UK welfare reform 'uninspiring' and adding to economic woes and inequality

The terms of welfare reform and Labor market activation in the UK need to be re-set, according to a senior university policy expert Andrew Jones, director of the Local Economy Policy Unit at London South Bank University, and editor of Local Economy, published by SAGE. He warns that the UK Government's predominant philosophy towards the UK Welfare state accepts and supports social hierarchy and defends privilege. This, he argues, is re-creating and strengthening the conditions that provoked the 2007 economic crisis.

"The rapid movement along this current trajectory is being propelled by a dominant political party with a long-standing project of reducing taxes and rolling back the state…Its policies will create more poverty and economic instability," Jones says. Contextualizing UK welfare reform in both its historical and international context, a special issue of Local Economy seeks to challenge and readdress how welfare reform is approached and debated in the UK.

Prompted by the current round of reform in the 2012 Welfare Reform Act, the special double issue includes a series of articles which look at social protection and labor market intervention, outline alternative models for the UK's welfare arrangements and reform trajectory in comparison to other countries, and debate whether or not the Reform Act will deliver on its claim for greater simplicity and better work incentives, an objective Jones is doubtful about.