questions many of the assumptions which underpin these approaches and concludes that New Labour's approach will lead to different experiences of Lifelong Learning for different people.

Neighbourhood Regeneration and New Labour's Third Way

In the Unted Kingdom New Labour has claimed to be pursuing a ‘third way’, with policy implications intended to break away from and/or move beyond established debates and policy alternatives. In this paper we explore, identify, and discuss what New Labour's third way means with regard to neighbourhood regeneration in England. The paper has two main aims: first, to review developments in neighbourhood regeneration policy and, second, to assess New Labour's third way in respect of neighbourhood regeneration. The paper is in four main parts. The first provides a broad-brush review of the New Right approach to neighbourhood regeneration in the form of the Thatcher and Major governments. This provides the point of departure for the second part, which discusses the Blair government's neighbourhood regeneration policies in terms of policy change or continuity in four substantive areas: welfare policy, housing policy, regeneration, and the institutional context for regeneration. The third part identifies some of the key themes in New Labour's approach and the final part draws some overarching conclusions.

Private numbers

IF IT will help patients, why not use it? This appears to be Labour's approach to using private facilities and money for NHS patients.

Labour's New Trunk-Roads Policy for England: An Emerging Pragmatic Multimodalism?

In 1998 the UK government introduced a new, integrated transport policy signalling a move away from the principles of ‘predict and provide’ towards ‘new realism’. Labour's approach involved promoting a reduction in car use through (among other things) seeking to improve public transport provision and, in line with the trend which had begun in 1994, scaling down the national trunk-road building programme. But despite claiming that building new roads to resolve traffic problems would generally be a measure of the last resort, Labour's most recent statement of transport policy, Transport 2010: The 10-Year Plan, makes provisions for a large programme of trunk-road construction against a background of continued traffic growth. In this paper we compare the scale of trunk-road completions achieved by the generally pro-road Conservative governments of 1979–97 against those anticipated in Labour's 2000–10 plans. We suggest that the annual level of trunk-road completions in England over the next decade will in fact be little different from that achieved by the Conservatives. At a broader scale, we identify the emergence of a new paradigm in transport policy which we call ‘pragmatic multimodalism’.

What's changed in universities since 1 May 1997? Labour's approach to quality and markets

(2001). What's changed in universities since 1 May 1997? Labour's approach to quality and markets. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education: Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 102-106.

Child Poverty in Britain and the New Labour Government

The new Labour government in Britain has made the reduction of child poverty one of its central objectives. This article analyses the circumstances of children in poverty and describes the specific initiatives involved in Labour's approach and weighs them up in terms of their potential impact. The impact on child poverty of policies designed to raise incomes directly is analysed using micro-simulation modelling. A major emphasis of current policy is on the promotion of paid work, and we explore the potential for poverty reduction of increasing the employment of parents. The policies that address long-term disadvantage are also discussed and finally the whole programme is assessed and future strategy is considered.