Research projects
A comparative study of front-line welfare-to-work provision
A research project into front-line public services, aimed at bringing the unemployed into work, is being conducted by Ian Greer, Prof. of Comparative Employment Relations and Dr Graham Symon, Senior Lecturer Senior Lecturer in Human Resources and funded by Greenwich University’s Research & Enterprise Investment Programme. It will run from October 2011 to July 2012.
This project will investigate front-line work in contracted-out public services in deprived communities in East London, Glasgow and the suburbs of Paris. This project builds on Ian Greer’s past work on contracting and employment relations in the sector in the UK and Germany. It will focus on the micro-level interaction between jobless ‘customers’ and front-line staff, and ask how that interaction is shapeed by contracting and subcontracting arrangements. The researchers’ main proposition is that the degree to which front-line provision is governed by market mechanisms is a key critical variable.
The project’s principal objectives are:
- To establish how local institutional stakeholders cohere and interact in varying institutional contexts;
- To examine how these interactions affect the concrete work carried out to put the jobless to work;
- To develop metrics of the quality of staff-customer interaction, as well as the relevant environmental pressures, that apply to welfare-to-work providers across different national contexts.
In each of the three locales there will be 20 formal semi-structured interviews in contracted-out employment services, mainly with managers, front-line employment advisors, and jobless ‘customers’. The researchers expect to observe stability in the character of front-line work in France, where – unusually for Western Europe – there has been little use of market mechanisms in employment services. In England, by contrast, disruption due to the rise of the structure of the welfare-to-work marketplace set out by the Work Programme is expected with Scotland somewhere in-between England and France, with the Work Programme emanating from Westminster, but also local political and administrative dynamics buffering its effects on providers.
The Role of Lay/Non-Legal Members in Employment Rights Cases
A research project into The Role of Lay/Non-Legal Members in Employment Rights Cases, conducted by Susan Corby, Prof. of Employment Relations at the University of Greenwich and Dr Paul Latreille, Professor of Economics at Swansea University, and funded by the Economic & Social Research Council, commenced in October 2010.
The project investigates whether and how lay members add value in employment rights cases as many, but not all, employment rights cases are decided by a three-person tribunal: a judge and two lay members, one with experience as an employer, the other with experience of representing workers, and with all three having equal decision-making powers
Accordingly, the research project will examine the circumstances in which lay members sit on cases and their contribution, including whether there are minority decisions, success rates, and differential appeal rates (judge alone/full tribunal); as well as the views of the Employment Judges and the lay members themselves, plus other stakeholders such as representatives of the parties and key civil servants.
Information on the role of lay members in other UK tribunals and labour courts abroad will also be gathered, so that comparisons can be drawn. The methodology will involve searching the judgments of Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal, together with interviews with tribunal user organisations, representatives and key civil servants and questionnaires to Employment Judges and lay members.
The findings will have significant public policy implications for what is now a key employment relations institution.
Preliminary findings
- Survey evidence
- Key stakeholders' formal positions in respect of the Government's consultation on the role of lay members
Other outputs
Evaluation of the employment and skills legacy for east London of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
In order to better understand the social and economic impact of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in east London, the University of Greenwich has commissioned WERU to undertake in-depth research into employment and skills in east London from 2009–2014.
Despite the recent economic downturn, the development of skills and jobs for the communities of the five east London host boroughs (Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest) remains an important objective of the Games. However, to isolate the effects of the Games on employment and skills from other economic and social activity requires detailed analysis. Moreover, the exact nature and sustainability of the desired employment and skills development remain unclear.
The WERU research project involves independent monitoring of a host of social and economic indicators from 2009–2014 and a series of case studies of social capital formation in the five east London host boroughs.
The statistical part of the project will involve analysis of a range of datasets to establish the extent and nature of Games-related employment and skills development activity across business sectors and localities within east London.
The case studies will focus on constellations of stakeholders in key industry sectors and form a detailed insight into best practice in employment and skills development. The studies will be informed by interviews and focus groups involving the full range of stakeholders and will map the long-term development of the expectations, experiences and interrelationships between local community residents, students, learners and employers.
Outcomes
The project will therefore build the most authoritative picture of the employment and skills legacy in the east London area. Its findings will be of interest to employer organisations, Government, universities, colleges and other agencies involved with employment and skills development and large-scale regeneration projects.
Beginning with Greenwich for its pilot phase in 2009–10, the project will broaden out to the other four host boroughs from mid-2010.
Downloads
• The Olympics’ Employment and Skills Legacy. Gornostaeva , G. [PDF]
• Seminar slides [PDF]