AIRMULP
ACTIVE INCLUSION AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
FROM A MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNANCE PERSPECTIVE
Work Package C
Regional case studies – Comparative report
Andrea Bellini
Laura Leonardi
Gemma Scalise
(University of Florence, Italy)
December 2016
Contents
Figures and tables ................................................................................................................ 3
Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... 4
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Introduction..................................................................................................................... 6
Analysis of the context ................................................................................................... 7
The discourse about active inclusion ............................................................................ 17
Policy measures ............................................................................................................ 22
Actors and methods of regulation ................................................................................. 36
Coordination in policy making ..................................................................................... 48
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 54
References .......................................................................................................................... 59
Annex: List of interviews................................................................................................... 62
3
Figures
Figure 1. Gross domestic product at current market prices, in purchasing power
standard per inhabitant (2012) .............................................................................. 9
Figure 2. Structure of gross value added by economic activity (%, 2012) ........................ 10
Figure 3. Structure of employment by economic activity (%, 2014) ................................ 11
Figure 4. Proportion of employed persons by educational attainment level (%,
2014) ................................................................................................................... 12
Figure 5. Unemployment rate trends (%, 2005-2014) ....................................................... 13
Figure 6. Unemployment patterns (ratios of unemployment rates to the EU28
averages, 2005 and 2014) ................................................................................... 14
Figure 7. Gross domestic product per inhabitant and unemployment rate (last
available data) ..................................................................................................... 15
Figure 8. Institutional arrangements .................................................................................. 55
Figure 9. Organizational logics .......................................................................................... 56
Tables
Table 1.
Table 2.
Table 3.
Table 4.
Table 5.
Table 6.
Table 7.
Table 8.
Population density of metropolitan regions (2013) ............................................... 7
Territorial fragmentation of metropolitan areas (2014)......................................... 8
Key concepts in the discourse about active inclusion ......................................... 21
“Adequate income support”: policy measures enacted and/or implemented
at regional or sub-regional level .......................................................................... 28
“Inclusive labour markets”: policy measures enacted and/or implemented
at the regional or sub-regional level .................................................................... 35
Role of the main actors in the process of policy making .................................... 40
Relevance of the different methods of regulation ............................................... 46
Vertical and horizontal coordination in policy making ....................................... 52
4
Abbreviations
ACBI – Acord Ciutadà per una Barcelona Inclusiva
ABI – Associazione Bancaria Italiana
AFOL – Agenzia per la Formazione, l’Orientamento e il Lavoro
AGMA – Association of Greater Manchester Authorities
Airmulp – Active inclusion and industrial relations from a multi-level governance perspective
AIS – Active Inclusion Strategy
ANPAL – Agenzia Nazionale per le Politiche Attive del Lavoro
AOF – Action Orientation Formation
ALMP – Active labour market policy
Allies – Association lyonnaise pour l’insertion économique et sociale
Aravis – Agence Rhône-Alpes pour la valorisation de l’innovation sociale et l’amélioration des conditions de travail
ARIFL – Agenzia Regionale per l’Istruzione, la Formazione e il Lavoro
CGIL – Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro
CIGD – Cassa integrazione guadagni in deroga
CPER – Contrats de Plan État-Régions
CpI – Centro per l’Impiego
CTEF – Contrat Territorial Emploi Formation
CU – Communauté Urbaine
DPA – Delivery Partnership Agreements
DUL – Dote Unica Lavoro
DWP – Department for Work and Pensions
EPA – Employment Promotion Act
EPCI – Établissement Public de Coopération Intercommunal
ESD – European Social Dialogue
ESF – European Social Fund
ETUC – European Trade Union Confederation
EU – European Union
Eurofound – European foundation for the improvement of living and working conditions
FA – Framework Agreement
FEA – Functional economic area
FWA – Fondazione Welfare Ambrosiana
GDP – Gross domestic product
GM – Greater Manchester
GMCA – Greater Manchester Combined Authority
GM LEP – Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership
GUS – Główny Urząd Statystyczny
GVA – Gross value added
INAIL – Istituto Nazionale Assicurazione Infortuni sul Lavoro
INPS – Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale
ISCED – International Standard Classification of Education
JCP – Jobcentre Plus
LEP – Local Enterprise Partnership
MDEF – Maison de l’Emploi et de la Formation
MIDAS – Manchester Investment Development Agency Service
NASPI – Nuova Assicurazione Sociale per l’Impiego
NEET – Not in education, employment or training
5
OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
PAI – Programme for Activation and Integration
PES – Public employment services
PIL – Progetto di Inserimento Lavorativo
PIRMI – Programa Interdepartamental de la Renda Mínima d’Inserció
PLIE – Plan Local pour l’Insertion et l’Emploi
PPS – Purchasing power standard
PRAO – Pôle Rhône-Alpes de l’Orientation
Prepara – Programa de recualificación profesional de las personas que agoten su protección por desempleo
Proper – Programa personalitzat per a la recerca de feina
RAI – Renta Activa de Inserción
RdA – Reddito di autonomia
REIS – Reddito d’Inclusione Sociale
RMI – Renta Mínima de Inserción
RSA – Revenue de Solidarité Active
SEP – Skills and Employment Partnership
SEPE – Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal
SEZ – Special Economic Zone
SOC – Servei d’Ocupació de Catalunya
SPRF – Service Public Régional de la Formation
SSIA – Swedish Social Insurance Agency
UC – Universal Credit
ZFU – Zones Franches Urbaines
ZUS – Zones Urbaines Sensibles
6
1. Introduction
This report explores the relationship between the so-called Active Inclusion Strategy
(AIS) and industrial relations at the sub-national level in six countries – namely France,
Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom – in the framework of the project
Active inclusion and industrial relations from a multi-level governance perspective (Airmulp).
The AIS, which is a core element of the Social Investment Package (SIP), intended to
“enable every citizen, notably those excluded from the labour market, to fully participate
in society” (Recommendation 2008/867/EC). In order to pursue its aim, which is tackling
social exclusion and its multiple forms (e.g. in-work poverty, labour market segmentation,
long-term unemployment, gender inequalities), it integrates three pillars: adequate income support; inclusive labour markets; and access to quality services. The Airmulp project, then, focuses on the first two pillars, adopting a multi-level governance perspective,
which addresses the European, national and territorial levels. This report, particularly, offers a cross-national comparison of territorial experiences, focusing on the role played at
this level by the actors of industrial relations in influencing the process of policy making,
with reference to those specific measures that can be understood as aimed at active inclusion, enacted or implemented in six regional and local contexts, that are: the region of
Rhône-Alpes and the city of Lyon; Lombardy and Milan; Lower Silesia and Wroclaw;
West Sweden and Gothenburg; Catalonia and Barcelona; Greater Manchester and Manchester. Processes such as the devolution of competences from central to sub-national
governments, together with the decentralisation of industrial relations, which are taking
place in many European countries, make it indeed a crucial level of analysis.
Although both institutional architectures and industrial relations systems vary greatly
across the six selected regions and the countries they belong to, this report explores the
existence of common, cross-national trends framing both active inclusion policies and the
related industrial relations practices at decentralized levels. Common trends and features,
together with different models and outcomes, strong and weak points, which characterize
the different countries, will be identified. Furthermore, the report contributes to the multilevel analysis by studying how social partners’ actions undertaken at the territorial level
are influenced by the model of governance and by the actors’ strategies at upper levels.
The findings reported in the following pages are the results of a first part of research
devoted to the analysis of data and official documents, and of a second part concentrated
on the case-studies, one per country, based on in-depth interviews with key informants
(see Annex). The report focuses on five main issues. After a first section dedicated to the
analysis of the different economic and social contexts, the second section provides an
analysis of the political discourse in order to find convergences and divergences with the
rhetoric about active inclusion in the six regions. The third section, then, examines the
policy measures enacted or implemented at the regional and/or local levels, focusing on
the specific role played by the actors of industrial relations in the different phases of the
policy making process. The fourth section is instead devoted to a more general analysis of
the actors’ logics of action and methods of regulation. The fifth section, lastly, examines
the forms of vertical and horizontal coordination (where present) and their implications.
Some concluding remarks are made to highlight and discuss the main results emerging
from the analysis.
7
2. Analysis of the context
The analysis below focuses on six European regions that include so-called “secondtier” cities, which means the largest cities in a country, excluding the capital. These kinds
of cities have some common features, which make them (and the regions they belong to)
suitable for comparative analyses: they are, in fact, part of a wider functional urban area,
that is an area containing a major city and its surrounding travel-to-work-area, what is
generally called a “metropolitan region”; they are embedded in a multi-level governance
system; they tend to converge, though following different paths, towards the model of
“city region”, as an area which has shared resources and sometimes experiments shared
administrative arrangements or policy-making practices. Additionally, they look more
and more like “global cities” (Sassen 1991) and, as such, are important “nodes” in the
global economy, highly interconnected with each other, economically dynamic, with a
more or less pronounced post-industrial vocation; on the other hand, they face a problem
of sustainability of growth, associated with rising inequalities and phenomena of social
exclusion and poverty (OECD 2006), which leads to the question of how to combine
competitiveness and social cohesion. From the point of view of interest representation
and industrial relations, then, they refer to a more individualized and under-unionized
workforce, since employment is mostly concentrated in high-qualified services, which are
usually less permeable to trade union action; on the employers’ side, instead, they register
a relevant presence of multinational companies, which have great potential to influence
local policies, but are generally less inclined to join systems of collective representation.
These factors call into question the capacity of organized actors to build cooperative relationships and play a relevant role in the definition of labour and social policies.
That said, the six cases display some specific characteristics, which must be brought to
light to interpret correctly the research findings.
Regarding the territorial structure and governance, for example, the French, Italian,
Polish and Spanish cases show comparable features, rather different from the British and
Swedish cases. The first four contexts, in fact, are characterized by the presence of a relatively large urban centre, surrounded by a metropolitan area, which is in turn inserted in a
wider regional context, representing the basic administrative unit for the application of
regional policies. The British and Swedish cases are instead characterized by a smaller
urban centre, but with a stronger role of the municipality, which is the main sub-national
administrative unit, with no further level between the latter and the central government.
The metropolitan region of Greater Manchester has nevertheless a comparatively high
population density: 2,128.6 inhabitants per km2 versus 67.6 of Gothenburg, which is at
the opposite extreme (see Table 1).
Table 1. Population density of metropolitan regions (2013)
Persons per km2
Lyon
Milan
Wroclaw
Barcelona
Gothenburg
Manchester
Source: Eurostat, Regional statistics.
550.8
1,523.1
177.0
708.8
67.6
2,128.6
8
Some relevant dissimilarities can be found also in territorial organization. The selected
cases, in fact, show different degrees of institutional fragmentation (see Table 2). Lyon,
in particular, has 16.7 local governments per 100,000 inhabitants; at the other end of the
spectrum, Manchester has 0.5. High fragmentation is, however, a historical feature of the
territorial structure in France, which dates to the French revolution and further back,
though forms of inter-institutional cooperation are present, from the Établissement Public
de Coopération Intercommunal (EPCI) to the Communauté Urbaine (CU), which since
2014 has been replaced by the Métropole, so-called Grand Lyon. In this sense, the cases
of Lyon and Manchester have something in common: they have both experienced a process of institutionalization of a “city region” as an autonomous level of government,
though in the case of Manchester this process has gone one step further. The so-called
Greater Manchester, in fact, is leaded by a “combined authority” – the first of its kind,
created in 2011 – that is a statutory body with its own powers and responsibilities – and,
from 2017, a directly-elected mayor – set out in legislation, developed from a voluntary
collaboration between its constituent local authorities (see Sandford 2016).
Table 2. Territorial fragmentation of metropolitan areas (2014)
Number of local governments
per 100,000 inhabitants
Lyon
Milan
Wroclaw
Barcelona
Gothenburg
Manchester
16.7
6.1
2.3
2.0
1.3
0.5
Note: metropolitan areas are here defined as functional economic areas (FEAs) characterised by a densely inhabited “city”
and a “commuting zone” whose labour market is highly integrated with the core; their boundaries do not coincide with
those of metropolitan regions as defined by Eurostat.
Source: OECD, Metropolitan areas.
The six cases also differ from each other with regard to wealth, economic structure,
characteristics of employment, and unemployment trends and patterns.
In detail, the metropolitan region of Milan has a comparatively higher gross domestic
product (GDP) per inhabitant, measured in terms of purchasing power standard (PPS) in
order to eliminate the differences of price levels between countries (see Figure 1). In
2012, Milan had in fact a GDP of 45,224.13 PPS per inhabitant, far above the European
average (26,500.00) and the other wealthy case among those taken into consideration,
that is Lyon with 37,445.24 PPS per inhabitant. At the opposite extreme, Lower Silesia
and the city of Wroclaw registered a much lower GDP level, 19,700.00 and 22,232.99
PPS per inhabitant respectively. Not so far was Greater Manchester, with 24,400,00 PPS
per inhabitant, that is little below the European average. In the former case, however, low
wages, together with low taxation levels, are primary factors of competitiveness. This is
true for Poland, but even more important for Lower Silesia, since its production structure,
as we will see, is characterized by a high incidence of sectors that are exposed to global
competition. On the other hand, Greater Manchester suffer the consequences of being in
the less dynamic North of England, which is reflected by a dramatically lower growth if
compared with the Southern regions, especially London.
9
Figure 1. Gross domestic product at current market prices, in purchasing power standard per inhabitant
(2012)
50,000
EU28
Country
40,000
30,000
20,000
Region
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Catalonia
and Barcelona
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Lombardy
and Milan
0
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
10,000
Metropolitan region
Source: Eurostat, Regional statistics.
Significant differences can be found in the structure of gross value added (GVA) by
economic activity (see Figure 2). Here, a striking evidence is that Lower Silesia has the
most traditional production system among the selected regions. In particular, it reveals a
substantial weight of industry, which is much heavier than the national average (36.9%
versus 26.5% of total GVA). This region, however, has not developed uniformly; quite
the contrary, it is characterized by great disparities between city centres and peripheral
zones. The city of Wroclaw, for instance, has a more developed tertiary economy, with a
high incidence of both low- and high-qualified services (28.8% and 35.7% respectively
versus 23.5% and 15.6% in Lower Silesia). As for the other regions, the incidence of industry is between 23.3% and 18.3%, except for Greater Manchester, where it is 13.3%.
Greater Manchester, together with Lombardy, are characterized by a heavier weight of
high-qualified services (30.3% and 32.1%). On the other hand, Catalonia reveals a higher
dependency on low-qualified services (29.2%). Among the cities, Milan, Manchester and,
above all, Wroclaw appear more coherent with the model of post-industrial city, as they
are characterized by a heavy weight of high-qualified services (30.1%, 32.5% and 35.7%
in that order). Manchester also displays a relatively high incidence of the public sector
(24.4%), what is perceived as a serious matter of concern, especially in the light of the
emphasis that local authorities put on the rhetoric about “sustainable” (private sector-led)
economic growth and on the medium-term priority of fiscal self-reliance, to be pursued
through a reform of public services (on this issue, see, for example: GMCA and AGMA
2013; GMCA, GM LEP and AGMA 2014; New Economy 2011). Quite different is the
case of Barcelona, which still displays a dependency on traditional economic activities,
such as low-qualified services, industry and construction. Taken together, in Barcelona
these sectors, plus agriculture, account for 63.9% of total GVA.
10
Figure 2. Structure of gross value added by economic activity (%, 2012)
France
Rhône-Alpes
Lyon
Italy
Lombardy
Milan
Poland
Lower Silesia
Wroclaw
Spain
Catalonia
Barcelona
Sweden
West Sweden
Gothenburg
United Kingdom
Greater Manchester
Manchester
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
80.0
100.0
Agriculture, forestry and fishing
Industry (except construction)
Construction
Wholesale and retail trade; transport; accommodation and food service
activities; information and communication
Financial and insurance activities; real estate activities; professional, scientific
and technical activities; administrative and support service activities
Public administration and defence; compulsory social security; education;
human health and social work activities; arts, entertainment and recreation,
repair of household goods and other services
Source: authors’ elaboration on Eurostat, Regional statistics.
What emerges from the analysis of the structure of employment, however, is that two
regions, namely Catalonia and West Sweden, are characterized by a considerably higher
dependency on industry (26.6% and 26.3% respectively), while low-qualified services
have a heavier weight in Lower Silesia and Rhône-Alpes (31.7% and 29.6%) (see Figure
3). The public sector is instead most relevant, again, in Greater Manchester (35.3%), but
also in Rhône-Alpes (35.5%) and Lombardy (37.7%). Here, it is worth noticing that in
three regions out of six, Lower Silesia, Lombardy and Catalonia, traditional sectors – i.e.
agriculture, industry, construction and low-qualified services – account for a large part of
employment (64.2%, 60.2% and 57.6% in that order).
11
Figure 3. Structure of employment by economic activity (%, 2014)
Rhône-Alpes
Lombardy
Lower Silesia
Catalonia
West Sweden
Greater Manchester
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
80.0
100.0
Agriculture, forestry and fishing
Industry (except construction)
Construction
Wholesale and retail trade; transport; accommodation and food service
activities; information and communication
Financial and insurance activities; real estate activities; professional, scientific
and technical activities; administrative and support service activities
Public administration and defence; compulsory social security; education;
human health and social work activities; arts, entertainment and recreation,
repair of household goods and other services
Source: authors’ elaboration on Eurostat, Regional statistics.
A somewhat contrasting evidence, then, seems to emerge from Figure 4. West Sweden,
Greater Manchester and Rhône-Alpes, in fact, can count on an educated workforce, with
38.8%, 37.6% and 37.1% respectively of employed persons with tertiary education
(ISCED 5-8) and only 16.8%, 22.3% and 19.7% with low education (ISCED 0-2), while
Catalonia has a polarized structure, with 37.0% of workers with tertiary education, but
42.6% with low education. Quite different are the cases of Lower Silesia and Lombardy.
The former, in fact, is characterized by a workforce with medium-level education (ISCED
3-4), which accounts for 64.7% of employment. The latter has instead a low proportion of
educated workforce (17.9%) and, conversely, a high share of workers with low education
(37.9%). Upon closer inspection, this might be explained by the presence in Lombardy of
many local manufacturing systems. That said, low qualification remains, in general, a
matter of concern in the case of Milan and Lombardy, as a potential restraint to growth
and a factor of vulnerability in the regional labour market.
12
Figure 4. Proportion of employed persons by educational attainment level (%, 2014)
Rhône-Alpes
Lombardy
Lower Silesia
Catalonia
West Sweden
Greater Manchester
0.0
20.0
40.0
ISCED level 0-2
60.0
ISCED level 3-4
80.0
100.0
ISCED level 5-8
Glossary:
ISCED level 0-2: pre-primary, primary and lower secondary education.
ISCED level 3-4: upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education.
ISCED level 3-5: tertiary education.
Source: authors’ elaboration on Eurostat, Regional statistics.
If we look at unemployment trends, then, it is to be noted that four regions, namely
Rhône-Alpes, Lombardy, West Sweden and Greater Manchester, have followed similar
pathways, though in the last part of the period the unemployment rate has declined in
Greater Manchester, it has been almost stable in West Sweden, while it has risen in
Rhône-Alpes and Lombardy (see Figure 5). The two remaining regions have followed
quite peculiar, and divergent pathways. Catalonia, specifically, has been hit severely by
the economic crisis, which has led to a sharp increase in the unemployment rate, from
6.5% in 2007 to 23.1% in 2013. At the end of the period, the distance between Catalonia
and the other regions was about 12%. Although it is one of the most dynamic areas in
Spain, thus, Catalonia appears fragile if compared with similar regions in other countries,
especially in terms of inclusion in the labour market. Since EU accession, Lower Silesia
has instead registered a considerable decline in the unemployment rate, which has been
basically stable, nearby 10%, in the period of the crisis. Despite this, unemployment is
still perceived as a crucial issue, so that, for many years, both national and regional policy
makers have committed themselves to fighting unemployment at any cost, which, on the
long run, has raised a problem of political sustainability.
13
Figure 5. Unemployment rate trends (%, 2005-2014)
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
2005
2006
2007
Rhône-Alpes
Lombardy
2008
2009
2010
Lower Silesia
Catalonia
2011
2012
2013
2014
West Sweden
Greater Manchester
Source: Eurostat, Regional statistics.
The above remarks seem to be confirmed by Figure 6, which describes the different
unemployment patterns in the six regions. More in detail, five indicators are considered:
the overall unemployment rate; female unemployment rate; youth unemployment rate,
referred to people from 15 to 24 years of age; the NEET rate, that is the share of people
aged from 15 to 24 years neither in employment nor in education and training; and the
long-term unemployment rate, referred to people who are unemployed since 12 months or
more. Values are expressed as ratios of unemployment rates to the European averages, so
as to better highlight the distinctive features of the identified patterns. Lastly, the figure
outlines a comparison between 2005 and 2014, to appreciate the changes occurred in the
last ten years. The analysis reveals that West Sweden and Rhône-Alpes have had better
performances throughout the period. West Sweden, in particular, has registered the lowest
level of long-term unemployment and has also highlighted an improvement in terms of
youth unemployment and NEET rate. As for Lombardy and Greater Manchester, they are
both in a worse state today than ten years ago, though the former is more clearly characterized as a youth unemployment model, with a high incidence of discouraged young
workers. Those of Lower Silesia and Catalonia are, again, mirror situations. The values
registered by Lower Silesia, in fact, were far above the European average at the beginning
of the period, but are now around the average. Quite the opposite for Catalonia.
14
Figure 6. Unemployment patterns (ratios of unemployment rates to the EU28 averages, 2005 and 2014)
a) Rhône-Alpes
b) Lombardy
UR
UR
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
LT_UR
F_UR
LT_UR
Y_UR
NEET_R
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
Y_UR
NEET_R
c) Lower Silesia
d) Catalonia
UR
UR
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
LT_UR
F_UR
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
LT_UR
Y_UR
NEET_R
F_UR
F_UR
Y_UR
NEET_R
e) West Sweden
f) Greater Manchester
UR
UR
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
LT_UR
NEET_R
F_UR
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
LT_UR
Y_UR
NEET_R
2005
F_UR
Y_UR
2014
Legend:
UR: unemployment rate, as a percentage of people 15 years old or over.
F_UR: female unemployment rate, as a percentage of people 15 years old or over.
Y_UR: youth unemployment rate (people from 15 to 24 years old), as a percentage of people 15 years old or over.
NEET_R: NEET rate (young people neither in employment nor in education and training), as a percentage of people from
15 to 24 years old.
LT_UR: long-term unemployment rate (12 months or more), as a percentage of active population.
Note: value 1.0 indicates that the unemployment rate is equal to the EU28 average, while values below 1.0 indicate that it
is lower and values above 1.0 indicate that it is higher.
Source: authors’ elaboration on Eurostat, Regional statistics.
15
To sum up, the six cases can be linked to distinctive growth models, with different
mixes of economic competitiveness and social cohesion, here understood, in a narrow
sense, in terms of inclusion in the labour market (see Figure 7). Furthermore, in some
cases a “country-effect” is clearly recognizable, while in other the selected regions and
cities stand out as peculiar cases within the national contexts.
Figure 7. Gross domestic product per inhabitant and unemployment rate (last available data)
50,000.00
GDP per inhabitant (in PPS)
Milan
45,000.00
40,000.00
Lyon
Lombardy
35,000.00
Sweden
West Sweden Gothenburg
UK
France
Rhône-Alpes
30,000.00
25,000.00
Greater Manchester
Wroclaw
20,000.00
Manchester
Barcelona
Catalonia
EU28 average
Italy
Spain
Lower Silesia
Poland
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0 20.0 22.0 24.0
Unemployment rate
Country
Region
Metropolitan region
Note: last available data refer to 2012 for the GDP and to 2014 for the unemployment rate.
Source: authors’ elaboration on Eurostat, Regional statistics.
The former case is, for instance, that of Catalonia, Lower Silesia and West Sweden.
Catalonia and the city of Barcelona, in effect, are characterized by a higher dynamism if
compared with the whole country, though it is evident that they have suffered from the
effects of the way the crisis has developed in Spain. In this sense, they reveal a serious
problem of exclusion from the labour market, which involves all weak social categories
(see also Table 6, above). Quite the reverse, Lower Silesia and Wroclaw are characterized
by low wealth, despite the high growth rate registered in the period from 2000 to 2010
(OECD 2014), and a low level of exclusion, in line with that of the most dynamic regions.
Wroclaw, however, displays peculiar features, standing out as a competitive centre for
advanced services. This should actually be understood as an expression of a problem of
territorial cohesion. As for West Sweden and Gothenburg, then, they mirror the situation
in the country, displaying a virtuous combination of high wealth and low exclusion.
In the remaining three cases, regions and cities display a peculiar character, compared
with their respective countries. In particular, two cities, Milan and Lyon, and to a lesser
extent their regions, Lombardy and Rhône-Alpes, combine high wealth and relatively low
unemployment. On closer inspection, however, Milan can be properly seen as a global
city, that is interconnected with international markets and characterized by an advanced
16
economy, with a high incidence of high-qualified services (see Ranci 2009; 2010; 2013),
while Lyon maintains to some degree its original industrial character. On the other hand,
the labour market of Lombardy is affected by problems such as the low qualification of
the workforce and a high degree of exclusion of young people, whereas that of RhôneAlpes appears far more inclusive. In Manchester, growth remains a major concern,
though it has undergone a process of reconversion to a post-industrial city, driven by the
expansion of services, particularly financial and professional services (see New Economy
2012). If compared with other metropolitan regions, in fact, Manchester still seems to
suffer from low levels of economic output and to be little connected with globalization
processes. In this sense, it seems to suffer the leading role of the capital city, London, in
attracting investments and human capital, just like Lyon with Paris.
Generally speaking, some regions more than others seem to have put in place effective
policies in order to fight social exclusion and counterbalance the effects of the economic
and occupational crises (see again Figure 6, above). This means that, despite a certain
convergence towards the downsizing of welfare systems, as a consequence of austerity
measures, welfare policies still play a crucial role in protecting people from exclusion and
poverty; furthermore, welfare regimes still can contribute to explain the differences in
policy outcomes among countries and regions. It is, instead, less clear what role the actors
of industrial relations play in influencing the making and implementation of labour and
social policies. This, of course, largely depends upon diverse state traditions in industrial
relations, but is also influenced by other factors, such as the structure of production, the
economic situation and governments’ political orientations.
As such, the character of industrial relations sometimes varies significantly at the subnational level, so that regional “styles” of industrial relations can be identified. This is,
for instance, the case of Lombardy, where the specific features of the productive system
have led to the development of relatively strong interest organizations, generally oriented
to cooperation, and to the institutionalization of concertation (Ballarino 2006). As for
Lower Silesia, due to its economic structure and to the weight of productive sectors that
are more permeable to trade union action, it is one of the Polish regions with a higher union membership rate (GUS 2015), though within a context of generalized weakness of industrial relations (Mrozowicki, Czarzasty and Gajewska 2010; Czarzasty and Mrozowicki
2014). Although it is only since 2007 that, in France, employers’ associations and trade
unions have an institutionalized role and have started to bargain upon issues relating to
labour market reforms and employment-related topics, decentralization appears a favourable process for social dialogue in Rhône-Alpes, as there is room for the participation of
social partners, also due to the industrial tradition of the region. In Catalonia, on the contrary, the institutionalized character of social dialogue has been undermined during the
last years, as a consequence of the economic crisis and the emergence of new actors. The
role of trade unions has therefore weakened. Finally, in Gothenburg the longstanding tradition of mutual recognition and dialogue in employment-related matters continues to be
rooted in the local context, since the city was one of the Scandinavian’s leading industrial
cities during the breakthrough of industrial capitalism.
With the above in mind, this report attempts to answer the question whether regional
and local actors of industrial relations play a relevant role, and, if yes, what kind of role,
in the field of labour policies, by conveying (or not) the rhetoric about active inclusion,
influencing the policy making process, and/or enhancing the coordination between the
actors themselves and between policies.
17
3. The discourse about active inclusion
Discourse, as defined by Schmidt (2002, p. 210), «consists of whatever policy actors
say to one another and to the public in their efforts to generate and legitimize a policy
programme». As such, it encompasses «a set of policy ideas and values and an interactive
process of policy construction and communication» (Ibid.). And, again, «in its ideational
dimension, discourse performs both a cognitive function, by elaborating on the logic and
necessity of a policy programme, and a normative function, by demonstrating the policy
programme’s appropriateness through appeal to national values» (Ibid.).
Here, we focus on the “political” discourse, understood in a narrow sense, referring to
its formal outputs. In particular, a number of official documents – such as strategic plans,
pacts, collective agreements, or even accompanying documents – have been considered in
order to isolate the key concepts that concur to “construct” an idea of active inclusion and
that provide the guiding principles for its implementation. Based on in-depth interviews
with key informants, the analysis then attempts to identify the positions of the actors of
industrial relations and the role they have played in legitimizing or contrasting such ideas.
In general, the first evidence is that any explicit mention to the AIS has emerged from
the analysis of documents, nor from the interviews carried out at the sub-national level, in
none of the selected cases. “Active inclusion”, in effect, is not a concept in use among the
relevant actors at this level, though the key informants often referred to “activation” and
“inclusion”, separately, as policy priorities. However, in at least four cases, a common
vocabulary can be identified, which reflects the Commission’s rhetoric.
In Gothenburg, Rhône-Alpes, Lombardy and Catalonia, in particular, the discourse in
the fields of labour and social policies is clearly focused on “persons”, based on the rhetoric about the “centrality of” or “attention to” persons, which is supposed to translate into a
“personalized” support and “tailor-made” programmes or services (see Table 3, below).
Nevertheless, some substantial dissimilarities can also be identified, which might be seen
as associated with different approaches to what can be labelled as active inclusion.
One of the most debated issues in the Swedish public sphere concerns the necessity of
defending the encompassing and redistributive income security and universalistic model
of activation, in contrast to the selective models of activation (Johansson and Hvinden
2007). The long tradition of active inclusion policies in Sweden, which is one of the main
strategies through which the government have pursued the aim of social inclusion, has
always privileged active instead of passive policies. The country has also had for a long
period a “work strategy” which entailed that no person «should be granted long-term public income support until all possibility of making the person self-sufficient through employment had been exhausted» (Drøpping, Hvinden and Vik 1999: 136). However, the
growing emphasis on the link between income security and employment promotion has
brought activation issues at the centre of the public and political discourse. Despite this,
the debate is far from the EU recommendations and priorities on active inclusion policies,
which are considered less effective compared to the Swedish welfare system. At the local
level, the discourse about activation policies is more related to the twofold goal of the
municipal action: activation policies are implemented by the local government in order to
enhance individuals’ skills and educational levels and increase their chances in the labour
market, but this aim is also strongly linked to the need for reduction of passivity and dependency on social assistance (Thorén 2008). In Gothenburg, the narratives around activation that emerge from the local policy orientation consider unemployment and the de-
18
pendency on social assistance a social problem, that (first) the national and (secondly) the
local governments have to address. Although this problem is not perceived as “rooted in
the individual”, the discourse is also oriented toward individual behavioural changes. The
social construction of unemployment and of dependency on social assistance, however, is
contextualized in a broader framework, which refers to universalistic principles of equity,
social cohesion, social and human rights, shared by local trade unions and policy makers.
Some ambiguities and contradictions emerge from the combination of the ideals of “equal
and good society”, “socially sustainable city” and the goal of “combating exclusion”, on
the one hand, and the municipal scope and pragmatic objective of “shortening the way to
self-sufficiency for newly arrived people”, on the other. This latter is aimed at unburdening the dependency on social assistance, based on the general idea that everyone, if given
proper support, can find a job (Halleröd 2012). This tendency, which has been reinforced
in recent years by the challenge to the welfare system, due to the record number of asylum applicants, is nevertheless in line with the national policy set up since the beginning
of the 2000s. Sweden has implemented strong activation principles not only in the unemployment insurance but also in social assistance. Stricter eligibility criteria as well as
sanctions have also been introduced (Bengtsson and Jacobsson 2013).
These values based on a collective responsibility of unemployment are shared also in
the case of Rhône-Alpes. Here, the discourse is centred on the cleavage between insiders
and outsiders. Hence, much attention is paid to improving inclusion in the labour market
and fighting poverty, with a great emphasis on personalized paths of education and training (à chacun sa formation). The basic idea is that welfare policies support individuals in
the process of social integration, in the prospect of a “joint responsibility” (un destin à
partager) between service suppliers and users (Allies and MDEF 2015).
In Catalonia, instead, the focus is on “inclusion”, even more as a multi-dimensional
concept, which goes beyond merely economic aspects, addressing marginalized and vulnerable groups. Since the Spanish context has suffered the crisis more than France and
Sweden, here particular attention is given to individuals with multiple disadvantages and
at high risk of poverty (Ajuntament de Barcelona 2013).
In these three contexts, social partners are involved in the public debate on activation
policies. Nevertheless, while the employers’ representatives support activation measures
set-up by local governments, trade unions discuss about the tendency from a “life-first” to
a “work-first” approach. Activation is considered a particular way of “governing human
beings”, made of assumptions of individual agency, responsibility, and capacity (Dean
2003). Unions tend to support a life-first approach as a holistic system which focuses on
the entire life situation of the unemployed and entails a less coercive and more supportive
activation. This model can also imply that only in a second phase it intervenes to increasing chances of getting into the regular labour market. The work-first approach is criticized since it tends to consider jobs as the only priority and as an obligation. In all these
countries, unions criticize the national policies over the last decades, which reinforced incentives to work and decreased spending on active (as well as passive) policies.
Rather different is the case of Lombardy, since the concept of “centrality of the person”
is linked to that of “freedom of choice”, which means that individuals can freely choose
among a catalogue of service suppliers accredited by the regional government, in a regime of equity between public and private providers, what has been defined as a “quasimarket” approach to welfare policies (see Sabatinelli and Villa 2011a; 2011b; and, on the
concept of quasi-market, see above all Bartlett and Le Grand 1993). These are the ideas
19
underlying the so-called Dote Unica Lavoro (DUL), the system of employment services
adopted by the Lombardy Region. Nevertheless, they are part of a complex conceptual
architecture, which assumes some of the Commission’s fundamental concepts, such as
“subsidiarity” and “multi-level governance”, and on the other hand draws inspiration
from a business-like rhetoric, assuming as guiding principles those of “administrative
simplification”, “efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure”, “goal-oriented services” and “public-private co-financing”. The political discourse, thus, designs a model,
so-called Lombardy Model, based on three elements: personalized services, whereby individuals are given responsibility and are expected to activate themselves; a system of
service delivery based on the “competition” (so written in the Guidelines for the implementation of DUL, though some key informants prefer to speak of “integration”) between
public and private providers, which is supposed to guarantee the freedom of choice and to
improve the quality of services; and a centralized, but “participative” governance, with
the regional government playing a pivotal role, but sharing the responsibility with local
authorities, social partners and accredited providers. As such, in effect, this model seems
to be the result of a process of “hybridization”, evolving towards an individualized and
marketized system, in many respects closer to the British model, but putting a stronger
accent on public employment services (PES), and maintaining its participative character.
This model, in fact, seems to be sustained by a shared vision between the regional government and social partners, though a part of trade unions is more critical towards the
quasi-market approach and would prefer to assign a pivotal role to public providers.
Cases apart are Lower Silesia and Greater Manchester.
Regarding Lower Silesia, the analysis has helped to identify some trends, which seem
to indicate a convergence towards the Commission’s rhetoric. These are based on a set of
key concepts used in the Regional Action Plan for Employment, which is the main tool
for strategic planning in the field of labour policies at the sub-national level, in Poland
(see, for instance, that of 2014). What emerges from the analysis is, in fact: a strong reference to the concept of “flexicurity”, as mainstream approach to labour policies on the
whole; a great emphasis on “activation”, both as a policy priority and a guiding principle
for active labour market policies (ALMPs); an allusion to the “quality” of employment,
basically in the sense of improving the workers’ skills to meet the employers’ needs; an
increasing attention to the “efficiency” of PES and in the use of both European and national funds, as critical factors affecting the “effectiveness” of policies; and, last, a call to
“cooperation”, in the dual (and fairly ambiguous) sense of enhancing the relationship between public and private providers, and of creating local partnerships with social and civil-society actors. From a critical point of view, however, this set of concepts seems to
translate into non-specific objectives and policy guidelines. What is more, the growth of
temporary employment and the increasing precariousness appear to be underestimated,
the issue of quality of employment is not adequately developed, and it is not clear what
kind of balance will be pursued between public and private institutions in the long run.
What is worth noticing, here, is that social partners also refer to the Plan as a basis for
their analyses of the regional labour market and to discuss about priorities, target groups
and policy guidelines. This document, therefore, seems to be sustained by a shared vision
between relevant stakeholders. Social partners themselves, however, put great emphasis
on social dialogue as a means for communicating this vision and creating consensus on it,
even more than for influencing policies.
As for Greater Manchester, then, radically different focuses can be identified. The GM
Strategy, specifically, draws the attention on two primary issues, namely “growth” and
20
“reform”, understood as economic growth and reform of public services, in the prospect
of achieving the long-term goal of becoming «a net contributor to the public finances»
(GMCA and AGMA 2013: 55). The emphasis on growth, in effect, permeates the political discourse as a pillar of the rhetoric about Manchester as «one of the most successful
cities in the UK» that wants to become «one of the most successful cities in the world»
(Ibid. 21). From this perspective, “worklessness” – a term frequently used in place of
“unemployment”, which nevertheless has a broader meaning, since it includes people
who are unemployed and people who are economically inactive – and “low skills” are
seen as major challenges, being considered as concurrent causes of the productivity gap
between the city region and the UK, and of its dependency on public finances. In this
sense, attention has shifted to: encouraging “self-reliance”, and therefore reducing demand for public services; and increasing skills levels in order to meet the demands of
employers. What emerges is, thus, an employer-based approach to employment and skills,
whereby employers are put “at the heart of the system”. Furthermore, employers are recognized as critical actors, to be involved in policy making through forms of “partnership”,
another key concept used to design a cooperative governance, intended to bring together
the main stakeholders – among which, it is to be noticed, social partners are excluded – to
define a shared set of strategic priorities and develop implementation plans. Collective
actors, such as employers’ associations and trade unions, are marginal actors, as they do
not take part in the construction of the public discourse, what might contribute to explain
the emphasis on growth and the “instrumental” rationality underlying labour policies.
To conclude, the analysis of the discourse has outlined approaches quite different from
each other with regard to their focuses, target groups and modes of governance, which
seem to have a common point in the emphasis put on the dimension of activation and on
the “personalization” of policy measures and services (though in the case of Greater
Manchester we can also speak of “familization”, since policies are often “family-based”).
Further convergences can nevertheless be found. In the cases of Lombardy and Greater
Manchester and, to a growing extent, in that of Lower Silesia, for example, the accent is
put on the enhancement of public-private relationships and on the cooperation between
relevant stakeholders, though the composition of partnerships varies considerably, also
due to the different weight of industrial relations in these regions. On closer inspection,
an influence of the rhetoric of Europe 2020 about growth and employment can be found
in almost all cases, though this is explicit only in the case of Catalonia, where it was the
benchmark for reorienting policies and for introducing medium- to long-term reforms.
On the other hand, a tension exists along the continuum between the “collective” and
“individual” dimensions, with regard to the attribution of responsibility for activation.
Two cases, namely West Sweden and Rhône-Alpes, stand out as being clearly oriented
towards a collective responsibility. In the former case, this actively involves the social
partners and, particularly, trade unions, while, in the latter case, it is an expression of the
strong role played by the state and of the commitment of the state itself to prioritize social
inclusion. At the opposite extreme of the spectrum, Greater Manchester represents the
clearest case of individualized responsibility. The three remaining cases, then, can be
seen as hybridized models, where the accent is increasingly put on the individualization
of responsibility. Furthermore, in Lombardy and Lower Silesia this process is endorsed
by the social partners. A case apart is that of Catalonia, and of Spain on the whole, which
are also moving towards an individualization of responsibility, but with a persistent emphasis on compensatory policies.
Table 3. Key concepts in the discourse about active inclusion
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
Lombardy
and Milan
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Catalonia
and Barcelona
• Personalized support
(parcours personnelle)
• Joint responsibility, between
service suppliers and users
(un destin à partager)
• Professionalization
• Focus on education/training
(à chacun sa formation)
• Centrality of the person
(and freedom of choice)
• Public-private equity
• Subsidiarity
(both vertical and horizontal)
• Multi-level and participative
governance
• Joint responsibility, between
institutional actors
• Flexicurity
• Personalization
(atenció a les persones)
• Activation of the unemployed
• “Inclusion” as a multi• Quality of employment and
dimensional concept, beyond
human capital
the economic dimension
• Effectiveness of PES and in
• Risk-of-poverty emergency
the use of EU funds
(marginalised and vulnerable
• Cooperation between public
groups as specific targets)
and private, but also social
institutions
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
• Equal and good society, and
socially sustainable city
• Combating exclusion
• Shortening the way to selfsufficiency for “newly arrived
people” in order to unburden
the dependency on social
assistance (everyone, if given
proper support, can find a job)
• Growth
• Reform (of public services)
• Worklessness and skills
• Self-reliance
• Partnership
22
4. Policy measures
Despite the political discourse does not include explicit references to active inclusion,
key elements of the AIS can be found in almost all selected cases, in policy plans and
measures adopted by regional and local governments. As we have seen in the previous
section, however, the six regions have developed different sets of concepts, underpinning
distinctive ideas of active inclusion, though with important common points. These are at
the basis of different approaches and traditions to labour and social policies, which have
translated into sets of policy measures, whose combination and contents, as a first step,
seem to be influenced by both structural and contingent factors, such as the role of the
state, institutional decentralization, territorial fragmentation, the number and role of the
relevant actors, in addition to the differential impact of the economic crisis.
In all six cases the state is still a prominent actor, above all in the field of income support, though it plays a greater role in France, where the governance of welfare policies is
strongly centralized. Policy measures are however implemented locally, though in very
different ways. Regarding passive policies, in the six cases they are designed at the central level and put into effect by territorial structures that are part of a national system. A
remarkable exception is represented by the UK, where local delivery partnerships are
built by the central government together with local authorities and third sector organizations. On the other hand, active policies are usually enacted at the sub-national, mostly
regional or metropolitan-levels, though they are often designed at the national level. In
most cases, social partners are not directly involved in the design of policies nor in the
delivery of services. An exception, here, is represented by Sweden, where trade unions
are involved in the management of unemployment insurance funds, while in the French
case they have representatives in a number of bodies dealing with vocational training at
the local level. In the remaining cases, social partners are mostly committed to impact active inclusion influencing policy making through social dialogue or undertaking direct
(either unilateral or joint) actions. This latter is the case of Italy, where employers’ associations and trade unions provide income support, training and other services through the
so-called bilateralità, i.e. joint committees and funds.
Focusing on policies, a higher fragmentation of measures can be found in many countries, though attempts of “reunification” have been made. In Italy, for instance, the institutional architecture seems to have favoured a proliferation of policy measures, though
usually following a principle of subsidiarity, but with some duplicates at the lower levels.
The recent abolition of an intermediate level, represented by the provinces, which were in
charge of the management, on behalf of regional governments, of ALMPs, might be seen
as part of a process of “re-centralization” of labour policies, with a pivotal role assumed
by the central government and a key role played by the regions in implementing policies,
whereas local governments continue to play a basically residual role. The result of the
referendum held in Italy in December 2016, with the rejection by the Italian people of the
constitutional reform promoted by the Renzi government, has nevertheless plunged the
governance of ALMPs into further uncertainty, since the maintenance of the current distribution of competences between state and regions endangers the reform of the PES system undertaken in the framework of the so-called Jobs Act. As for Spain, the regional
government of Catalonia has set up its own version of minimum income, which is anyway supplementary to the national one. Following the model of the French Revenu Minimum d’Insertion (RMI), which is however a national scheme, the general objective of
this regional program is the social inclusion of families with very low or no income.
23
Spain is characterised by regional differences in benefit levels, in the scope of the programs or in the treatment of beneficiaries (i.e. the Basque Country and Navarra offer
slightly higher benefits) and Catalonia differentiates in the treatment depending on the
employability of the individual.
In the case of the UK, instead, a process of “devolution” of functions has enhanced the
role of city regions, what allowed, for instance, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to launch a pilot welfare-to-work programme, intended to be supplementary to the Work Programme. Quite different is the case of Poland, where the set of labour
policies is determined by the Employment Promotion Act (EPA) of 2004 and subsequent
amendments, which is a national law. In France and Sweden, too, labour policies are a
highly centralized policy field, which means that policies are designed by the central government and implemented through the territorial structures of the national Public Employment Service. The region in France and municipalities in Sweden are, however, engaged in activities related to social assistance, but are also responsible for providing support to early school leavers and NEETs. This implies that the local regulation is not a
mere “implementer” of national policies, but have some autonomy on several welfare
provisions and services, which vary from city to city. This configuration, in Sweden, is
the result of a re-centralization occurred in the 2000s, after a process of decentralization
that had transferred the responsibility for activation policies to the municipal level. This
led to the creation of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) and of the Public Employment Service, following a merger between the National and the County Labour Market Boards (see Minas 2011). Re-centralization has, then, involved also the responsibility
for youth unemployment, with the creation of the national Youth Job Programme, and the
integration of migrants.
A further remark must be made about Italy, which is the only country among those
examined still lacking a national minimum income scheme, though at the end of 2015 the
Lombardy Region has introduced the so-called Reddito di autonomia (RdA), which, by
now, is a package of targeted measures with a narrow range of eligible beneficiaries.
Among the strands of the AIS, then, it is to be noted more generally that poor attention
is paid to the promotion of quality jobs. In this sense, the approaches to welfare policies
in the six regions appear strictly mainstream, with some rare exception at the local (i.e.
municipal) level.
If we look more deeply at the functioning of policies, then, a common trend can be
identified in the reinforcement of the principle of “conditionality”, which subordinates the
access to unemployment benefits – and increasingly to other forms of welfare provisions
– to the participation in ALMP programmes (e.g. engaging in job search and participating
in training courses). Conditionality, it is also to be said, has expanded in scope and depth
in the last decade, especially under the impulse of the EU, which introduced stricter rules
for the use of the European Social Funds (ESFs). This has occurred in a context of growing pressures for welfare reform, in the prospect of more efficient and effective, and
therefore less costly public services. In this sense, “conditional” welfare is designed to
encourage people to move into work and reduce demand for services themselves. To be
called into question is, nevertheless, the use of “coercive” instruments to “push” people
into work. As Serrano Pascual (2002: 14) explained, «the activation measures are used as
a way of making the right to social welfare conditional, with those who do not wish to
cooperate being subject to a system of penalties». According to the same author, here is
the «inherent contradiction» of the discourse about activation, since «it seeks to promote
24
individual autonomy and combat dependency, but does so by coercing people on benefit
and workers, thereby restricting their autonomy and freedom to make individual choices»
(Ibid. 15). Differences can be found, however, in the way conditionality is understood as
well as in the strictness of sanctions. Here, a critical role has been played by the social
partners, which, on the one hand, seem to have widely accepted and therefore legitimized
the use (and extension) of conditionality and, on the other, in some cases have influenced
its implementation, negotiating with public authorities the definition of the criteria for the
selection of participants and their profiling. This is, for instance, the case of Lombardy.
There follows an analysis of policy measures enacted at the regional or sub-regional
level, with specific reference to the first two pillars of the AIS.
Adequate income support. As already noticed, passive policy measures are generally
enacted nationally and implemented locally, with the state playing a prominent role in all
selected cases. Nevertheless, even in France, where the governance of welfare policies is
strongly centralized, the weight of regions has gradually increased, due to a series of acts
that, in the last twenty years, have fostered an organized decentralization, through transfers of functions. Income support is therefore regulated through national schemes implemented at the regional, departmental and urban levels. In Poland, too, unemployment
benefits are a national policy, regulated by the EPA, but implemented locally, through the
District Labour Offices. At the opposite extreme, Spain is a highly decentralized country
– the so-called Estado de las autonomías – so that, for instance, autonomous communities
have full competence in the field of social policies, while labour legislation remains an
exclusive competence of the state; with regard to income support schemes that are linked
to activation policies, we thus find a mixture of national and regional legislation. A
somewhat similar situation can be found in Italy, where standard unemployment benefits
are regulated by the state and delivered through the National Institute for Social Insurance
(INPS) and its territorial structures, while a set of exceptional measures supported by the
ESFs, the so-called ammortizzatori sociali in deroga – which extend the coverage of social security to the workers employed in small businesses (with less than 15 employees) –
are implemented through collective agreements between regional governments and social
partners. Also in Sweden, income support is basically a national matter, though municipalities play a much relevant role as last resort support, as we will see later. In the UK, as
previously said, income support schemes, now unified under Universal Credit (UC), are
regulated nationally, once again, but implemented by Local Delivery Partnerships set up
through Delivery Partnership Agreements (DPAs) between central government, local authorities and, conceivably, third sector organizations. Here, it is interesting to notice that
Greater Manchester was designated as a pathfinder, where the programme was introduced
since its initial phase, and that, in the framework of the DPA, the Department for Work
and Pensions (DWP) has commissioned the Manchester City Council to provide several
services.
A list of the main income support schemes enacted and/or implemented at the regional
or sub-regional level in the four areas is reported in Table 4, below. In France, since the
2000s, a re-organisation of the income support system has taken place, associated with a
growing emphasis on activation policies. These are, however, national programmes,
whose analysis is not a purpose of this report (see WP B report). Quite similar are the
cases of Spain and Poland. A distinctive feature of the Polish case is, nevertheless, that
registered unemployed are also entitled to receive a health insurance, which is again paid
by the District Labour Offices. This system has been subjected to criticisms, above all by
labour office officials. According to key informants, in effect, only about 50% of unem-
25
ployed people receive the unemployment benefit, while all of them receive the health insurance; this would produce an unwanted effect, which affects the efficacy of conditionality itself, also due to the low effectiveness of sanctions. What is more, most of people
would not be interested in getting a job, since they are assumed to be already employed in
the broad area of informal economy, but they would be interested in receiving the health
insurance. In Italy, instead, the main examples of passive policies implemented at the regional level are those of Cassa integrazione guadagni in deroga (CIGD) and Mobilità in
deroga, designed to address contingent situations, cases of company crises, restructuring
or re-organization that imply a reduction or suspension of the work activity and dismissals respectively. In the case of Lombardy, specifically, the access to these kinds of
schemes is subordinated to the participation in ALMP programmes within the framework
of DUL, the system of PES adopted by the regional government. Other important initiatives are, then, those concerning the so-called Contratti di solidarietà, providing income
support to workers employed in firms that have agreed a reduction in working hours with
the trade unions, and Anticipazione sociale, which offers fixed-term credit facilities to
those workers who are under CGID or Contratti di solidarietà and are waiting for the
payment of benefits.
Another issue is that of minimum income schemes. Here, five countries out of six
among those under investigation have national programmes. Two of them, namely Spain
and Sweden, have both national and regional or local programmes. As for Italy, an experimental programme has been launched in Lombardy, which, as such, represents a regional
specificity.
Among the countries that have only national programmes, it is to be noticed, these
have recently undergone processes of re-organization, also due to the necessity to face the
impact of the economic crisis. In France, for instance, following the process of decentralization started in 2002, the organization of services has become a local issue, managed by
the departments; local authorities have therefore been vested with responsibility for social
services, but are also entitled to design supplementary ALMPs. A more recent reform has
then modified the delivery system of employment services, with the creation of Pôle emploi, a governmental agency with a widespread network of territorial structures that, since
2009, is also in charge of implementing the Revenue de Solidarité Active (RSA).
In Poland, those who have exhausted their rights to unemployed benefits, provided
that they meet the income criteria of being below the poverty threshold, can instead apply
for social assistance benefits, which, in this sense, represent a form of minimum income.
Although it is a competence of the state, social assistance is delivered by municipalities.
An increasingly important role in this field is, nevertheless, played by the NGOs, which
are frequently designated to implement tasks financed either with public or private funds
(Wóycicka 2009).
Regarding Spain, we could speak of a “dual” system of minimum income. On the one
hand, in fact, there are two complementary national programmes provided by PES: the
Renta Activa de Inserción (RAI), addressed to long-term jobseekers who are 45 years old
or older and have exhausted their unemployment benefits; and the Programa de recualificación profesional de las personas que agoten su protección por desempleo (Prepara),
which is aimed at those who are not entitled to receive other benefits, and ties income
support to the participation in ALMP programmes. On the other hand, there are the programmes promoted by the autonomous communities, which are intended to be supplementary to all other schemes. In the case of Catalonia, particularly, the Programa Inter-
26
departamental de la Renda Mínima d’Inserció (PIRMI) is targeted on residents aged
from 26 to 65, who are not entitled to receive benefits higher than the RMI and are willing to sign a Conveni d’inserció. As a last protection regional scheme, it was expected to
be residual and subsidiary to other forms of social security. Since the development of
minimum income protection here took place in a context of a general trend to limit social
expenditure and increase the responsibility of individuals to actively search for job, the
Spanish regional programs follow the idea of combining subsidies with social integration
actions based on the signature of a contract between the social worker and the recipient.
In Sweden, a national minimum income scheme exists since the early 1980s. Besides,
municipalities are responsible, administratively and financially, for “last-resort” income
support, which is a form of means-tested social assistance. Activation programmes for
social assistance recipients have been developed by the municipalities since the 1990s as
a response to the increasing expenditure in social assistance. With the Social Service Act,
municipalities received considerable freedom to design and implement their own policies
and to tie activation requirements to social assistance benefits: «the specific construction
of the act gives municipalities and individual social workers extensive discretion in deciding over benefit levels, duration of benefit receipt and demands regarding participation in
activation measures in individual cases» (Minas 2011: 200). Municipalities are, therefore,
allowed to activate uninsured unemployed and economically vulnerable individuals that
may be eligible for social assistance and do not qualify for unemployment benefits, or only receive a lower benefit from the basic unemployment insurance. Since the policies run
by the municipalities, and the governance structures by which they are implemented, may
differ considerably from one another, some scholars speak of “local systems of activation” (Garsten, Hollertz and Jacobsson 2013).
Lastly, a mention must be made about the experience of the Lombardy Region, which
has recently introduced the Reddito di autonomia (RdA), a mixed form of one-off payments, vouchers and benefits, intended to cover a wide range of beneficiaries, namely
households, older people, disabled persons and people out of work. Designed as a “package” of measures, under the responsibility of two separate departments of the regional
government, the RdA is now under the coordination of a new-born department, named
Reddito di autonomia e inclusione sociale. Among the several initiatives included in this
package, the Progetto di Inserimento Lavorativo (PIL), addressed to long-term unemployed (since more than 3 years) who have a low-income and are not entitled to receive
other benefits, ties the payment of a six-months benefit to the participation in ALMP programmes within the framework of DUL. To be thorough, it is to be noticed that the RdA,
in its experimental phase, had a very limited application, having reached 17,000 out of
548,000 households that met the requirements, while the PIL, specifically, has reached
only 269 out of 5,000 potential beneficiaries, what has prompted the regional government
to engage in further dialogue with the social partners (see Ravizza 2016).
What is to be underlined, here, is that in all six case-studies there are mechanisms that
tie minimum income schemes to activation policies, with an increasing extension of the
principle of conditionality to welfare policies overall. What is more, this phenomenon is
generally associated with a diminution of the duration and coverage of single income
support schemes, though somewhat complemented by a segmentation (or fragmentation)
of measures at the regional and local levels. This raises questions above the capacity of
the potential beneficiaries to orient themselves within welfare systems that are more and
more individualized, but also about the efficacy of these kinds of policies in less dynamic
regions, where activation is not so easy to achieve. On the other hand, it often reveals a
27
certain “pragmatism” of sub-national actors, included the actors of industrial relations,
which are prompted to accept conditionality and to implement it, sometimes in a ritualistic manner, in order to use the ESFs. Trade unions, particularly, but also the associations
of small businesses, have a strong commitment in fostering the use of the ESFs, in order
to finance both standard and exceptional measures and, therefore, pursue the interests of
their (either actual or potential) members.
In general, the involvement of social partners in the management of unemployment
benefit systems is restrained, except for the Swedish case. Their room for manoeuvre in
this field, in effect, is very narrow, also because these kinds of policies are normally designed at the national level and implemented by public authorities. That said, regional and
local actors of industrial relations seem to suffer the distance from the centre of decision
making. This prompt them to adopt pragmatic strategies, mainly aimed at influencing the
implementation of policies.
Table 4. “Adequate income support”: policy measures enacted and/or implemented at regional or sub-regional level
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
Lombardy
and Milan
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Catalonia
and Barcelona
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
a) Unemployment
benefits
• [National level]
• Cassa integrazione
guadagni in deroga*
• Mobilità in deroga*
• Anticipazione sociale**
• Contratti di solidarietà
difensiva**
• Sostegno contratti di
solidarietà**
• Unemployment benefits* • Prestación por
desempleo*
• Health insurance*
• [National level]
• Universal Credit*
(it replaced the
Jobseeker’s Allowance)
b) Family and child
benefits
• [National level]
• Reddito di Autonomia** • Social assistance benefits* • [National level]
- Esenzione “superticket” • Family benefits
- Bonus bebè (one-off)
- Bonus affitti (one-off)
• Piano anticrisi***
- Aiuti a famiglie (one-off)
• [National level]
• Universal Credit*
(it replace the Child Tax
Credit)
c) Pensions
• [National level]
• Reddito di Autonomia**
- Assegno per anziani
(voucher)
• Pre-retirement benefits*
• [National level]
• [National level]
d) Disability benefits
• [National level]
• Reddito di Autonomia**
- Assegno per disabili
(voucher)
• Social assistance benefits* • Pensión no contributiva
• Permanent benefits (age or por invalidez**
disability)
• [National level]
• Universal Credit*
(it replaced the
Employment and Support
Allowance)
e) Minimum income
schemes
• [National level]
• Reddito di Autonomia** • Social assistance benefits* • Programa
interdepartamental de la
- Progetto di Inserimento
- Periodical benefits
renda mínima de
Lavorativo (participation
(joblessness)
inserció**
benefit)
- Targeted benefits
(indispensable needs)
• Anti-crisis package*
• [National level]
• “Last-resort” income
support programmes
(means-tested social
assistance)****
• Universal Credit*
(it replaced Housing
Benefit, Working Tax
Credit, Income Support)
• Welfare Provision
Scheme****
Notes:
* National level, but implemented at regional or sub-regional level.
** Regional level.
*** Sub-regional level (intermediate level, municipalities are excluded).
**** Local level (municipality or below).
Italic: policy measures that are not active anymore.
• [National level]
29
Inclusive labour markets. More complex is the mosaic of ALMPs. Here, noticeable
differences between the six cases can be observed regarding the model of governance
and, above all, the configuration of service delivery systems. In four cases out of six, in
fact, “one-stop shops”, properly said, i.e. offices offering multiple services, have been set
up at the national level to deliver both income support and employment services: Pôle
emploi, in France; the Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal (SEPE), in Spain; the Public
Employment Services, in Sweden; and Jobcentre Plus (JCP), in the UK. In the case of Poland, District Labour Offices may also be seen as a sort of one-stop-shops, since they are
responsible for registering unemployed people, paying benefits and delivering employment services, though they differ from all other cases as operating under the supervision
of district heads. A case apart is that of Italy, where two distinct public bodies are in
charge of managing passive and active policies, though the coordination between them
has increased in recent years. These are, respectively: INPS, a national institution with an
extensive network of territorial structures; and the so-called Centri per l’Impiego (CpI),
formally belonging to the regional governments and (still) operating on a provincial basis.
Notwithstanding the common element of one-stop shops, which are present in most countries, some peculiar features can be identified in the relationships between the national
and sub-national levels.
As for France, though employment services are clearly a national matter, some ‘territorial’ remarkable initiatives can be found at the regional and local levels, especially in
the field of vocational training. This is the case of the Service Public Régional de la Formation (SPRF) of the Rhône-Alpes Region, which delivers services of information and
guidance on training through a network of partners, such as: the Missions locales (young
people); Cap emploi (disabled persons); Pôle emploi itself; and, at the local level, the
Maison de l’Emploi et de la Formation de Lyon. Public authorities, economic and social
actors, then, participate in the Association lyonnaise pour l’insertion économique et sociale (Allies), which is responsible for drafting, together with the municipality of Lyon,
the Department of Rhône, the Rhône-Alpes Region, and, again, Pôle emploi, the Plan
Local pour l’Insertion et l’Emploi (PLIE). More generally, a process of “territorialisation” of employment and training policies has taken place, after an agreement was signed
between the state and the Rhône-Alpes Region in 2005 and, concurrently, in the framework of its own Plan régional pour l’emploi, the Rhône-Alpes Region itself created the
Contrat Territorial Emploi Formation (CTEF), whose main aim is developing a local
strategy around training with the involvement (and the shared responsibility) of local actors. Notwithstanding the critical role of PES and of Pôle emploi, therefore, a process of
enlargement of the range of actors involved in policy making can be observed at the territorial level.
In Poland, instead, the governance of ALMPs has been subjected to a process of decentralization since 1998, following the reform of territorial administration. Despite this,
policy making still maintains a centralized character (see Kalužná 2009). The primary
source of regulation of ALMPs is again the EPA, as amended in 2014. Then, the Ministry
of Family, Labour and Social Policy is in charge for the regulation and coordination of
PES as well as for the allocation of resources from the Labour Fund. The Regional Labour Office coordinates the design and implementation of policies at the regional level,
and allocates the resources obtained by the Ministry to District Labour Offices, which are
responsible for the delivery of basic employment services. Resources are allocated on the
basis of a given “algorithm”. According to key informants, this “mechanical” approach
poses serious constraints on the capacity of district administrations to face unplanned sit-
30
uations as well as on their long-term planning capacity overall. What is more, District
Labour Offices have not their own policies. In a certain sense, they are thus entitled to
spend money, but not to decide how to spend it. This sort of “governing by algorithms”
also limits the power of social dialogue institutions at the regional level, since they cannot
exert any direct influence on budget creation. In general, though policy making is still
strongly centralized, a high number of actors emerge as relevant players in the field of
ALMPs at the regional and local levels, basically in the phases of policy implementation
and service delivery. They are: Labour Offices, at both the regional and district levels;
private employment agencies; vocational training institutions; social partners; and third
sector organizations. At the local level, municipalities also play a role, though a marginal
one, since they are responsible for the delivery of social services and do not receive any
funds for the implementation of labour policies, but can be involved in the organization
of public works. Besides, in 2009, new institutions called Centres for Labour Activation
have been set up at the district level; these are structures that are formally separated from
District Labour Offices (actually integrated with them), which pursue the aim of focusing
more deeply on activation policies, through ad hoc structures.
Rather different is the situation in Spain, where national and regional employment
services coexist, as a matter of fact “duplicating” the supply of services. In Catalonia, for
instance, the SEPE (Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal) has its regional correlative in the
Servei d’Ocupació de Catalunya (SOC). This is also associated with a lack of coordination between state and autonomous community. According to key informants, however,
the overall supply of public services is paradoxically insufficient to cover the high demand. Interviewees point to the difficulties of the public employment services in providing an effective individualised support in job search, especially for the people further
away from the labour market. In particular, they display the difficulties in the coordination between employment and social services. This opens spaces for other actors, such as
NGOs and third sector associations, which often complement the work of public administrations. Local governments themselves offer their own services. This is the case of
Barcelona activa, a public body that is responsible for promoting local development and,
among other things, aims at designing and implementing, in the form of one-stop shop,
employment policies and services for residents, which was also recognized as a good
practice.
In Italy, instead, PES are organized on a regional basis, though the establishment of
the Agenzia Nazionale per le Politiche Attive del Lavoro (ANPAL) reflects an attempt of
re-centralization of ALMPs. ANPAL is, in fact, a state agency, belonging directly to the
Ministry of Labour and Social Policies and supported by INPS, INAIL and all accredited
providers of public services. Through this agency, the central government thus resumes a
role of coordination of the management of activation policies and employment services,
which involves the following responsibilities: regulating workers’ profiling; determining
minimum standards for services; coordinating the programmes co-financed through the
ESFs and other EU funds; and monitoring the activity of the fondi interprofessionali and
other joint funds. Furthermore, ANPAL is in charge for the regulation of the functioning
of the so-called Assegno di ricollocazione, an ALMP measure addressed to those who are
on unemployment benefits (NASPI) for more than four months. The future of ANPAL
and of the arrangement of PES designed by the recent reform of the labour market, that is
the Jobs Act, is nevertheless uncertain, due to the result of the constitutional referendum
and the subsequent maintenance of the current institutional order, which gives the regions
jurisdiction over ALMPs. The organization of PES, therefore, continues to maintain its
31
regional specificities. In Lombardy, for example, PES are based on the DUL system, an
advanced mechanism that pursues a better integration between passive and active labour
policies and has job placement as its core business. The so-called Dote Unica Lavoro is
an evolution of the Sistema dotale, which originally included three different tools addressed to specific policy areas (disabled persons, training, employment). It was adopted
in 2013 to overcome the fragmentation of ALMPs, and to design a flexible system. Its
fulcrum is indeed the concept of dote (literally, “dowry”), that is an entitlement with a
variable financial value, depending on the profiles of the eligible beneficiaries (i.e. their
positioning in a scale of “help intensity”, from 1 to 4, where 1 indicates “low help intensity” and 4 “other needs”), which can be spent to “purchase” (public) services delivered by
(either public or private) providers accredited by the regional government. The functioning of this mechanism is intended to be granted by a system of incentives and disincentives for providers, which can claim payments after the “dowry holders” find employment
(goal orientation), but are paid in proportion to the level of “help intensity” (payment-byresult). Very important, through the DUL mechanism, the Lombardy Region established
a regime of full equity between public and private providers. According to key informants, the main strong point of this system is its territorial coverage, ensured by a high
number of service suppliers; the other side of the coin is the lack of coordination between
them. At the end of 2014, in fact, accredited providers were 188 with 765 territorial structures (of which 201 in Milan) in the area of employment services, and 596 with 865 territorial structures (307 in Milan) in that of vocational training (source of data: Regione
Lombardia 2015). Among them, the Agenzia per la Formazione, l’Orientamento e il Lavoro (AFOL), a public company owned by the metropolitan city of Milan and 22 municipalities, which oversees the management of the CpI in the metropolitan area, has been
recognized by the Minister as a good practice. Here, it is to be noticed, some questions
arise concerning: the capacity of individuals, particularly those with “high help intensity”
and feasibly a low cultural capital, to orient themselves within such a complex system;
the effectiveness of sanctions in discouraging unfair practices whereby the providers
avoid taking on responsibility of the most disadvantaged (and less employable); more
generally, the efficacy of the system in reducing labour market segmentation, and the
transferability of this model to other, less developed and less dynamic, regions. Here, it is
to be noticed that social partners, particularly trade unions, have played a key role in negotiating with the regional government the definition and adjustment, for instance, of users’ profiles, based on the scale of help intensity. Similarly, they are now pushing for a
revision of the rewarding system (the so-called premialità), in order to incentivize service
providers to take responsibility for those with complex needs, trying to make the DUL
system more fair and effective.
In the Swedish case, too, the Public Employment Service is organized on a national
basis. At the municipal level, however, several bodies have been created that address
those groups excluded from the labour market. In Gothenburg, specifically, the Labour
Market and Adult Education Committee has been set up in 2014 in order to coordinate
the different actors involved in the governance of labour policies, namely the Municipality, City Districts and PES. The territorial structures of PES, however, maintain their role
in the implementation of national labour policies, with specific regard to matching labour
demand and supply, and to activating insured and uninsured unemployed persons. For
these purposes, PES rely on their organizational structure and, partly, on “complementary
actors”, basically private actors, which provide them with additional skills or experience.
The action of the municipality supplements national policies with initiatives intended to
create opportunities and to contribute to the functioning of the local labour market for
32
jobseekers and for employers, especially for individuals who are dependent on income
support. These initiatives are frequently run in close cooperation with PES, though at the
municipal level we found practices of implementation of state- induced policies, where
the meaning of “activation” is mediated through established local practices. In Gothenburg, particularly, the issue of trust between the actors involved and the confidence in
public services are underlined, together with the shared responsibility for collective wellbeing and the aim of investing in people’s capacities. “Creating the preconditions for
work” and facilitating the entry into the labour market is the so-called “focus area”, on
which the Gothenburg City is willing to invest.
The UK, finally, represents a further model. JCP, a former executive agency that is
now part of the DWP, is its centre of gravity, as it plays the dual role of administering
working-age benefits and providing PES for the unemployed. For the latter purpose, it
avails itself of an extensive network of Jobcentres (on the evolution of the role of JCP in
the reformed welfare system of the UK, see House of Commons 2014). The system of
service delivery is, however, segmented. Longer-term unemployed claimants (for 12
months or more), who receive support under the Work Programme, are in fact referred to
externally contracted providers. In the case of Greater Manchester, these are three private
companies, i.e. Avanta (rebranded PeoplePlus), G4S and Seetec. In Greater Manchester,
again, those who have completed two years on the Work Programme without moving into
work will move onto Working Well, a programme designed and jointly funded by the
GMCA and the DWP, which have commissioned Big Life, a group of social businesses
and charities, to deliver services. Individuals (or families) with multiple complex needs,
then, are referred into Troubled Families or Complex Dependency, which are respectively
a governmental programme and a programme co-designed by the GMCA and the DWP
that have developed in a synergic manner and can count on a network of delivery partners, among which there are local authorities (covering education, health and public security) in addition to voluntary and community sector organizations, and JCP itself. Therefore, it is a “stratified” system, within which a plurality of service providers (quite different from each other, by nature) deal with different levels of need, though in the framework of an increased inter-institutional cooperation, above all between the GMCA and
the DWP.
With regard to the policy measures aimed at making labour markets more inclusive, a
list is reported in Table 5, below. Space will not allow a detailed analysis. What is worth
noticing, here, is that in all six cases we find a great emphasis on (re-)employment and
training, as two main policy issues for sub-national governments and core activities of
employment services, which are generally delivered at either regional or local level. This
has implied, particularly in France, Sweden and the UK, the creation of bodies aimed at
supporting the development of strategic plans or favouring coordination around skills and
employment. This is the case of the already mentioned Allies in Lyon, of the Labour
Market and Adult Education Committee in Gothenburg and of the Skills and Employment Partnership (SEP) in Greater Manchester. Targeted measures can be found as well.
In Rhône-Alpes, for instance, Action Orientation Formation (AOF) is addressed to young
people, while Pass reconversion targets older people, disabled persons and women. Similarly, in Catalonia there is a Programa joves per l’ocupació, for young people, and a
Programa personalitzat per a la recerca de feina (Proper), for unemployed people or
people at risk of exclusion. More complex is the case of Gothenburg, where the focus is
on up-skilling. The Committee is, in fact, trying to develop an “incremental” job strategy
and a “knowledge lift”. Here, the priorities are reducing unemployment, especially among
33
young people and unemployed parents, combating child poverty, and shortening the way
to self-sufficiency and an active working life for newly arrived people. Specific policies
addressed to these targets are financed by the ESFs, which, as such, complement the
measures managed by PES and those managed by the municipality. In this context, trade
unions are identified by the Committee as privileged interlocutors, besides the employers.
What is more, a pilot project has been set up, in 2016, to address the rising issue of the
integration of asylum seekers. This is managed by the Committee and PES, with the involvement of district administrations, trade unions and employers, but also civil society
and students’ organisations, which are expected to play an active role.
As for Lombardy, some contingent (experimental) initiatives have been undertaken to
face the consequences of the economic and occupational crises, after 2008, above all at
the sub-regional level. This was the case of the so-called Progetto RicollocaMI, addressed
to the beneficiaries of exceptional measures (Mobilità) and to unemployed people, which
was designed and implemented by social partners, together with the former Province of
Milan and both public and private service providers. Other initiatives, intended to be subsidiary and aimed at the most disadvantaged, have been promoted by the Municipality of
Milan, e.g. Borse lavoro (guided internships, publicly funded) and Gruppi di auto- mutuo-aiuto (self-help groups, organized jointly with the trade unions).
In the UK and Greater Manchester, as we have seen, these are instead the pillars of the
major institutional programmes for unemployed people, i.e. the Work Programme and
Working Well. What is more, a special attention is dedicated to those with complex needs
(see Troubled Families and Complex Dependency), and those with temporary disabilities
due to sickness or ill-health (Fit for Work Pilot) or with mental health problems (Mental
Health and Employment Pilot). In Poland, instead, paid internships and programmes supporting business creation emerge as the most important and effective (in terms of number
of participants) policies, though with substantial differences in outcomes within Lower
Silesia. PES in the region are also reported as a good practice, though, according to key
informants, a professionalization or, at least, a better training of operators would be needed to respond more adequately to the specific demands of employers. Concerning business creation, specifically, unilateral (and uncoordinated) actions carried out by employers’ associations can also be found.
Another common trend is that of recurring to tax incentives for businesses to support
employment creation (or retention). Examples can be found in France, with the creation
of the so-called Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS) and Zones Franches Urbaines (ZFU),
which are districts that are recognized as suffering from high levels of unemployment and
exclusion, where small businesses can receive tax and contributory incentives for 5 years
(27 ZUS and 4 ZFU have been established in Grand Lyon). A similar policy can be found
in Poland. Established in 1994 in areas with structural unemployment and undergoing industrial restructuring, the so-called Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are zones located in
the proximity of larger cities, which offer preferential conditions (e.g. tax exemptions) for
conducting business (OECD 2008). As such, they have attracted growing foreign investments in manufacturing, especially automotive and electronics (see Hajduga 2014). In
Lower Silesia, these are the areas of Kamienna Góra, Legnica, Tarnobrzeska, and
Wałbrzych. Among the main investors in the region, there are two major car manufacturers, Volkswagen and Toyota, and other important multinational companies active in the
metalworking sector or in electronics, such as Electrolux and LG (for a more detailed list,
see KPMG 2014). Examples of specific policies can then be found, again, in Lower Silesia (i.e. one-off funds to take up economic activity and reimbursements of costs of equip-
34
ping or retrofitting the workplace), but also in Lombardy (included in the anti-crisis packages adopted by the municipality of Milan), and in Greater Manchester (i.e. the Tax Incentive Pilot). An interesting experience, inasmuch as it is not linked to a mainstream approach to ALMPs and as it is addressed to high-qualified workers, is instead that of those
measures enacted and funded, again, by the Municipality of Milan for the promotion of
co-working through incentives for both service providers (co-working spaces) and users
(co-workers).
Lastly, two more general trends can be identified. Most of the initiatives examined, in
fact, refer to the principles of “personalization” and “tailoring” of services, and on the
other hand follow a “welfare-to-work” logic, whereby all those that have the potential to
work must be helped to move into employment, above all in the prospect of reducing the
number of benefit claimants, though this is still far more accentuated in the case of the
UK. A convergence in the design of policies and their underpinning principles, however,
can be observed between the cases of Greater Manchester and Lombardy with regard to
the segmentation of population in different cohorts on the basis of the level of need, and
to the recourse to the payment-by-result mechanism. Examples of these kinds can, in fact,
be found in the British Complex Dependency and Working Well, and in the Italian DUL.
In Gothenburg, a Competence Centre, aimed at tailored interventions for individuals who
do not find suitable social services in their districts or need additional support to get a job
or training, has been set up in 2015 in cooperation with the Public Employment Service
and the business community. Interventions based on the needs of participants, such as
coaching, guidance and counselling, matching to work, practice and skills training, are
thus offered.
Table 5. “Inclusive labour markets”: policy measures enacted and/or implemented at the regional or sub-regional level
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
a) Making it easier for • Action Orientation
people to join (or re- Formation**
join) the workforce • Centre de formation
d’apprentis**
• Contrat d’aide et de retour
à l’emploi durable**
• Écoles de la 2e chance**
• Pass reconversion**
b) Removing
disincentives
to work
Lombardy
and Milan
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
• Dote Unica Lavoro**
• Basic employment
(employment services)
services*
- Job placement
• Ponte generazionale**
- Counselling and
• Progetto RicollocaMI***
guidance
• Borse lavoro****
- Assistance in active
• Gruppi di auto-mutuojob search
aiuto****
- Organization of
• Job club****
training
• Training of adults*
• Intervention works*
• Paid internships*
• Public works*
• Special programmes**
Catalonia
and Barcelona
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
• Programa joves per
l’ocupació**
• Plataforma empresaocupació****
• Programa personalitzat
per a la recerca de
feina****
• Employment assistance
(matching, placement
services, job counselling),
upskilling through jobrelated vocational training
and occupations*
• Work Programme*
• Work Clubs*
• Troubled Families*
• Complex Dependency***
• Working Well***
• Fit for Work (out of work)
Pilot***
• Mental Health and
Employment Pilot***
• Garantie jeunes*
• Garanzia giovani*
• One-off funds to take up • Garantia juvenil*
• Job and Development
economic activity*
• Zones Urbaines
• Pacchetto anticrisi****
• Programa d’inclusió social Programme*
• Reimbursement of costs of i laboral****
• Youth Job Programme*
Sensibles*
- Bando far Impresa
equipping or retrofitting • Programa treball als
• Zones Franches Urbaines* - Sostegno a occupazione
the workplace*
(tax incentives)
barris****
- Stage di qualità
- Microcredito
• Misure in favore del
co-working****
c) Promoting quality
• Fonds régional pour
• Azioni di sostegno
jobs and preventing
l’emploi en Rhôneall’occupabilità per il
in-work poverty
Alpes**
contrasto alla crisi***
• iDéclic solidaire projets**
Notes:
* National level, but implemented at regional or sub-regional level.
** Regional level.
*** Sub-regional level (intermediate level, municipalities are excluded).
**** Local level (municipality or below).
Italic: policy measures that are not active anymore.
• Incentives to the
development of social
enterprises and
cooperative work***
• Youth Contract*
• Apprenticeship Hub***
• Tax Incentive Pilot***
• Fit for Work (in work)
Service***
36
5. Actors and methods of regulation
The analysis of policy measures has revealed some important aspects pertaining to the
roles played by the main actors in the process of policy making. Besides, it allows to
identify some common patterns as well as trends of both convergence and divergence.
First of all, it is noteworthy that, in almost all selected cases, the state plays a prominent role, though the regional government is a key actor, above all in the field of ALMPs.
Furthermore, trends towards the re-centralization of labour policies can also be observed,
but this is generally compatible with a consolidation of the role of regions. In effect, these
two processes seem to develop in parallel, with no apparent contradiction. Differences
between the six cases can nevertheless be identified (see Table 6, below). Regarding the
French case, for instance, the state is dominant, also at the territorial level, though the regional government and local authorities play a relevant role, especially in the field of vocational guidance and training, and in the delivery of services. In Italy and Spain, the state
is also a prominent actor, but the regional governments have higher degrees of autonomy.
In Spain, particularly, the state and autonomous communities are in competition with
each other, as the duplication of employment services shows. In Italy, instead, the creation of ANPAL reveals the will of the government coalition to exert a stronger coordination of ALMPs. On the other hand, the Lombardy Region has succeeded in preserving its
role and its model of PES, probably due to the strength of its economy and, consequently,
of a stronger bargaining power, but also because the DUL system seems to have inspired
the recent reform of PES enacted at the national level.
Quite different are the Polish, British and Swedish cases. In Poland, the state plays a
crucial role as an employer, a legislator and a mediator (see Eurofound 2015). As already
underlined, labour policies are determined by the national legislation, while the central
government, and specifically the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, allocates
resources from the Labour Fund, and regulates and coordinates PES. At the lower levels,
then, the Regional Labour Office designs and implements regional policies, allocates resources to District Labour Offices and plans the use of the ESFs, while District Labour
Offices, in turn, implement policies at the district level and deliver basic employment
services; municipalities, instead, play a marginal role, since they are not responsible for
the implementation of labour policies, except for public works. In the UK, too, the state is
the most relevant actor in this field, since policy programmes are enacted at the central
level, and DWP and JCP play a pivotal role in their implementation. In Sweden, as already said, labour market policy is a centralized policy area: policies are articulated by
the national government and implemented by the local offices of PES. Municipalities,
however, have autonomy on many welfare provisions and services. Gothenburg municipality is responsible for providing a significant proportion of employment services and
have independent powers of taxation.
The relationship between centre and periphery, in other words the mode of territorial
organization of the state, is likely to affect profoundly the effectiveness of the action of
social partners. A remark must be made, here. As underlined several times, policy making
in this field is mostly centralized, which means that regional and local actors of industrial
relations are far from the centre of decision making and, thus, have a limited possibility to
take part in the design of policies. This is a major issue in a country like Poland, which is
affected by low territorial cohesion, and where specific needs emerge at the district level,
even within the same region. In all countries under investigation, however, national social
partners are likely to play a greater role, even though their involvement in the process of
37
policy making, where not institutionalized, is highly dependent on the political orientation (and on the will) of the government coalitions in charge. The irregular trajectories of
national social dialogue in Poland as well as in Italy and Spain are clear examples. On the
other hand, regional and local social partners have proved to play a relevant role in the
implementation and in the adjustment of policies, as in the case of Lombardy.
A further trend, however, has emerged from the analysis, that is the institutionalization
of metropolitan authorities on the model of city regions. This is the case of Milan, where
the role and functions of the so-called Metropolitan City are nevertheless still unclear,
and of Grand Lyon, which is more active in the promotion of economic development. It
is, above all, the case of the GMCA, which is the top tier administrative body for Greater
Manchester, made up of ten neighbouring local councils, with its own budget to fulfil its
primary task, that is coordinating policies relating to economic development, regeneration
and transport. Here, again, it is to be noticed that the change of institutional architectures,
in some cases, has prompted local actors to rethink their internal organization and reframe
their strategies. In Milan and other Italian cities, for example, trade unions have created
“metropolitan” organizational arrangements. It will take time, however, for the actors to
re-organize social dialogue on a metropolitan basis, also because functions and competences of metropolitan institutions are still in definition.
The role of social partners is, instead, very different from a case to another. In France,
where they have little legitimacy, for example, they are increasingly involved in decision
making, though in a merely formal manner. The strategy of the regional government of
Rhône-Alpes, particularly, is to involve social partners in policy making on employment
and training issues, though only for consultation. Quite similarly, in Lower Silesia, and in
Poland overall, the role of social partners in the field of labour policies remains weak,
since it consists in a slight influence, mostly exerted through institutional bodies and social dialogue committees with extremely limited powers. In Catalonia, then, their relevance has declined since the acute phase of the crisis, and therefore unions play a secondary role in policy making, though they played a relevant role in the past, for instance, in
the promotion of the PIRMI. Furthermore, interviews confirmed the “passive” role of social partners in the making of the recent policy programmes enacted by the local government of Barcelona. Conversely, in Lombardy, social partners emerge as key actors, since
they are involved in policy making, though basically in the phase of policy implementation, through negotiation processes, which have led to formal agreements on a regular basis. In none of the above cases, however, social partners take part in the phases of issue
making and agenda setting. Even where they are involved in negotiation processes with
public authorities – as in Lombardy – these are mostly forms of “pragmatic” negotiation,
aimed at defining the criteria for the implementation of policy measures, whose contents
and guidelines are determined at the national level. Cases apart are those of Manchester
and Gothenburg. In the UK, in fact, social partners are not involved in policy making, nor
in forms of (either formal or informal) dialogue with local authorities. As for trade unions, specifically, their core business is of a conflictual nature and their focus is on the
company level. In the city of Manchester, for instance, they have tried to influence the
policy making from the outside, by campaigning against austerity and public sector cuts,
and by supporting the call for a referendum on devolution. Radically different is the case
of Gothenburg. Here, in fact, social partners are involved in a cooperative model of governance of active inclusion. Although the Public Employment Service is the principal authority in this field, being responsible for drawing up the policies aiming at integrating
people into the labour market, the local government has committed itself to building a
38
multi-stakeholder governance. In this prospect, social partners and representatives of the
business community set policy priorities together with the Public Employment Service
and local authorities, within the framework of the Labour Market and Adult Education
Committee. Decisions at the city level are, thus, made through negotiations and sustained
by a large consensus. More generally, the high degree of unionization in the country and
the role the trade unions play in the management of the unemployment insurance make
them key actors in shaping active inclusion strategy.
On the other hand, other actors, playing a relevant role, have also emerged in almost
all cases. In Rhône-Alpes, for instance, there are development agencies, public interest
groups, and other organizations of local stakeholders, often including social partners
among their members, with a mere role of advisors (e.g. the Agence Rhône-Alpes pour la
valorisation de l’innovation sociale et l’amélioration des conditions de travail, ARAVIS), of development of services (e.g. the Pôle Rhône-Alpes de l’orientation, PRAO), or
even involved in the draft of local strategic plans (e.g., again, Allies). In Lombardy, agencies have played an increasingly important role. Among them, Italia Lavoro Spa, that is a
state agency, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, gives technical assistance
to regional policy makers, while the role of the Agenzia Regionale per l’Istruzione, la
Formazione e il Lavoro (ARIFL) is actually unclear. Besides, third sector organizations,
particularly Caritas Ambrosiana, are of a growing relevance, since they play a subsidiary
role, by addressing marginality and extreme poverty. Quite peculiar is, instead, the case
of the Fondazione Welfare Ambrosiano (FWA), a not-for-profit organization owned by
local authorities and trade unions, which provides social financing (e.g. microcredit and
Anticipazione sociale), with the support of the Associazione Bancaria Italiana (ABI),
based on cooperation agreements with single banks. Even more important are third sector
organizations in Spain and Catalonia. Here, actors such as Caritas and Cruz Roja play an
active role in the field of social policy. In Barcelona, particularly, there is an extensive
network of organizations that are involved in public consultations and in the management
of projects aimed at the occupational and social integration of the most vulnerable. Third
sector organizations play a growing role also in Lower Silesia, particularly in the delivery
of services, since they are nowadays the main applicants for the ESFs. Furthermore, they
have own representatives in institutional bodies such as Labour Market Councils, playing
an advisory role, in support of decision making. Among others, academic institutions are
more and more involved in social dialogue and have become, more generally, important
interlocutors of public authorities. In Greater Manchester, then, a huge number of “nonconventional” actors take part in policy making. An important role is played by publicprivate partnerships, such as the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), including the socalled “business leaders”, which basically supports the GMCA in the delivery of the GM
Strategy. Besides, there are groups representing private interests, in the form of advisory
bodies that support the GMCA and the LEP, within the framework of a complex system
of governance (for further information, see AGMA, 2009; GMCA 2014; GM LEP, 2015).
A case apart is, again, represented by the Swedish case. Any direct and institutionalised
participation and involvement of third sector organisations in local deliberation and decision-making procedures on ALMPs have emerged. The city has some forms of cooperation and coordination with the voluntary sector, but rarely are institutionalised, and especially in other fields like homelessness, disability, elderly, youth.
Generally speaking, the political space is thus filled by a plethora of subjects, whose
core business is not being involved in social dialogue – though in some cases, as we will
see, they are – but which can give a contribution to the development of policies in terms
39
of technical support and legitimacy. Peculiar cases are those of Greater Manchester and
Rhône-Alpes, where we observed an institutionalization of interest groups as basic elements of the local governance, though only in the case of Rhône-Alpes these include social partner representatives among their members.
Table 6. Role of the main actors in the process of policy making
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
Lombardy
and Milan
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Catalonia
and Barcelona
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
1. Public actors
a) Regional
government
• Relevant, though the state • The regional government
is the dominant actor, also of Lombardy is the
at the territorial level,
dominant actor
through the prefectures
b) Sub-regional
government
(intermediate
level, if present)
• The Metropolitan City of • Slightly relevant after the • District Labour Offices
• Not relevant
Lyon is more active in the province was replaced by
are responsible for the
promotion of economic
the Metropolitan City of
implementation of policies
development
Milan, the role of which
at the district level and for
is still unclear
the delivery of basic PES
c) Municipalities
• The Municipality of Lyon • Subsidiary
oversees the delivery of
the RSA
2. Social partners
• The Regional Labour
• Relevant, above all in the • Not relevant for active
Office designs and
field of ALMPs, where it
inclusion issues
implement policies at the
is in competition with the
regional level, allocates
state and, to a certain
resources from the Labour extent, with
Fund, and plans the use of municipalities
the ESFs
• Responsible for the
implementation of social
policies only (excluded
public works)
• Absent
• The Municipality of
• Responsible for welfare
Barcelona, specifically, is
provisions and
an autonomous provider
employment services
of PES
implementation
• Absent
• The Greater Manchester
Combined Authority is
the top-tier administrative
body
• The Manchester City
Council is in charge for
delivering some services
• Generally weak, though
• Relevant, being involved • Generally weak, though
• Marginal role in policy
formally involved in
in decision making
formally involved in
making since the acute
decision making (for mere through negotiation
social dialogue institutions phase of the crisis
consultation)
processes (but not taking
(for information and, less
part in the agenda setting) frequently, consultation)
• Very important, being part • Not relevant
of a “cooperative” model
of governance
• Only public-public
partnerships are present
• Marginal
3. Other
a) Public-private
partnerships
• Not relevant
• Marginal, though attempts • Included in the city
have been made to
governance, though they
develop them for the
are of a slight relevance
delivery of PES
• The Local Enterprise
Partnership provides
private sector leadership
and supports the delivery
of the GM Strategy
• The Manchester
Partnership brings
together public, private
and third sector
organisations to deliver
the Manchester Strategy
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
Lombardy
and Milan
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Catalonia
and Barcelona
b) Agencies
• The Agence Rhône-Alpes • The Agenzia Nazionale
• Not relevant, though
• Not relevant
pour la valorisation de
per le Politiche Attive del
several regional
l’innovation sociale et
Lavoro and its regional
development agencies
l’amélioration des
structures, to be
have been set up to foster
conditions de travail is of
implemented
the development of private
slight relevance
enterprise and support
• Italia Lavoro Spa, an
business creation
• The Pôle Rhône-Alpes de
agency owned by the
l’Orientation is a
Ministry of Economy and
groupement d’intérêt
Finance, has an advisory
public, cooperating with
role
the network of suppliers • The Agenzia Regionale
to enhance PES
per l’Istruzione, la
Formazione e il Lavoro is
an agency of the regional
government, the role of
which is still unclear
c) Third sector
organizations
• Not relevant
d) Other
• The Association lyonnaise • The Fondazione Welfare • Not relevant
pour l’insertion
Ambrosiano is a not-foréconomique et sociale is
profit organization owned
responsible for drafting
by local public authorities
the Plan Local pour
and trade unions, which
l’Insertion et l’Emploi
provides social financing
(e.g. microcredit and
Anticipazione sociale) in
cooperation with banks
• Caritas Ambrosiana plays • Increasingly relevant, as
a subsidiary role,
they are the main
addressing extreme
applicants for the ESFs
poverty and marginality
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
• Not relevant
• The Manchester Family
of Organisations
(including Manchester
Solutions, New Economy,
MIDAS and Marketing
Manchester) supports the
delivery of the GM
Strategy
• New actors (Caritas, Cruz • Not relevant in labour
Roja, and NGOs) play an
policies
active role in the field of
social policy
• Relevant, as they are
delivery partners in
Troubled Families and
Complex Dependency
• Not relevant
• The Business Leadership
Council is a strategic
advisor to both the LEP
and the GMCA
• The Economic Advisory
Panel provides strategic
support and economic
advice to the LEP
• The Manchester
Independent Economic
Review is a commission
of economists and
business leaders, which
support public choices
• Not relevant
42
If we look at the methods of regulation, then, unilateral policy making seems to be
prominent in four cases out of six (see Table 7, below). In two of them, namely RhôneAlpes and Lower Silesia, social dialogue has nevertheless increased its relevance, though
this is likely to remain rather limited. On the other hand, in Catalonia the weight of social
dialogue has declined since the acute phase of the crisis, mostly due to austerity, while in
Greater Manchester it is essentially absent.
In Rhône-Alpes the method of regulations can be considered almost unilateral in the
sense that the state action is not counterbalanced by other actors: although institutionalised, social dialogue is very weak, since social partners are mainly consulted and not actively involved in the policy making. No negotiation takes place on labour policies, so
that the involvement of social partners appears merely formal and ritualistic. The same
applies to their representation within public bodies and committees. It is increasing, however, the recourse to deliberative and participative practices, but still an asymmetrical relationship between local public authorities and other actors emerges, with the concentration of power in the hands of the former. Several mayors have referred to the rhetoric of
“Lyon as a competitive city” as a cognitive framework for bringing economic actors together around a “project for Lyon”, under the mayor leadership, and for building a collective identity.
In Lower Silesia, too, unilateral policy making is prominent, since policy initiatives
are taken by public authorities. These latter are nevertheless supported by institutional
bodies composed of representatives of the main local stakeholders. In detail, two different
types of bodies can be found. On the one hand, there are the so-called Labour Market
Councils, which are advisory bodies set up at the regional and district levels to support
self-governments, basically giving opinions on the draft of strategic documents, such as
the Regional Action Plan for Employment, the evaluation of the criteria for the allocation
of resources and a variety of policy issues concerning employment, vocational training
and education. Very important, opinions are not binding, hence the role of these bodies is
mostly limited to information and consultation of social partners and other key actors
(e.g. NGOs). On the other hand, there is the Regional Social Dialogue Council, a younger
body, established in 2015, whose main function is intended to be maintaining social
peace and mediating in local industrial conflicts (Eurofound 2015), though its tasks and
procedures are still to be defined. In general, social dialogue in Lower Silesia is typically
weak and its effectiveness is likely to be strongly dependent on the “good will” of public
authorities, though its quality is good, better than in the rest of Poland. In effect, good
practices can be found at the company level, in some multinational corporations, while, at
the regional level, two examples are represented by informal committees (i.e. the Lower
Silesian Political and Economic Forum and the Social Partners’ Forum), which are a peculiar feature of Lower Silesia.
In Catalonia, despite social partners were involved in the making of public policies
until the end of the Nineties, today they play a marginal role, and social dialogue is very
limited, with no room for real negotiation, leading to formal agreements. Differently from
Rhône-Alpes, the relationships between social partners and local public authorities is not
institutionalized and, even when they take part in policy making, as members in advisory
boards or partnerships, they have little opportunities to influence the political agenda. On
the other hand, deliberative tools (e.g. forums, assemblies, expert groups) are largely
used, particularly in Barcelona, to develop a shared “vision” for the city and build trust
between local actors. The Pla per a la inclusió social de Barcelona 2012-2015, for in-
43
stance, is an outcome of this approach, which brought together the Municipality of Barcelona, the organizations of civil society, the Municipal Council for Welfare (Consell municipal de benestar social) and its working groups, under the framework of the Acord
ciutadà per una Barcelona inclusiva (ACBI).
What distinguishes the case of Greater Manchester, then, is the complete absence of
social dialogue. Also in this case, unilateral policy making is, thus, the prominent method
of regulation, though this is supported by several agencies, public-private partnerships
and forms of interest groups, in which social partners have no representatives. Differently
from the French and Spanish cases, here the actors have well-defined roles and functions
within a complex governance, with well-defined procedures. Fulcrum of the system are
the so-called “business leaders”, key local employers from a range of private, public and
voluntary sector organisations, who have representatives in various strategic (and highly
influential) bodies. An incipient practice of deliberative democracy can, nevertheless, be
identified in the making of the Manchester Strategy.
Social dialogue is much relevant in the remaining two cases.
In Lombardy, in fact, labour policies are generally negotiated between the regional
government and social partners. Here, a vigorous social dialogue has led to many formal
agreements regulating both passive and active labour policies, especially in the period
from 2009 to 2013, though after 2013 agreements have become less frequent, and mostly
limited to the regulation of exceptional measures (i.e. CIGD and Mobilità in deroga).
Nevertheless, on closer inspection, this negotiation activity does not amount to a form of
concertation, properly said, since social partners cannot influence the political agenda,
nor can they engage in a “political exchange”. As previously noticed, in fact, the main
output of social dialogue, here, is represented by agreements aimed at the definition of the
criteria for the implementation of policies designed elsewhere. That of the RdA, then, is a
case of unilateral policy making, with only ex-post consultation of social partners; and
the resulting programme is far from the proposal of minimum income drafted by national
social partners and a huge number of actors from civil society, the so-called Reddito
d’inclusione sociale (REIS). What is more, social partners are also present in tripartite
committees, but the activity of such bodies seems to develop in a ritualistic manner, in
this case as well.
An interesting case, among those under investigation, is that of Gothenburg. The social partners play a key role in creating conditions for sustainable growth and full employment in Gothenburg local context. The labour market has a high degree of organisation, broad collective bargaining agreement coverage and a well-developed social dialogue. The social partners in Sweden traditionally resolve many issues by means of collective bargaining agreements. Regular consultations take place between the local government and the social partners on matters associated with the labour market policies.
These consultations provide opportunities to discuss important issues in relation to the
local government’s actions and policies. Concerning the latest programs, the municipality
has informed the social partners about the plans and they have been given the opportunity
to comment on them. A collaborative social dialogue is reported by interviewees, but
some critical aspects have emerged by unions’ side, especially about resource availability, incentives structures and bureaucratic discretion.
To sum up, the analysis has brought to light different types of involvement of social
partners in policy making, which might be labelled as follows: co-decision, in the case of
44
Gothenburg; negotiated implementation, in Lombardy; information and/or consultation,
in Rhône-Alpes and Lower Silesia; ineffective or absent social dialogue, in the cases of
Catalonia and Greater Manchester, in that order.
Social dialogue, however, is not the only instrument through which social partners,
particularly trade unions, endeavour to promote the active inclusion of people excluded
from the labour market. Other forms of action can, in fact, be detected in almost all cases.
On the one hand, forms of pragmatic cooperation can be found between public authorities
and social partners in Rhône-Alpes (i.e. in the field of training and of the alternance
école-entreprise), in Lombardy (i.e. between FWA, ABI and private banks, concerning
Anticipazione sociale, and between the Municipality of Milan and CGIL, concerning the
Gruppi di auto-mutuo-aiuto), and in Lower Silesia (i.e. for the use of training funds or to
apply for the ESFs, but also to promote internships or meet the needs of single employers
within the SEZs). On the other hand, social partners undertake autonomous actions, both
jointly or separately. The most relevant example, here, is that of Italian joint bodies and
funds (the so-called bilateralità), through which social partners provide training, income
support and welfare services, on a sectoral basis and a regional or local level, following
the principle of subsidiarity. Furthermore, in almost all cases trade unions also provide
services for unemployed people. These are more advanced in the Swedish and Italian cases, while are far less developed in the British case (in Greater Manchester, for instance,
the experience of the Unemployed Workers Centres is very limited in scope and impact).
For instance, local unions have set-up specific project for tackling the challenge of immigrants’ inclusion in Gothenburg. Göteborg’s LS Lokala Samorganisation (Gothenburg’s
Local Communal Organisation - LS), an independent union that organises workers in
Gothenburg, regardless of their profession or work, is trying to attract undocumented
people and clandestine refugees to their union. The Undocumented People’s Committee
kick started actively seeking out immigrants working in Sweden without a permit, the so
called papperslösa (paperless). Göteborg LS is planning to have an information desk in a
hospital to assist undocumented people and clandestine refugees. The aim is to help people that are experiencing unfair working conditions but are hesitant to pursue the issue
themselves, as they fear they will get deported.
In conclusion, a common trend can be identified towards a growing pluralism and the
consequent “crowding” of the political space, with third sector organizations that, in some
cases, are involved in social dialogue and represented in institutional bodies or tripartite
committees, such as in Rhône-Alpes, Lower Silesia and, to a certain extent, Lombardy.
This has implied an erosion of the room for manoeuvre of social partners, except that in
Gothenburg, where trade unions are prominent actors, and in Rhône-Alpes itself, where
there is, anyway, an increasing involvement of social partners in policy making, though
only for information and consultation. The growing role of non-traditional actors in the
field of active inclusion, however, can be explained in the light of multiple causes. On the
one hand, in fact, public authorities tend to promote the inclusion of a larger number of
actors, in order to create social consensus on policies aiming at making the labour market
more flexible and welfare benefits more conditional. In this sense, the institutionalization
of an enlarged social dialogue at the sub-national level may be seen as a way to construct
(or reinforce) the discourse about active inclusion – though often using other labels –
from the bottom. Besides, in some cases the weakness or absence of social dialogue has
led to an increase in the recourse to practices of deliberative democracy. This is the case
of Catalonia, where social dialogue has been weakened by the crisis and by austerity, and,
again, of Rhône-Alpes, where it has no deep roots; a pilot experience can then be found in
45
the city of Manchester, where no forms of social dialogue are present. On the other hand,
public policies and social partners’ unilateral actions, even if combined with each other,
were sometimes insufficient to respond to the challenge of the occupational crisis, so that
other actors such as third sector organizations have found new spaces, initially targeting
poor and marginal people, and then extending their sphere of action, on the basis of subsidiarity. This is typically the case of Catalonia and, to a lesser extent, of Lower Silesia
and Lombardy. A corollary, here, is that trade union actions, in these cases, tend to focus
on the “insiders”, hence being a factor of further dualization of the labour market. This
opens further spaces for actors adopting a more inclusive logic.
Table 7. Relevance of the different methods of regulation
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
Lombardy
and Milan
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Catalonia
and Barcelona
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
1. Unilateral policy
making
• Prominent, but with an
increasing recourse to
participative practices
• Unusual in the field of
• Prominent, policy
• Increasingly prominent,
• Absent, since policies are • Prominent, though
labour policies, though in
initiatives are always
due to the impact of
previously discussed and
supported by several
the case of the RdA social taken by public authorities austerity measures, which co-decided with social
agencies and publicdialogue was weak
limited social dialogue
partners
private partnerships
2. Social dialogue
• Recently institutionalized, • Labour policies are
• Several bodies are present • Very limited, with no
but merely ritualistic
usually negotiated (both
in the region, but their
room for formal
formally and informally),
opinions and resolutions
agreements (mere
• Institutional involvement
though after 2013 formal
are not binding:
consultation)
of the social partners in
agreements are less
- Consultative and
several public bodies:
frequent
advisory bodies
- Agence régionale pour
* Regional Labour
l’innovation sociale en • Tripartite committees are
present:
Market Council
Rhône-Alpes
- Stati generali del patto
* District Labour Market
- Association lyonnaise
per lo sviluppo
Council
pour l’insertion
- Commissione regionale
- Social dialogue
économique et sociale
per le politiche del
committees
- Comité régional de
lavoro e della
* Regional Social
l’emploi e de la
formazione
Dialogue Council
formation
- Tavolo per le politiche
professionnelle
* Lower Silesian
attive
- Comités stratégiques de
Political and Economic
- Tavoli permanenti di
filière
Forum (informal)
confronto (Protocollo di
- Comités stratégiques
* Social Partners’ Forum
relazioni 2011)
prospectifs
(bilateral, informal)
- Commissionne paritaire
interprofessionnelle
régionale de l’emploi
- Commission régionale
de suivi et d’évaluation
des aides et dispositifs
aux entreprises et
secteurs professionnels
- Conseil régional de
l’emploi,
- Pôle Rhône-Alpes de
l’Orientation
• Prominent and
institutionalized
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
• Absent
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
Lombardy
and Milan
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Catalonia
and Barcelona
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
3. Cooperation
• Forms of cooperation
• Forms of cooperation
• Forms of cooperation can • Slightly relevant
(between public
between public authorities between public actors and be found at various levels:
authorities, social
and social partners can be social partners can be
- Partnership Agreement
partners and/or other found at the local level,
found at the local level
(2014) between the
actors)
above all in the field of
(i.e. that between the
Regional Labour Office
training and of the
FWA, the Italian Banking
and the social partners
alternance écoleAssociation and single
for the use of training
entreprise
banks, concerning
funds
Anticipazione sociale; and - Cooperation between
that between the
District Labour Offices
municipality of Milan and
and employers’
CGIL, concerning the
associations, e.g. for the
Gruppi di auto-mutuopromotion of internships
aiuto)
- Other forms of
cooperation between the
District Labour Offices
and single employers in
the SEZs
• Formal partnerships can
also be found between
municipalities and other
actors, aimed at applying
for the ESFs
• Cooperation is prominent • Absent
with social partners (i.e. in
the Labour Market
Councils and in the
Coordination Union), less
important with other
actors
4. Other
• Not relevant
• Increasing relevance of
practices of deliberative
democracy (basically
ritualistic), at the local
level
• Very important, social
• Not relevant
partners also address
active inclusion issues
through the so-called
bilateralità (i.e. joint
committees and funds,
mostly at the sectoral and
territorial levels)
• Practices of deliberative
democracy, involving a
wide range of actors
(among which the trade
unions) can be found at
the local level
• Agencies and partnerships
are key elements of the
system of governance
• A pilot practice of
deliberative democracy
can be identified in the
making of the Manchester
Strategy (2015)
48
6. Coordination in policy making
The problem of coordination is critical in the discourse on active inclusion. It pertains
to several dimensions, related to the governance of labour policies, its structure and the
actors involved. Two of them, particularly, are often used to explain the effectiveness of
policy measures, so that, when a policy does not work properly, we often hear that it is a
problem of (lacking) coordination. These are: vertical coordination, that has to do with
the relationships between different levels of policy making (i.e. national, regional and
sub-regional), the subdivision of competences, and the ways policies are designed, funded
and implemented; and horizontal coordination, that is related to the integration between
different policy areas and measures (e.g. between passive and active labour policies, and
between labour and social policies).
In general, the investigated regions appear to be characterized by a non-coordinated
policy making and fragmented policies. This fragmentation has remained at a relatively
high degree, though different trends are recognizable. Here, the question is whether social
dialogue, where present, can remove obstacles or create proper mechanisms to enhance
coordination between the actors and, therefore, favour the enactment of integrated actions.
Regarding vertical coordination between national and regional level, Rhône-Alpes and
Lombardy belong to different institutional architectures, though they can count on similar
mechanisms of coordination (see Table 8, below). The former case is, in fact, characterized by a strongly centralized policy making, with a vertically integrated system of public
policies, whereas the latter benefits from the higher autonomy of Italian regional governments. Nevertheless, in both cases there are mechanisms of coordination between central
and regional governments. These are: the Contrats de Plan État-Régions (CPER) in the
case of France; and the Conferenza Stato-Regioni, in that of Italy. Within these frameworks, important inter-institutional (public-public) agreements have been signed. The
Contrat de plan entre l’État et la Région Rhône-Alpes 2015-2020, for example, is a multi-year plan aimed at financing projects of public interest and promoting sustainable development. In Italy, instead, two national agreements on passive and active policies have
been reached in recent years between state and regions, followed by two specific agreements between the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies and the regional government of
Lombardy, of which the latter one (2015) allows Lombardy’s PES system to continue to
operate with no substantial changes, notwithstanding the current national regulations.
As for Lower Silesia, policy making in the field of labour policies maintains, in Poland, a highly centralized character, though a process of decentralization has taken place
in the 2000s and sub-national authorities have gained an “operational” autonomy from the
central government, which since 2004 does not exert any direct influence on the functioning of labour offices. The main source of regulation is, in effect, a national law – the EPA
of 2004 and subsequent amendments – and the allocation of resources follows a top-down
(basically “hierarchical”) process, and is determined mechanically, by algorithms.
The British case is also characterized by a still centralized policy making, despite that
the UK has recently started a process of further administrative decentralization. Also in
this case, decentralization was the result of a process of inter-institutional negotiation, and
took the form of “devolution” of powers and resources to sub-national authorities such as
the city regions (see the GM Devolution Agreement of 2014). As such, this process is
nevertheless reversible and may be temporary. At the same time, however, the state has
49
set up mechanisms of “control”, although implicit, over sub-national authorities. The
Public Service Reform, for instance, has given responsibility to local authorities, since
they are required to submit local implementation plans, but, in the meantime, has caused
huge financial losses to them, which imply a better use of resources and, generally, cost
reductions. Furthermore, funding mechanisms have been set up that imply a “negotiation”
between central government and local authorities (e.g. Growth Deals and City Deals). In
the case of Growth Deals, specifically, this process is highly formalized, with the central
government responding to the offers made by the LEPs based on LEPs’ Strategic Economic Plans. Finally, it is worth noticing that the central government itself is always present in local partnership agreements, either as a partner or through JCP.
On the other hand, Spain has an extremely low level of vertical coordination between
national and regional level, basically due to a process of “disorganized” decentralization.
As already noticed, in fact, the state and autonomous communities are in competition
with each other in both fields of passive (e.g. minimum income schemes) and active (e.g.
the delivery of PES) labour policies. This arrangement means that training and LM programmes may be duplicated. It also risks creating confusion among recipients regarding
where to look for support.
Generally speaking, vertical coordination is even much lower between regional and
sub-regional levels. Some specificities can however be found in three cases.
In Poland, of which Lower Silesia represents a typical case, a tool for coordination –
though a “loose” coordination, due to its guidance function and a certain vagueness – is
the already mentioned Regional Action Plan for Employment. This is a sort of strategic
plan that, starting from an analysis of the regional labour market, defines objectives, priorities and target groups, draws policy guidelines, and identifies the sources of financing
the tasks to be accomplished for the year to come. Furthermore, the Plan is prepared by
the Regional Labour Office, after the consultation with district governments, social partners, and other stakeholders; in this sense, we should speak of it as a “collectively created” plan, though the opinions of social partners and other actors involved are not binding.
In the case of Greater Manchester, the institutionalized city region, with its specific
model of governance, based on the combined authority, is itself a means for achieving a
better coordination at the local level.
Sweden, then, represents a very particular case, since a strong vertical coordination
can be found between the national and local (basically, municipal) levels. Coordination
between levels is pursued through the cooperation and regular consultations between the
municipal Labour Market and Adult Education Committee, the Public Employment Service and the Social Welfare Office (the latter being in charge of deciding on entitlements
to welfare benefits). These actors work in close cooperation on programmes with both
participants and employers. Forms of coordination are represented by the partnership
agreements between the Public Employment Service and local businesses. The main aim
of such agreements is to provide the employers the skills they need among young people,
the long-term unemployed, persons with a functional disability and newly- arrived immigrants. At the local level, the Public Employment Service and employers work jointly
within Labour Market Councils. In general, a highly “formal” regulation at the central
level is associated with a certain degree of “informal” autonomy at the local one; local
traditions of cooperation and established policy practices also play a significant role.
50
The Swedish case also presents peculiar features regarding horizontal coordination. At
the local level, in fact, we find an integrated approach to active inclusion as well as coordinated measures across policy areas. High degree of horizontal and vertical coordination
helps to avoid duplication in the national and local activation programs and income supports and coordination between public agencies at different levels and between policies
facilitates the referral of individuals to appropriate programmes, whether they are run by
the PES or by municipalities. Coordination around individual clients takes place routinely
at case-worker level but there are also more structured forms of inter-agency cooperation.
An important institution for coordination is the so-called Coordination Union, which is a
collaborative structure which has been set up by the municipality, following initiatives
from the national level, as multi-party partnerships for work rehabilitation (consisting
mainly of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA), the PES, the health and medical
services, and the municipality, but open to regional actors and stakeholders’ consultation). This tool is used for vertical and horizontal coordination and decision-making in
the field of activation (Barberis et al. 2010), in policy implementation and service delivery. The Coordination Union supports inter-agency coordination and an integrated approach to activation and social cohesion, allowing the municipalities to decide on priorities and policies.
Greater Manchester also displays a certain degree of horizontal coordination. This can
be seen in the use of local strategic plans, examples of which are: the GM Strategy 2013,
setting out the strategic priorities for economic growth and public service reform; the
Manchester Strategy 2015, establishing the vision and the objectives for the development
of the city, following a public consultation, which was a pilot practice of deliberative democracy; and the Manchester Family Poverty Strategy 2012-2015, addressing the risk
factors that can lead to poverty, by combining initiatives in local areas. Other possible
means for coordination in the phase of delivery of services are, then, the so-called local
delivery partnerships and service hubs. In general, attempts have been made to integrate
labour and social policies.
In the Polish case, labour offices play a key role. District Labour Offices, particularly,
gather together passive and active policies. Nevertheless, as previously noted, this is not
enough to guarantee an effective application of conditionality and related sanctions,
which remains a matter of concern. On the other hand, labour and social policies remain
two separate policy fields, which are under the responsibility of different authorities, the
latter being a competence of municipalities, though an attempt of integration has been
made through the Programme for Activation and Integration (PAI). This programme, addressed to “third category” unemployed people, was set up by the 2014 Amendment to
the EPA and implemented at the district level.
As for the other cases, Lombardy has pursued a higher integration between passive
and active policies, through the DUL system, though accredited service providers are in
competition with each other and no real mechanism of coordination between public and
private providers has been put in place. Catalonia and Rhône-Alpes are, instead, characterized by the presence of a multitude of actors and a fragmentation of policies; hence, the
degree of horizontal coordination remains relatively low, though some tools for the coordination of labour policies do exist at the local level, e.g. the Plan local pour l’insertion
et l’emploi (PLIE) in Lyon. Fragmentation of policies and services is the challenge that
the local governments have to tackle, especially in Catalonia.
51
Here, again, some remarks must be made concerning the role of social dialogue. If we
exclude the Swedish case study, even where social dialogue is robust and is supported by
the presence of tripartite bodies, like in Lombardy, or is associated with a strong role of
public actors and the involvement of social partners in several bodies and committees,
like in Rhône-Alpes, this has not translated into a strong coordination between the actors
at different regulation levels, nor has it favoured integration between policies. In Lower
Silesia, and in Poland overall, social dialogue bodies at the regional level, even in their
renewed shape, are not likely to be proper tools for coordination, due to the high degree
of centralization of policy making. In all these cases, in effect, the involvement of social
partners often appears to be merely ritualistic. In the French case, particularly, the flourishing bodies and committees are mostly focused on specific policy areas, such as vocational training, hence reproducing rather than reducing the fragmentation of policies. In
Lombardy, instead, social dialogue has proved to play a critical role above all in the
phases of implementation and of adjustment of policies.
As a final point, it is to be noted that there seems to be no echo of the European Social
Dialogue (ESD) and of its outputs at the sub-national level. Few key informants in the regions investigated reported, in fact, that they heard about the Autonomous Framework
Agreement on Inclusive Labour Markets of 2010, and almost none of them was informed
about its contents. This might reveal that the relationships between the European social
partners and those operating at the regional and local levels are extremely loose, and that,
in any case, conveying the “messages” of the ESD to their territorial structures is not a
priority for national social partners. This seems to be true also in the case of a Central and
Eastern European Country, such as Poland, where national trade unions generally pay
much attention to what happens at the European level, and particularly to framework
agreements (FAs), since these are seen as helpful instruments to “force” changes at the
national level. No direct impact of the 2010 FA was in fact detected in framing strategies
and policies in the region of Lower Silesia. In general, we might thus conclude that the
main instruments through which the EU influences labour policies at the sub-national
level are the ESFs.
Here, again, the Swedish case displays a distinctive character. In Gothenburg, in fact,
a bidirectional influence can be detected with the European level, not only through the
ESFs (which, anyway, is a major source of financing at the local level). Swedish social
partners are deeply involved at the international level, and see an important role for themselves in the European dimension. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is
considered a relevant forum by Swedish national confederations. Local social partners
consider, then, the 2010 FA an important first step for the ESD to foster active inclusion
and cooperation with public authorities in the European dimension, but they underline
that its implementation depends strongly on the will of national actors. In the Swedish
context, the objective and content of the FA have been already implemented by national
social partners, which identify in the FA itself some fields of great relevance, such as
youth employment and the inclusion of migrant workers, of which they are especially
concerned about. They also believe that cooperation among European social partners is
still weak, and stress the importance of creating broader alliances in order to influence the
EU and national policy makers and strengthen the European social dimension.
Table 8. Vertical and horizontal coordination in policy making
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
Lombardy
and Milan
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Catalonia
and Barcelona
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
1. Vertical coordination
a) Between national
and regional level
• Policy making is
• Regional governments
• It is more a “hierarchical” • Extremely low, due to a • High between the national • Policy making is still
centralized, with a few
benefit from a certain
relationship (top-down
process of “disorganized” and local levels of
centralized, though the
decentralization (and to
competencies transferred
degree of autonomy from
policy making and
regulation, with no
state has devolved powers
the competition between
to local authorities
the central government,
resource allocation):
intermediate (i.e.
and resources to the city
state and autonomous
though a re-centralization - The EPA (a national
regional) level
regions (see the GM
• Central and regional
communities)
has recently taken place
Devolution Agreement,
law) is the main source
governments, together
(e.g. through the creation
2014)
of regulation
with sub-regional
of ANPAL)
• The state has also set up
- The Labour Fund (a
governments, engage in
the planning of projects of • Central and regional
mechanisms of (implicit)
national fund), is the
governments meet in the
regional interest through
control over local
main source of funding
the Contrats de Plan État- Conferenza Stato-Regioni, - Resource allocation is
authorities:
where some important
Régions:
determined by
- The Public service
agreements have been
- Contrat de plan entre
reform has given
algorithms
signed:
l’État et la Région
responsibility to the
Rhône-Alpes 2015-2020 - Accordo tra Governo e
local authorities, which
Regioni relativo a
have to draft local
interventi di sostegno al
implementation plans
reddito (2009)
- Funding mechanisms
- Accordo tra Ministero
imply a “negotiation”
del lavoro e Regione
between the central
Lombardia relativo agli
government and local
ammortizzatori in
authorities (e.g. Growth
deroga (2009)
Deals and City Deals)
- Accordo quadro tra
- The central government
Governo e Regioni in
takes part in local
materia di politiche
partnership agreements,
attive (2015)
as a direct partner or
through JCP
- Convenzione tra
Ministero del lavoro e
Regione Lombardia
(2015)
Rhône-Alpes
and Lyon
b) Between regional
and sub-regional
levels
Lombardy
and Milan
• Low, also due to the
• Very low, purely formal
competition between
regional and metropolitan
authorities
• Horizontal coordination • Relatively low, due to the • Attempt of integration
high number of actors and between passive and
to the fragmentation of
active policies, through
policies, though tools for
the DUL system (but
coordination are present:
competition between
accredited providers)
- The Plan local pour
l’insertion et l’emploi is
a partnership-based tool
for the coordination of
labour policies at the
local level
Lower Silesia
and Wroclaw
Catalonia
and Barcelona
• Low, since Regional and • Extremely low
District Labour Offices
are independent from
each other, though a tool
for (loose) coordination is
present:
- The Regional Action
Plan for Employment
sets out policy aims,
priorities and tasks, and
identifies the sources of
funding
West Sweden
and Gothenburg
Greater Manchester
and Manchester
• Not relevant
• Low, but increasing, due
to the institutionalization
of the city region, through
the combined authority
• Low, though, at the
• Extremely low, due to the • Integrated approach to
district level, passive and
high fragmentation of
active inclusion and
active policies are under
policies
coordinated measures
the responsibility of a
across policy areas
unique office, and an
attempt has been made to
integrate labour and social
policies:
- The Programme for
Activation and
Integration is addressed
at the “third category”
unemployed, who need
a multifaceted help
• Increasing, since attempts
have been made to
integrate labour and social
policies; strategic plans,
delivery partnerships, and
service hubs have also
been created
• Local strategic plans:
- The GM Strategy 2013
sets out strategic
priorities for economic
growth and public
service reform
- The Manchester
Strategy (2015) sets out
the objectives for the
development of the city,
following a public
consultation
- The Manchester Family
Poverty Strategy 20122015 attempts to
address the risk factors
that can lead to poverty,
by combining initiatives
in local areas
54
7. Conclusion
The global crisis of 2008 carried economic uncertainty, growing unemployment and
social exclusion even in the most dynamic regions, such as those including second-tier
cities. In Southern European countries, particularly, a debt crisis followed the economic
and occupational crises. A problem of sustainability of welfare systems, however, arose
almost everywhere. This is a crucial question, which underlies the rhetoric about active
inclusion. As the analysis in the first part of this report has revealed, the EU discourse on
activation and inclusion has influenced the cognitive dimension of policies more than it
appears in local public spheres and political agenda. In the selected case-studies, indeed,
we find a common vocabulary, on which labour policies are constructed. Nevertheless,
this vocabulary is based on some “meta-concepts”, suitable for different interpretations.
The ideas of “activation”, “conditionality”, “personalization” and “responsibility”, in fact,
have rather different meanings in the six regions. In the French case, for instance, the
conceptualization of responsibility is rooted in the principle of “individual rights”, while
in the British case it is interpreted more as “personal responsibility of individuals”. The
specificity of these approaches depends, to a certain extent, on institutional architectures,
but also on the roles that the actors of industrial relations traditionally play in the different
national (and regional) contexts, and on the differential development of social dialogue as
a method of regulation in the field of active inclusion. These factors must be, nevertheless, considered within the framework of multi-level and multi-actor governance.
The analysis conducted in this report allows to identify and describe different models
of governance of active inclusion.
Focusing on institutional arrangements, two main dimensions are considered in their
combined effect. These are: the mode of territorial organization, that is the centralization
of authority and powers in national bodies or their total or partial decentralization to subnational entities; and the sharing (or not) of the political space, referred specifically to the
involvement of interest organizations in regulation processes, based on the logic of social
partnership, or to their exclusion or replacement, due to the prominence of unilateral state
action or to the use of alternative methods, such as practices of deliberative democracy.
Figure 8, below, helps to classify the six case studies. In detail, the first quadrant includes
the cases that are characterized by a centralized state action, associated with participative
processes of policy making. These are the Swedish, French and Polish cases. Relevant
differences can, nevertheless, be detected between them. Only in the case of Gothenburg,
in fact, we can speak of a cooperative system of regulation, in the dual sense of a high
coordination between national and local actors (these latter having, in any case, a certain
degree of autonomy) and the inclusion of social partners in decision making. State action
is highly centralized in Rhône-Alpes and Lower Silesia as well; furthermore, a tendency
towards the increasing involvement of social partners, though for mere information and
consultation, is observable in both cases. In the former, state action is, however, extensive
and oriented to universalism, while, in the latter, it is rigidly hierarchical and limited in
scope, so that public policies do not always meet the specific needs that emerge locally.
The remaining three quadrants include a case study each. Among these, Lombardy stands
out as it represents a specificity within the national context. In Italy, in effect, regional
governments maintain a relatively high autonomy in this policy field. Besides, as already
stressed, the Lombardy Region has succeeded in preserving its model of PES, despite the
re-organization (and re-centralization) pursued by the Jobs Act, the reform of the labour
market made by the Renzi government in 2015. Here, a strong regional government can
55
benefit from a cooperative style of industrial relations, with relatively strong organized
actors involved in an institutionalized social dialogue, though basically aimed at defining
the criteria for the implementation of measures designed elsewhere. Different is the case
of Catalonia, and of Spain overall, where a “disorganized” administrative decentralization
occurred, so that the state, autonomous communities and, to an extent, municipalities are
in competition with each other, and, on the other hand, the crisis has led to a decline of
social dialogue. Lastly, Greater Manchester is characterized by a highly centralized policy
making and the complete absence of social dialogue; the state, thus, acts unilaterally or
also in partnership with other actors, such as employers, but not with social partners. This
is, however, an atypical case in the British context, since the presence of a deep-rooted
experience of cooperation between local governments, institutionalized in a “combined
authority”, has allowed the devolution of powers and resources from the state to the city
region, what has led, for instance, to the creation of a supplementary welfare-to-work
programme.
Figure 8. Institutional arrangements
Yes
Centralization
Greater Manchester/Manchester
West Sweden/Gothenburg
Rhône-Alpes/Lyon (á)
Lower Silesia/Wroclaw (á)
Decentralization
Mode of territorial organization
Sharing of the political space
No
Catalonia/Barcelona (ß)
Lombardy/Milan
Regarding the organizational logics, that is the mechanisms through which the field of
active inclusion is regulated, two further dimensions are taken into account: the system of
public service delivery, whether run by state actors or, partially or totally, left to the market; and the regulation of social solidarity, either based on a universalist or a residual
principle. Figure 9, below, reveals that two cases, namely Rhône-Alpes and Gothenburg,
combine a prominent role of the state in the delivery of public services with a universalist
approach to labour (and, more generally, welfare) policies. In the case of Rhône-Alpes,
however, only public actors are in the field, while, in that of Gothenburg, trade unions
play a major role as well, so that a third organizational logic, based on the associative
principle of regulation, emerge as relevant. At the opposite extreme, where the market
logic prevails, as in the case of Greater Manchester, public service delivery is assigned to
56
private providers, either companies or charities, the latter playing a great part. The role of
public institutions, and of public policies overall, in regulating social solidarity is, anyway,
residual. Another region, Lombardy, converged towards this model, though maintaining
some distinctive features. In this case, in fact, public and private service providers are in
competition with each other, in what has been defined as a “quasi-market” regime. Public
providers, thus, continue to play a critical role, since, more often than others, they take on
responsibility of those with a higher “help intensity”. Besides, other actors, such as third
sector organizations, play an increasingly important role by addressing marginality and
extreme poverty. Mixed cases are, instead, those of Catalonia and Lower Silesia, though
for very different reasons. In both cases, in effect, the delivery of public services remains
a prerogative of public institutions, but private providers account for a large share of the
overall demand for services. In Catalonia, however, this is basically due to the incapacity
of public services to cover the high demand, as a consequence of the serious occupational
crisis that has affected Spain after 2008. In Lower Silesia, on the contrary, it is a result of
the limited range of Polish labour policies.
Figure 9. Organizational logics
Universalist
State
Lower Silesia/Wroclaw
Catalonia/Barcelona
Rhône-Alpes/Lyon
West Sweden/Gothenburg
Market
System of public service delivery
Regulation of social solidarity
Residual
Lombardy/Milan (â)
Greater Manchester/Manchester
Some concluding remarks can, then, be made.
First, the six cases examined belong to national economic systems that are referred to
as different varieties of capitalism. This contributes to explain the substantial differences
between the models of governance of active inclusion, as previously described.
Second, some common trajectories can, nevertheless, be identified, for instance in the
types of policy measures adopted (e.g. the provision of basic employment services, the
emphasis on vocational training, and the increasing use of incentives to firms) or ignored
(e.g. the promotion of quality jobs), and in the criteria for the implementation of policies
57
(above all the principle of conditionality). Within such heterogeneous contexts, however,
these trends assume different meanings. The way conditionality is applied in the various
countries, for example, is sometimes radically diverse: in Sweden, a strong conditionality
is associated with generous income support and effective PES and ALMPs; at the opposite extreme, in the UK, it is instead related to a minimal welfare and marketized services.
Among other cases, namely Poland, Spain and Italy, a problem of effectiveness arises together with a pragmatic attitude to apply conditionality in a merely formal fashion, in order to use the ESFs. In Poland, particularly, restrictive criteria associated with conditions
that facilitate opportunistic behaviours make conditionality basically ineffective.
Third, persisting diversities in the logics underlying the design and implementation of
activation policies are also recognizable. Depending on the case, in fact, the emphasis is
put on: ALMPs versus make-work-pay or, even, compensatory policies; human-capital
formation versus work-first; collective versus individual responsibility; conditionality as
proof of means versus direct activation.
Fourth, regional variations to national models can be identified as well. Lombardy,
particularly, distinguishes itself by its peculiar system of PES, which can be seen as an
attempt to achieve a better integration between passive and active labour policies and to
give effectiveness to conditionality. Another distinctive character is, then, the role played
by social partners in negotiating on the implementation and the adjustment of policies,
benefiting from a cooperative style of industrial relations and an institutionalized social
dialogue. A better climate of industrial relations, compared to the overall situation in the
country, can actually be perceived also in Lower Silesia and Rhône-Alpes, though, here,
this does not seem to have a significant impact on active inclusion, due to the high degree
of centralization of policy making. Greater Manchester, too, distinguishes itself from the
rest of the country by its pioneering institutional arrangements and pilot experiences of
local labour policies.
Fifth, models of industrial relations appear themselves as key elements in explaining
the shaping of the governance of active inclusion. In particular, the neo-corporatist case,
namely Gothenburg, is associated with the most inclusive approach to activation, based
on integrated labour and social policies, and benefiting from effective ALMPs and PES.
We can speak of an inclusive activation also in the case of Rhône-Alpes, due to the strong
role of the state and to the “French tradition” in promoting social inclusion, though, at the
beginning of the 2000s, a re-organization of both passive and active policies occurred.
Here, social dialogue did not play a relevant part until the second half of the 2000s, when
it underwent a process of institutionalization, also at the sub-national level. Then, social
partners have been systematically involved in policy making, above all on training issues,
though for mere consultation. These developments in social dialogue, it is to be noticed,
have been followed by reforms mostly aimed at increasing the degree of flexibility in the
labour market, what might lead to hypothesize that social dialogue, as such, is a means to
ensure legitimacy and create consensus on unpopular policies. A similar remark can be
made for Lower Silesia, which can be described as a case of “embedded liberalism” with
weak interest organizations (on this concept, see Bohle and Greskovits 2012). Here, too,
labour policies are governed by a strong state, supported by loosely effective and unstable
neo-corporatist institutions, though the nature and quality of state action is completely
different from the French case. Activation policies are, in fact, highly selective, though
with a certain emphasis on (individualized) ALMPs. In this case more than in others, thus,
social dialogue is mostly a way to construct the discourse about active inclusion, both
from the top (the national level) and from the bottom (the sub-national levels). Another
58
case that could be regarded as a variant of embedded liberalism, with relatively strong
and pragmatic organizations and an effective social dialogue, is Lombardy. This appears,
in effect, as a hybridized model, in which a regionally-based liberalism is “normalized”
through neo-corporatist practices. Liberalism in the field of labour policies, in Lombardy,
takes the form of selective activation, though with an emphasis – much greater than at the
national level or in other regions – on the role of (partly marketized and individualized)
PES. As already noticed, the role of social partners, here, has been to undertake pragmatic
negotiations with the regional government in order to “improve” this system. As for Catalonia, and Spain overall, then, we could speak of a “frozen” corporatism and a slow (and,
perhaps, temporary) shift towards a conflictual pluralism, with social dialogue that has
been abandoned during the years of the crisis. As a matter of fact, the marginalization of
social partners, in this period, has facilitated the further flexibilization of the labour market, though labour policies maintain a “paternalistic” character, unbalanced towards compensatory policies. Last, Greater Manchester is the typical neo-liberal case, in which social partners are excluded from every form of participation in policy making, and social
dialogue is absent. Here, activation policies are residual, marketized and individualized,
and are based on the work-first and the make-work-pay logics.
This would lead to the general conclusion that social dialogue, in this policy area, has
a dual function. On the one hand, it helps to convey the rhetoric about active inclusion –
though not exactly in the terms that had been used by the Commission – and, therefore,
confer legitimacy on activation policies. This purpose is prevalent in those cases where
organized actors are weak and social dialogue is not deep-rooted and sufficiently stable,
such as Rhône-Alpes and Lower Silesia. On the other hand, social dialogue supports –
and is, thus, likely to influence – the design, implementation or adjustment of policies,
making them more “inclusive”, either in an absolute or relative sense. These are, instead,
the cases of Gothenburg and Lombardy, in that order. Stronger organizations and a longer
tradition of cooperative industrial relations are, here, required. What is worth noting, then,
is that social dialogue, in most cases, is not enough, even because this is dependent on the
willingness of state actors, as the Italian, Spanish and Polish cases demonstrate; moreover,
the “power” to influence the definition of the political agenda and the identification of
policy priorities is, generally, limited. For these reasons, other forms of actions, namely
direct actions undertaken (unilaterally or jointly) by social partners, assume a growing
relevance to pursue “active inclusion” outside or at the margins of public policy: from
those based on the typical instrument of collective bargaining or on less traditional joint
committees and funds, to those funded by the ESFs. These latter, particularly, emerge as
key tools that opened new spaces, which social partners, however, loosely occupy, and in
which are in competition with other kinds of actors.
59
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Annex: List of interviews
Code Country
Organization
Role
01
FR
Aravis
Equipe mutations et territoire
02
FR
Aravis
Chargée de mission
03
FR
DIRECCTE Rhône-Alpes
Direction du travail
04
FR
DIRECCTE Rhône-Alpes
Direction de l’emploi de Rhône-Alpes
05
FR
DIRECCTE Rhône-Alpes
Direction de l’emploi de Rhône-Alpes
06
FR
CGT
Département à la Métropole
07
FR
PLIE UNI-EST
Direction
08
FR
Conseil régional Rhône-Alpes
Direction du développement économique et de l’emploi
09
FR
Conseil régional Rhône-Alpes
Unité accès à l’emploi
10
FR
PRAO
Mission emploi-formation
11
FR
Pôle Emploi Rhône-Alpes
Direction de la stratégie et des relations extérieures
12
FR
Université de Lyon
Researcher
13
FR
Université de Grenoble
Researcher
14
IT
CISL Lombardia
Regional secretary
15
IT
Regione Lombardia
Chief officer for labour market inclusion
16
IT
Italia lavoro Spa
Project manager
17
18
IT
IT
Freelance consultant
CNA Lombardia
Consultant for the management of POR Lombardy
Person in charge of industrial relations
19
IT
CGIL Milano
Person in charge of labour market
20
IT
Assolombarda
Chief officer for work, welfare and human capital
21
IT
Assolombarda
Person in charge of work and social insurance
22
IT
Comune di Milano
Town councillor
23
IT
Comune di Milano
Town councillor staff
24
IT
CGIL Lombardia
Regional secretary
25
IT
CGIL Lombardia
Regional secretary
26
IT
AFOL metropolitana di Milano
Managing director
27
PL
University of Bremen
Academic
28
PL
Rada OPZZ Województwa Dolnośląskiego
President
29
PL
Region Dolny Śląsk NSZZ Solidarność
Vice president, secretary
30
PL
University of Wroclaw
Academic
31
PL
Dolnośląski Wojewódzki Urząd Pracy
Chief specialist and former director
32
PL
Powiatowy Urząd Pracy we Wrocławiu
Deputy Director of marketing services
33
PL
University of Wroclaw / Inicjatywa Pracownicza Academic and trade unionist
34
PL
Region Dolny Śląsk NSZZ Solidarność
President
35
PL
Business Centre Club - Loża Dolnośląska
Vice President
36
ES
Ajuntament de Barcelona
Drets Socials
37
ES
Ajuntament de Sabadell
Intermediació Laboral de Promoció Econòmica
38
ES
Ajuntament de Barcelona
Direcció Servicios Socials
39
ES
Barcelona Activa
Direcció
40
ES
CCOO
Secretaria Política Social i Serveis Públics
41
ES
Ajuntament de Barcelona
Projecto Labora
42
ES
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Professor
43
ES
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Professor
44
SE
University of Gothenburg
Professor of Industrial Relations
45
SE
Hotell-och Restaurangfacket, Gothenburg
Trade unionist
46
SE
University of Gothenburg
Professor of Sociology and Social Work
47
SE
University of Gothenburg
Lecturer
48
SE
City Mission of Gothenburg
Member of a third sector organization
49
SE
Labour Market Unit, Gothenburg City
Education coordinator
50
SE
LO - Swedish Trade Union Confederation
Department of Economic and Labour Market Policy
63
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Code Country
Organization
Role
51
SE
University of Stockholm
Professor of Social Work
52
SE
Gothenburg City
Labour Market Unit
53
SE
Public Employment Centre, Gothenburg
Deputy director
54
SE
University of Lund
Professor of Social Work
55
SE
Labour Market Unit, Gothenburg City
Director
56
UK
GMCA
GM Lead for Employment Initiatives
57
UK
GM LEP; Manchester City Council
Councillor
58
UK
Manchester City Council
Statutory Deputy Leader of the Council
59
UK
TUC North West
Regional Secretary
60
UK
University of Manchester
Academic and Council member of the MIRS
61
UK
University of Manchester
Researcher
62
UK
University of Manchester
Researcher