IES Helps Employment Policy Transfer Across Europe
Nigel Meager, IES Director  The programme of peer reviewing employment policies within the EU that the Institute has been running during 2003 and 2004 with Austrian partners (ÖSB Consulting) has been extended.
The Peer Review Programme of the European Employment Strategy (EES) aimed to transfer good practice in employment policy between EU member states, drawing on practical experience, evaluation evidence and the knowledge of policy experts. In 2003/2004, IES/ÖSB organised some fourteen peer reviews, on a range of policy topics, including: policies for an ageing workforce (Finland); tackling the gender pay gap (Belgium); disability management (Netherlands); encouraging women to enter technical and scientific occupations (Germany); parental leave and childcare (Sweden); gender mainstreaming in the public employment service (Denmark); ‘rapid response services’ for responding to large scale redundancies (UK). Reports were widely disseminated via the Internet (www.mutual-learning-employment.net/).
The programme is well-regarded and has become a model for other areas of European policy-making. Following a positive assessment by the task force of Wim Kok, the former Dutch prime minister, it has been agreed to extend the programme, from January 2005, into a wider Mutual Learning Programme, which will aim to achieve a higher level of dissemination and coherence. IES has been successful in winning the contract to deliver the new programme (again in partnership with ÖSB Consulting, together with the Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies in Latvia, which will facilitate improved coverage of the perspective of the new member states).
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