Now It's Personal: Learning from welfare-to-work approaches around the world

Article

This collection of short essays draws on international experiences and approaches of personalisation. It focuses on the role of the personal adviser as a way to explore how policy can reach its goal of providing personalised employment support and advice.

Personalisation - tailored support offered to help people (back) into work - has become a dominant feature of many welfare regimes around the world. The role of the personal adviser is an important aspect of offering more flexible, tailored support into work. While the language may differ from country to country, the challenges that many governments face, such as reducing their welfare bills and improving cost effectiveness, are similar, as is the move towards a focus on getting people into decent jobs that they then retain.

These essays strengthen the case for citizen-centred welfare. They provide both advice and warnings to the UK's coalition government and providers across different sectors as to how to make a single work programme cost-effective and responsive to citizens' needs.

The contributors also raise important questions over how a diverse customer base will be supported, how to ensure that innovative approaches will not be squeezed out, and where jobs might come from in the future.

Related items

  1. A photo of police officer and a community support officer walking down a quiet street in Kent

    The legitimacy trap

    Why a more active state needs better statecraft.
  2. A photograph from below of the grand Manchester town hall building on a sunny day against a blue sky

    On home ground: The future of devolution

    Andy Burnham has pledged to deliver “the biggest rebalancing of power the country has ever seen”. The key task for the new government is putting this into action.
  3. A photo of a family walking along a residential street: a dad holds a toddler in his arms with a son and daughter on either side of him

    The first 100 days: A blueprint for renewal

    The choices that the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, makes in the first 100 days must demonstrate that he is on the side of ordinary people.