Publications

This report presents the first findings of a representative face-to-face survey of 3,650 Employment and Support Allowance claimants. It was carried out between December 2009 and February 2010 by Ipsos MORI. The sample consisted of those who made a claim for ESA between April and June 2009, allowing a sufficient gap for the majority to have had a decision on the outcome of their claim by the time of the survey.

IES Annual Review 2010

Deep budget cuts were hitting the public sector in 2010, and would have a big impact on central and local government and on the NHS in the following years. The challenge for the public sector over the short and medium term was to plan workforce reductions to get not only the best possible outcome for service delivery, but also a sustainable workforce to carry the organisation into the future.

Better...together is the story of a small internal team which championed the people and cultural aspects of change during and after HSE's move from a split headquarters in London (Rose Court) and Bootle to a single HQ in Bootle (Redgrave Court). Better...together has not been a 'culture change' programme as such; it hasn't re-examined corporate values for example but it was 'a good time to look at identity'. It has, therefore, played an important role in highlighting the importance of organisational culture at a time when HSE was about to undergo a significant period of change.

This literature review aimed to draw on emergent empirical academic evidence, practitioner articles and case studies, to answer five questions: 1. What is team coaching? 2. How is it different from other team development techniques? 3. When is it appropriate to use? 4. What is the evidence that it works? 5. What is the future for team coaching?

The London Borough of Newham commissioned an analysis of worklessness within the borough with a particular focus on understanding those who had been out of the labour market for long periods of time, and those who had never worked. The research involved a literature review, analysis of secondary datasets to provide an overview of the scale and characteristics of worklessness locally, and qualitative interviews with a range of people, including stakeholders providing services to workless groups and workless individuals in the borough.

Experience from previous recessions suggests that the recovery of full employment lags a year or so behind economic recovery. Even when private sector companies are once more successful, there may be a natural disinclination to recruit to previous levels until there is greater certainty about the economy. In 2010, deep budget cuts were hitting the public sector, and would have a big impact on central and local government and on the NHS in the following years. Taken together, these factors meant that the labour market was unlikely to return to the buoyant days of the early 2000s for the foreseeable future.

The aim of this project was to help explore what the possible futures might look like, how the sector might respond to the challenges presented by these scenarios and, potentially, how the sector, and Skills for Health in particular, could influence the emerging future and plan effectively for future skills requirements.