Del Roy Fletcher
Biographic Data
| ID | 376663 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Del Roy Fletcher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Del Roy |
| FAMILY NAME | Fletcher |
| SIGNATURE | FLETCHER R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Sheffield Hallam University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9569-3203 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 211 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
You had to be the Detective
British employment service delivery has shifted towards a model primed on core 'workfare' objectives - that is, enforcing behavioural compliance to work-related duties and expanding participation in work. Nevertheless, significant gaps remain in current knowledge about how workfare is implemented daily by frontline staff. The existing international street-level research on employment service delivery reveals how workers use a range of discretiona…
The sanctions are good for some people but not for someone like me who actually genuinely does their job search.’ British Jobseeker’s Allowance claimant views on punitive welfare reform
This article shows that the unemployed are broadly supportive of welfare reforms which have led to increased poverty; exacerbated ill health; led some to engage in ‘survival crime’ or to disengage from the social security system. This support is predicated on the perceived need to discipline ‘undeserving’ groups; principally the feckless, those gaming the system and migrants. The authors argue that this reflects the success of a ‘two-nations’ heg…
Violent bureaucracy
Between 2010–2015, the Coalition’s pursuit of a radical austerity programme saw Britain’s Jobcentre Plus experience some of the most punitive reforms and budget cuts in its history. Focusing on the outcomes of these reforms, a growing body of research has found that claiming processes became a more ‘institutionally violent’ and injurious experience for out-of-work benefit claimants. The present article draws upon ideas, developed by Bauman (1989)…
Introduction to the Special Edition
Punitive benefit sanctions, welfare conditionality, and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain
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 d…
British public employment service reform
A post-industrial ‘precariat’ has emerged characterised by social insecurity to which the state’s response has been to secure habituation to insecure labour. This article provides new empirical evidence regarding how the precariat encounter and experience the reformed welfare delivery system. It seeks to explore theoretically whether the precariat is being ‘activated’ and/or ‘civilised’. The author finds that the primary role of Jobcentre Plus is…
Welfare conditionality and social marginality
In a contemporary evolution of the tutelary state, welfare reform in the United Kingdom has been characterised by moves towards greater conditionality and sanctioning. This is influenced by the attributing responsibility for poverty and unemployment to the behaviour of marginalised individuals. Mead (1992) has argued that the poor are dependants who ought to receive support on condition of certain restrictions imposed by a protective state that w…
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 …
Gamers or victims of the system? Welfare reform, cynical manipulation and vulnerability
New mechanisms of conditionality enacted through current reforms of the UK welfare system are framed within contested narratives about the characteristics, rationalities and conduct of welfare users. In the problem figuration of welfare reform the orientations and conduct of welfare recipients have been conceptualised and depicted across a spectrum ranging from cynical manipulators gaming the system and subverting the original ethos of the welfar…
Workfare – a Blast from the Past? Contemporary Work Conditionality for the Unemployed in Historical Perspective
During 2011, the UK Government introduced the Mandatory Work Activity scheme, which requires JSA claimants to work in order to continue receiving benefit. Workfare has been viewed as a radical departure in the evolution of British labour market policy. However, an historical review of workfare in inter-war Britain reveals that the most recent proposals merely resuscitate a heritage of compelling the long-term unemployed to work for their benefit.…
Welfare Reform, Jobcentre Plus and the Street-Level Bureaucracy
A defining feature of UK welfare reform has been concerted moves towards greater conditionality and sanctioning which has stimulated much academic debate. However, few policy articles have sought to examine how welfare reforms are actually implemented. Lipsky (1980) has shown that the intentions of policy makers may be frustrated by the behaviour of public service workers operating in a ‘corrupted world of service’. This article draws upon the fi…
The Workless Class? Economic Transformation, Informal Work and Male Working-Class Identity
Paid work has traditionally been seen as a core element in the construction of masculine identities. Willis (1977) has, for example, linked working-class masculinity to shop floor culture. It is, however, clear that many communities cannot rely on the stable employment around which familiar models of working-class identity were forged. This paper examines how the male residents of a deprived former council estate in the north of England have resp…
Social Tenants, Attachment to Place and Work in the Post-industrial Labour Market
Policy makers have increasingly highlighted the role of social housing in restricting the job-related mobility of tenants. This paper, drawing upon in-depth interviews with residents of the Manor estate in Sheffield, discusses the strength of housing-based explanations of worklessness. It finds that residents have responded to economic transformation by drawing on locally concentrated social networks and are unwilling to sever these close ties in…
Offenders in the post-industrial labour market
UK policy makers have increasingly sought to improve the employment prospects of offenders to help reduce re-offending. Yet the past 40 years have witnessed profound changes in the nature of work. This article examines how offenders have been affected by economic transformation and the possible implications for re-offending. The author finds that the possession of a criminal record was a minor inconvenience to finding work in the industrial labou…
A culture of worklessness? Historical insights from the Manor and Park area of Sheffield
UK policy makers are increasingly seeking to tackle persistent worklessness in some communities. It is in this context that the Working Neighbourhoods Pilot was launched which targeted concentrations of worklessness in 12 localities across Great Britain. The latter posited that a 'culture of worklessness' has developed in some communities, which prevents residents from accessing employment. This article examines the historical evidence for such c…
Employers, recruitment and offenders
English The US and the UK are currently reforming welfare policy to emphasise work. It is in this context that UK policy makers have increasingly seen ‘demand-led’ programmes as a key component of welfare-to-work policies. This article draws upon the findings of research conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which examined how employers respond to job applications from offenders, to discuss the challenges faced by policy makers engaged in…
Ex‐Offenders, the Labour Market and the New Public Administration
Policy makers are increasingly recognizing the importance of helping ex‐offenders into employment. This article outlines the disadvantages faced by those with a criminal record in the labour market and evaluates several approaches to meeting the needs of ex‐offenders seeking work. It finds that, despite recent policy developments, the changing nature of British public administration is undermining the ability of practitioners to respond appropria…
The National Development Programme
English The New Deal lies at the heart of the UK government’s strategy for tackling unemployment and social exclusion. Much of the debate about the likely effectiveness of the programme has focused on its key features.Yet there is a considerable body of evidence which shows that the way labour market programmes are implemented is crucial in determining their impact. This article draws upon the findings of the evaluation of the National Developmen…
Evaluating Special Measures for the Unemployed
The growing significance of long term unemployment across Europe in the last decade has underlined the need for policy makers to understand and improve responses to unemployment. However, there is a growing debate about the relationship between research and policy development with concerns being expressed both by researchers and policy makers. While working for the Employment Service the author evaluated measures to reintegrate the long term unem…
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 …
Punitive benefit sanctions, welfare conditionality, and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain
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 d…
Welfare Reform, Jobcentre Plus and the Street-Level Bureaucracy
A defining feature of UK welfare reform has been concerted moves towards greater conditionality and sanctioning which has stimulated much academic debate. However, few policy articles have sought to examine how welfare reforms are actually implemented. Lipsky (1980) has shown that the intentions of policy makers may be frustrated by the behaviour of public service workers operating in a ‘corrupted world of service’. This article draws upon the fi…
Welfare conditionality and social marginality
In a contemporary evolution of the tutelary state, welfare reform in the United Kingdom has been characterised by moves towards greater conditionality and sanctioning. This is influenced by the attributing responsibility for poverty and unemployment to the behaviour of marginalised individuals. Mead (1992) has argued that the poor are dependants who ought to receive support on condition of certain restrictions imposed by a protective state that w…
Violent bureaucracy
Between 2010–2015, the Coalition’s pursuit of a radical austerity programme saw Britain’s Jobcentre Plus experience some of the most punitive reforms and budget cuts in its history. Focusing on the outcomes of these reforms, a growing body of research has found that claiming processes became a more ‘institutionally violent’ and injurious experience for out-of-work benefit claimants. The present article draws upon ideas, developed by Bauman (1989)…
Workfare – a Blast from the Past? Contemporary Work Conditionality for the Unemployed in Historical Perspective
During 2011, the UK Government introduced the Mandatory Work Activity scheme, which requires JSA claimants to work in order to continue receiving benefit. Workfare has been viewed as a radical departure in the evolution of British labour market policy. However, an historical review of workfare in inter-war Britain reveals that the most recent proposals merely resuscitate a heritage of compelling the long-term unemployed to work for their benefit.…
Introduction to the Special Edition
Gamers or victims of the system? Welfare reform, cynical manipulation and vulnerability
New mechanisms of conditionality enacted through current reforms of the UK welfare system are framed within contested narratives about the characteristics, rationalities and conduct of welfare users. In the problem figuration of welfare reform the orientations and conduct of welfare recipients have been conceptualised and depicted across a spectrum ranging from cynical manipulators gaming the system and subverting the original ethos of the welfar…
A culture of worklessness? Historical insights from the Manor and Park area of Sheffield
UK policy makers are increasingly seeking to tackle persistent worklessness in some communities. It is in this context that the Working Neighbourhoods Pilot was launched which targeted concentrations of worklessness in 12 localities across Great Britain. The latter posited that a 'culture of worklessness' has developed in some communities, which prevents residents from accessing employment. This article examines the historical evidence for such c…
Ex‐Offenders, the Labour Market and the New Public Administration
Policy makers are increasingly recognizing the importance of helping ex‐offenders into employment. This article outlines the disadvantages faced by those with a criminal record in the labour market and evaluates several approaches to meeting the needs of ex‐offenders seeking work. It finds that, despite recent policy developments, the changing nature of British public administration is undermining the ability of practitioners to respond appropria…
The sanctions are good for some people but not for someone like me who actually genuinely does their job search.’ British Jobseeker’s Allowance claimant views on punitive welfare reform
This article shows that the unemployed are broadly supportive of welfare reforms which have led to increased poverty; exacerbated ill health; led some to engage in ‘survival crime’ or to disengage from the social security system. This support is predicated on the perceived need to discipline ‘undeserving’ groups; principally the feckless, those gaming the system and migrants. The authors argue that this reflects the success of a ‘two-nations’ heg…
Offenders in the post-industrial labour market
UK policy makers have increasingly sought to improve the employment prospects of offenders to help reduce re-offending. Yet the past 40 years have witnessed profound changes in the nature of work. This article examines how offenders have been affected by economic transformation and the possible implications for re-offending. The author finds that the possession of a criminal record was a minor inconvenience to finding work in the industrial labou…
The National Development Programme
English The New Deal lies at the heart of the UK government’s strategy for tackling unemployment and social exclusion. Much of the debate about the likely effectiveness of the programme has focused on its key features.Yet there is a considerable body of evidence which shows that the way labour market programmes are implemented is crucial in determining their impact. This article draws upon the findings of the evaluation of the National Developmen…
British public employment service reform
A post-industrial ‘precariat’ has emerged characterised by social insecurity to which the state’s response has been to secure habituation to insecure labour. This article provides new empirical evidence regarding how the precariat encounter and experience the reformed welfare delivery system. It seeks to explore theoretically whether the precariat is being ‘activated’ and/or ‘civilised’. The author finds that the primary role of Jobcentre Plus is…
Employers, recruitment and offenders
English The US and the UK are currently reforming welfare policy to emphasise work. It is in this context that UK policy makers have increasingly seen ‘demand-led’ programmes as a key component of welfare-to-work policies. This article draws upon the findings of research conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which examined how employers respond to job applications from offenders, to discuss the challenges faced by policy makers engaged in…
Social Tenants, Attachment to Place and Work in the Post-industrial Labour Market
Policy makers have increasingly highlighted the role of social housing in restricting the job-related mobility of tenants. This paper, drawing upon in-depth interviews with residents of the Manor estate in Sheffield, discusses the strength of housing-based explanations of worklessness. It finds that residents have responded to economic transformation by drawing on locally concentrated social networks and are unwilling to sever these close ties in…
Evaluating Special Measures for the Unemployed
The growing significance of long term unemployment across Europe in the last decade has underlined the need for policy makers to understand and improve responses to unemployment. However, there is a growing debate about the relationship between research and policy development with concerns being expressed both by researchers and policy makers. While working for the Employment Service the author evaluated measures to reintegrate the long term unem…
You had to be the Detective
British employment service delivery has shifted towards a model primed on core 'workfare' objectives - that is, enforcing behavioural compliance to work-related duties and expanding participation in work. Nevertheless, significant gaps remain in current knowledge about how workfare is implemented daily by frontline staff. The existing international street-level research on employment service delivery reveals how workers use a range of discretiona…
The Workless Class? Economic Transformation, Informal Work and Male Working-Class Identity
Paid work has traditionally been seen as a core element in the construction of masculine identities. Willis (1977) has, for example, linked working-class masculinity to shop floor culture. It is, however, clear that many communities cannot rely on the stable employment around which familiar models of working-class identity were forged. This paper examines how the male residents of a deprived former council estate in the north of England have resp…
Evaluating Special Measures for the Unemployed
The growing significance of long term unemployment across Europe in the last decade has underlined the need for policy makers to understand and improve responses to unemployment. However, there is a growing debate about the relationship between research and policy development with concerns being expressed both by researchers and policy makers. While working for the Employment Service the author evaluated measures to reintegrate the long term unem…
The National Development Programme
English The New Deal lies at the heart of the UK government’s strategy for tackling unemployment and social exclusion. Much of the debate about the likely effectiveness of the programme has focused on its key features.Yet there is a considerable body of evidence which shows that the way labour market programmes are implemented is crucial in determining their impact. This article draws upon the findings of the evaluation of the National Developmen…
Ex‐Offenders, the Labour Market and the New Public Administration
Policy makers are increasingly recognizing the importance of helping ex‐offenders into employment. This article outlines the disadvantages faced by those with a criminal record in the labour market and evaluates several approaches to meeting the needs of ex‐offenders seeking work. It finds that, despite recent policy developments, the changing nature of British public administration is undermining the ability of practitioners to respond appropria…
Employers, recruitment and offenders
English The US and the UK are currently reforming welfare policy to emphasise work. It is in this context that UK policy makers have increasingly seen ‘demand-led’ programmes as a key component of welfare-to-work policies. This article draws upon the findings of research conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which examined how employers respond to job applications from offenders, to discuss the challenges faced by policy makers engaged in…
A culture of worklessness? Historical insights from the Manor and Park area of Sheffield
UK policy makers are increasingly seeking to tackle persistent worklessness in some communities. It is in this context that the Working Neighbourhoods Pilot was launched which targeted concentrations of worklessness in 12 localities across Great Britain. The latter posited that a 'culture of worklessness' has developed in some communities, which prevents residents from accessing employment. This article examines the historical evidence for such c…
Offenders in the post-industrial labour market
UK policy makers have increasingly sought to improve the employment prospects of offenders to help reduce re-offending. Yet the past 40 years have witnessed profound changes in the nature of work. This article examines how offenders have been affected by economic transformation and the possible implications for re-offending. The author finds that the possession of a criminal record was a minor inconvenience to finding work in the industrial labou…
Social Tenants, Attachment to Place and Work in the Post-industrial Labour Market
Policy makers have increasingly highlighted the role of social housing in restricting the job-related mobility of tenants. This paper, drawing upon in-depth interviews with residents of the Manor estate in Sheffield, discusses the strength of housing-based explanations of worklessness. It finds that residents have responded to economic transformation by drawing on locally concentrated social networks and are unwilling to sever these close ties in…
The Workless Class? Economic Transformation, Informal Work and Male Working-Class Identity
Paid work has traditionally been seen as a core element in the construction of masculine identities. Willis (1977) has, for example, linked working-class masculinity to shop floor culture. It is, however, clear that many communities cannot rely on the stable employment around which familiar models of working-class identity were forged. This paper examines how the male residents of a deprived former council estate in the north of England have resp…
Welfare Reform, Jobcentre Plus and the Street-Level Bureaucracy
A defining feature of UK welfare reform has been concerted moves towards greater conditionality and sanctioning which has stimulated much academic debate. However, few policy articles have sought to examine how welfare reforms are actually implemented. Lipsky (1980) has shown that the intentions of policy makers may be frustrated by the behaviour of public service workers operating in a ‘corrupted world of service’. This article draws upon the fi…
Workfare – a Blast from the Past? Contemporary Work Conditionality for the Unemployed in Historical Perspective
During 2011, the UK Government introduced the Mandatory Work Activity scheme, which requires JSA claimants to work in order to continue receiving benefit. Workfare has been viewed as a radical departure in the evolution of British labour market policy. However, an historical review of workfare in inter-war Britain reveals that the most recent proposals merely resuscitate a heritage of compelling the long-term unemployed to work for their benefit.…
Gamers or victims of the system? Welfare reform, cynical manipulation and vulnerability
New mechanisms of conditionality enacted through current reforms of the UK welfare system are framed within contested narratives about the characteristics, rationalities and conduct of welfare users. In the problem figuration of welfare reform the orientations and conduct of welfare recipients have been conceptualised and depicted across a spectrum ranging from cynical manipulators gaming the system and subverting the original ethos of the welfar…
Welfare conditionality and social marginality
In a contemporary evolution of the tutelary state, welfare reform in the United Kingdom has been characterised by moves towards greater conditionality and sanctioning. This is influenced by the attributing responsibility for poverty and unemployment to the behaviour of marginalised individuals. Mead (1992) has argued that the poor are dependants who ought to receive support on condition of certain restrictions imposed by a protective state that w…
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 …
British public employment service reform
A post-industrial ‘precariat’ has emerged characterised by social insecurity to which the state’s response has been to secure habituation to insecure labour. This article provides new empirical evidence regarding how the precariat encounter and experience the reformed welfare delivery system. It seeks to explore theoretically whether the precariat is being ‘activated’ and/or ‘civilised’. The author finds that the primary role of Jobcentre Plus is…
Introduction to the Special Edition
Punitive benefit sanctions, welfare conditionality, and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain
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 d…
The sanctions are good for some people but not for someone like me who actually genuinely does their job search.’ British Jobseeker’s Allowance claimant views on punitive welfare reform
This article shows that the unemployed are broadly supportive of welfare reforms which have led to increased poverty; exacerbated ill health; led some to engage in ‘survival crime’ or to disengage from the social security system. This support is predicated on the perceived need to discipline ‘undeserving’ groups; principally the feckless, those gaming the system and migrants. The authors argue that this reflects the success of a ‘two-nations’ heg…
Violent bureaucracy
Between 2010–2015, the Coalition’s pursuit of a radical austerity programme saw Britain’s Jobcentre Plus experience some of the most punitive reforms and budget cuts in its history. Focusing on the outcomes of these reforms, a growing body of research has found that claiming processes became a more ‘institutionally violent’ and injurious experience for out-of-work benefit claimants. The present article draws upon ideas, developed by Bauman (1989)…
You had to be the Detective
British employment service delivery has shifted towards a model primed on core 'workfare' objectives - that is, enforcing behavioural compliance to work-related duties and expanding participation in work. Nevertheless, significant gaps remain in current knowledge about how workfare is implemented daily by frontline staff. The existing international street-level research on employment service delivery reveals how workers use a range of discretiona…
Political science (17 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Economics (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (11 works) · Welfare (9 works) · Work (physics (8 works) · Engineering (7 works)