Welfare to Work and the Organisation of Opportunity:Lessons From Abroad

Martin Evans has examined the organisation, targeting and implementation ofwelfare to work programmes in five countries: the UK, France, Germany,Netherlands and the USA. His study focussed on the different definitions of targetpopulations for welfare to work abroad and how their programmes were organisedand resourced.Dutch and American programmes place higher priorities on the hardest to serve. InBritain, we may need to rethink how to meet the needs of the hardest to help and ofeasier but higher priority groups such as the young unemployed.Welfare to work policy in Britain tends to focus on a single transition intoemployment. It should become more dynamic in outlook, with an interest in careerprogression. Repeated unemployment should not be treated by the system asseparate individual events.[...]