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Butler - Welfare Employment & Energy Demand Project
- 1. Welfare, Employment and Energy Demand Tensions and Opportunities in the Delivery of Demand Reduction Dr Catherine Butler @drcbutler
- 2. Project Background Theme 4: Normality Need and Entitlement (4.1 Energy, Need and Justice and 4.3 Implicit – invisible – energy governance) The role of government objectives, investments and ways of providing in shaping social practice and in doing so constituting the need for energy (e.g. Bourdieu, 1990; Shove, 2004; Hand et al. 2005; Butler et al. 2014) To effectively unravel, and ultimately reconfigure, the constitution of demand we must attend to a broad sweep of policies that extend beyond what is currently recognised as energy policy. Tensions between energy demand reduction and wider social goals being addressed in other policy areas for example, social justice, health and wellbeing.
- 3. Project Overview • Focus on welfare and employment policy and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) as the main policy body with responsibilities in this area. • Synergies and conflicts between welfare policy and energy demand reduction (e.g. improving poor quality housing; welfare reforms). • Examine implications of welfare and employment policy for practice in terms of: 1) the meanings, norms and constructions of need that can be linked to them; 2) the material and socio-technical implications of the policy and associated strategies (e.g. housing, transport); 3) the implications for the temporal ordering of daily life.
- 4. Project Objectives • To understand how welfare and employment goals are currently defined, conceptualised and applied, and what implications they have for practice and energy demand • To develop insights into the key areas of tension and opportunity within and between welfare and employment and energy demand reduction policies • To create knowledge of the challenges and possibilities for using welfare and employment policy to radically transform energy demand in line with the UK’s legally binding carbon targets • To bring insights relevant to policy innovation that might foster opportunities to reduce energy demand while meeting other important societal goals
- 5. Project Methods WP1: Document analysis WP 2: Policy and stakeholder interviews WP 3: Policy innovation workshops • Analysis of policies, speeches, manifestos • Develop narrative accounts – outcomes for practice • Qualitative Interviews with policy, agencies, ngos • Reflexively engage with areas of conflict and opportunities to reduce energy demand • Future oriented
- 6. Department for Work and Pensions • Created in 2001 (merging of department of social security and policy groups from department of education and employment) • Secretary of State - Iain Duncan Smith since 2010 • Whitehall’s ‘highest-spending’ department 170bn • Main responsibilities: Pensions and ageing society, poverty and social justice, welfare reform
- 7. Department for Work and Pensions Helping to reduce poverty and improve social justice Simplifying the welfare system and making sure work pays Helping people find and stay in work Making European funding work better for the UK economy Improving opportunities for older people Helping households to cut energy bills Improving the health and safety system Reviewing the state pension age Helping people to save more for their retirement through work place pensions Making the state pension fairer and simpler Improving the child maintenance system Fulfilling the commitments of the armed forces covenant Poverty and social justice Welfare reform Employment European funds Older people Household energy Health and safety reform State pension age Automatic enrolment in workplace pensions State pension simplifcation Child maintenance reform
- 8. DWP Policies and Changes • 2010-2015 Welfare reforms • Employment benefits – E.g. Universal Credit - Workfare • Housing benefits – E.g. Bedroom size limit rule • Pensions reform – E.g. Accessing pensions earlier, state pension, working past pension age, workplace pensions • Disability benefits – E.g. Disability Living Allowance Personal Independence Payments (work assessments)
- 9. DWP Policy Future • Post election 2015 • 12-15 billion in cuts to working age benefits • Proposals include… – Child tax credits and working tax credit cuts – A cap on access to work fund payments – Cuts to mortgage support (means tested support for mortgage interest SMI)
- 10. Policy Analysis Concepts • Policy implementation, policy integration, policy change, political action (e.g. Jordon, 2008; Jasanoff, 2003; Kingdon, 1995; Marres, 2005) • Territorial policy versus globalisation, multi-scalar policy. • Governing, governance, government and governmentality (Jordon, 2008; Renn, 2008; Dean, 2010; Miller and Rose, 2008; Rose, 1999; Berthou, 2014) • Governance and practice (Schatzki, 2014)
- 11. Policy Analysis & Practice • Governmentality - key concepts of problematising, rationalities, and technologies (Foucault, 1979; Dean, 2010; Miller and Rose, 2008; Rose, 1999) • Modes of governing (Bulkeley et al. 2007) • Bourdieu (1989) practice approach to understanding the role of state activity in creating social structures (e.g. family) • Schatzki (2005) practice-arrangement bundles; making some things more or less possible depending on current arrangements
- 12. Policy Analysis Approach • Analyse high level problem understandings • Unpack how relate to constructions of governing modes and policy solutions • Understand implications for practices and energy demand (meaning, materials, temporal patterning) • Re-imaginings, alternatives and possible win-win outcomes Problematising Modes of governing and policies Practices – change or continuities in energy demand
- 13. An Example Case Austerity and funding cuts. Worklessness – individual Getting into work - workfare Practices – continuities and increases in energy demand e.g. work travel “Work for those who can is the most sustainable route out of poverty”. “Worklessness - There are currently around 3.9 million workless households in the UK. That is almost one in five of all households.” (Social Justice: Transforming Lives, 2012) “Your work coach may refer you to these schemes… you may do work experience to add some career history to your CV”. (Back to Work Schemes, 2014)
- 14. An Example Case Austerity and funding cuts. Worklessness – individual Getting into work - training Practices – continuities and increases in energy demand e.g. work travel Workplace hubs in areas of high employment Practice change - materials, temporal ordering, meanings
- 15. Future Plans and Challenges • Conceptual cases versus data driven – understanding policy impact and evaluation • Implications of energy policy for welfare and employment (e.g. solar PV/community benefits/community energy strategy). • Defining welfare and employment policy – scope to think about relationship between welfare and energy more broadly. • Detailed analysis of policies – change and fluctuation with democratic cycles and reshuffles. • Policy buy-in and connections – influence and impact – engaging with energy demand - outcomes for incremental change as well as more fundamental re-imaginings. • Devolved government – differences (e.g. Wales closer links between welfare and energy policy) ??
Editor's Notes
- In collaboration with Karen Parkhill, Karen Bickerstaff and Gordon (Walker)
- Hand et al. (2005), for instance, highlight the role of state interventions associated with influencing processes of social practice change toward daily showering. They refer both to explicit forms of influence, such as government programmes of instruction and advice, and more subtle forms of cultural and social dominance that embed specific understandings of hygiene, health, and self (see Miller and Rose, 2008). More broadly, Bourdieu (1990) highlights the role of the state in shaping family practices. He points to housing and planning policy (the size and number of rooms in houses), legal structures pertaining to marriage, inheritance and names, family benefits, and social statistics or other representations of family that serve to reproduce particular forms of practice associated with family life. While Bourdieu takes the family as his example, such analytic scrutiny can be applied to multiple other forms of social practice and, ultimately, to understanding how it is that energy intensive ways of life are reproduced through wider governance processes and policies that extend far beyond energy policy per se. Or in my own research I’ve highlighted how policies aimed at creating flexible workers and employment conditions have contributed to the constitution of particular forms of mobility as people increasingly form connections to multiple places (and crucially people in place) through their life course Such forms of influence on practice are historically and socially rooted and not the product of singular distinct policies that are necessarily designed to institute particular forms of practice. They are, however, pervasive in their effects and examining policy in this way can bring insights that orient one differently to thinking about the creation of new policy and its potential outcomes. The implications are clear: to effectively unravel, and ultimately reconfigure, the constitution of demand we must attend to a broad sweep of policies that extend beyond what is currently recognised as energy policy. But if we thinking about energy use in this way as constituted through multiple policies– it brings to light a further set of complexities and potential challenges associated with reducing demand – which is that there are likely to be tensions between energy demand reduction and wider social goals that are being addressed (or aiming to be addressed) in other policy areas - for example, social justice, health and wellbeing-
- Welfare and employment policy can be identified as a critical non-energy policy area where its central goals are likely to have implications for energy demand and where it is possible to observe areas of policy synergy and identify points of conflict. To illustrate its significance for research on this topic, DWP’s aims associated with reducing poverty and improving social justice involve policies which both align and conflict with demand reduction goals. On the one hand, improving poor quality housing and addressing fuel poverty seem to be examples of congruency. Although evidence indicates that even here such synergies may in fact be problematic to achieve given that lower income households tend to take back energy savings in improved comfort levels (e.g. see Milne and Boardman, 2000). On the other hand, the observable tendency, in the UK at least, for significantly lower levels of demand to be characteristic of lifestyles classified as ‘highly deprived’ and vice versa (Druckman and Jackson, 2008: 3184), means that addressing poverty within the current socio-economic system is likely to increase demand. A further example of this kind of complexity can be identified in relation to welfare reform. Recent analysis has highlighted how the major welfare reforms currently underway are likely to negatively impact vulnerable groups (i.e. people with disabilities) in terms of fuel poverty (Snell et al., 2014). This means that although reforms may reduce energy demand they will do so at the expense of social justice and poverty reduction aims. These policies and others delivered through the DWP can be seen to have an important role in constructing conceptions of need and entitlement (e.g. the need for heat for the elderly in particular– the winter fuel payment), reproducing particular (temporal) patterns of demand, and constituting consumption patterns (e.g. through work and employment policies – which I’ll focus on today) To what extent do w&e policies contribute to reducing, increasing or reinforcing existing (temporal) patterns of demand? And how could policy in this area be reformulated to help meet energy demand reduction goals? And what tensions emerge in efforts to do this?
- Interviews will explore experiences of developing and delivering policy – reflection on energy demand implications This will use outputs from WP1 to create questions and prompt materials designed to encourage reflection on how current policy and associated problem framings impact the dynamics of energy use and also its reduction. Based on these we will undertake analysis to identify and map key areas of conflict and opportunity in DWP policy with regards to reducing demand. This work package will create more detailed insights regarding the complexity and reality of policy in this area, including thinking through the varied ways in which national policy is applied and developed within different regional and socio-technical contexts – 1) What varying conceptions of policy goals and appropriate strategies are identifiable across policy, NGOs, and wider public and private institutions, as well as within different regions? 2) How are the implications of welfare and employment policy for energy demand viewed by different actors? 3) Which policy goals and associated strategies conflict with aims for reducing energy usage and what opportunities exist for synergy? Key outputs for this WP will be: further in-depth analysis of key policy areas in terms of their implications for demand and for conflicting outcomes; mapping of different actor perspectives and identification of alternative policy framings and approaches different to those embedded in official policy; initial highlighting of possible opportunities for future policy innovation. They will be themed according to key welfare and employment policy areas identified through WP 1&2 (e.g. welfare reform, employment, pensions and ageing) in order to focus discussion. The aim of this WP will be to reflexively engage with the main areas of conflict and the key opportunities for policy development to reduce energy demand. The outputs of WP 1&2 will form the basis for the materials and protocols that will be developed to provide a framework for discussion in this phase. Specific questions that the work package will address are: 1) How can policy-makers reconcile and negotiate conflicting policy objectives? 2) How can key welfare and employment goals be achieved in ways commensurate with reducing energy demand? 3) How might policy aims and approaches in this area be differently configured for change congruent with the objective of reducing energy demand?
- So just to give a bit of background on the department and it’s policies - it was created in 2001 under the Labour Government– merging of two departments signals a change in the framing of welfare –from social security to worklessness- bringing employment together with benefits DWP is the biggest public service delivery department in the UK with responsibility for policies addressing employment, welfare (including poverty reduction), UK economic development, pensions, and ageing (DWP, 2014). DWP policy responsibilities – more on that later Examining historical and future framings of welfare policy but focus today on current DWP policy – I’ve been collating data to analyse welfare debates back to the 1980s and identify in particular any intersections with energy policy – but at present I’m focusing on DWP and post-2010 with a forward looking element drawing on the Conservative party manifesto (so forward looking) and proposed policies prior to the 2015 election – as well as looking back and forward in time I am also looking at counter narratives and key debates around energy policy but again for today’s purposes I’ll just focusing on unpacking elements of Government policy since 2010…
- Just to start by giving a bit of context on DWP and policy in this area – We can see there is some consideration of energy policy in there – essentially this is comprised of the winter fuel payment
- Headline changes in policy since 2010 - Most if not all of these reforms have been implemented amid controversy = fair to say energy is obviously not at the centre of concerns – even though energy or fuel poverty has been rising up the agenda as a component of poverty – e.g. heat or eat debate – disability and welfare reform Universal Credit-Universal credit is a new means-tested benefit that will eventually replace the following current means-tested benefits: child tax credit; housing benefit; income-related employment and support allowance; income-based jobseeker's allowance; income support; and working tax credit To qualify for universal credit, you may need to meet certain work-related conditions, known as ‘requirements’. These are recorded in a‘claimant commitment’. You are likely to incur sanctions (where your universal credit is reduced) if you fail to meet a work-related requirement. Limited hardship payments may be available if you are sanctioned. In certain circumstances none of the work-related requirements will apply to you (see below). To give an idea of the core focus of DWP and what’s been happening in the last five years… The work-related requirements There are four different types of requirement: work-focused interview requirement; work-preparation requirement; work-search requirement; and work availability requirement. Workfare – Workfare in the United Kingdom refers to government workfare policies whereby individuals must undertake work in return for their benefit payments or risk losing them. Bedroom tax - restricts the size of accommodation you can receive housing benefit or universal credit for based on the number of people in your household.If, under these rules, it is decided that you are under occupying, your total eligible rent for housing benefit purposes will be reduced by: 14% if you have 1 extra bedroom; 25% if you have 2 or more extra bedrooms. For example, if your eligible rent is £100 per week, your eligible rent would be reduced by £14 per week if you have one extra bedroom or by £25 per week if you have two or more extra bedrooms. Your housing benefit entitlement will then be calculated using this reduced amount. The new pension freedoms, which came into effect on 6 April, allow people who have worked hard and saved all their lives to access their savings how and when they want. So far 60,000 people have taken advantage of pensions flexibilities with many providers offering their customers a range of options. The government has already strengthened the right to transfer to a new pension scheme but is clear that it wants all individuals to be able to transfer their pension easily, within a reasonable timeframe and at reasonable cost, so that they can take full advantage of the new flexibilities. DLA – PIP – assessments to determine eligibility
- Maid ongoing scrutiny and campaigning there are further cuts proposed and announced - Post-election expectations given the manifesto and pre-election/previous government proposals (particularly those blocked by Lib dems but conservative supported) The amount of money struggling homeowners can claim to help them meet monthly mortgage repayments is to fall in July, after the government cut the interest rate used to make the calculations. Currently homeowners entitled to support for mortgage interest (SMI) can get help with monthly payments on a mortgage worth up to £200,000 based on an interest rate of 3.63%. But following a sharp fall in high-street mortgage rates, the rate will be reduced to 3.12%. The change, will come into effect on 6 July 2015, means that on a £100,000 mortgage arranged over 25 years the amount that can be claimed each month will fall from £303 to £260. The Access to Work fund helps people and employers cover costs of disabilities that might be a barrier to work. The biggest single users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and people who have difficulty hearing. A policy document originally announced in March suggests a cap on how much the £108m fund can pay to people who use it.
- Reviewing and looking across the piece in terms of policy analysis and research – developing an approach to analysing policy in terms of it’s implications for practice Territorial policy versus globalisation… Concerns the observation that the issues policies address are frequently global Questions about the relative importance of national policy in globalised contexts Need for different analytical tools to think about policy Multi-scalar Policy… Highlights the dispersed nature of policy across scales or levels Two conceptions: Type I – emphasise multiple tiers (e.g. cities, states, countries. Type II – focus on networks between public and private actors across levels of social organisation Implementation of policy in practice – often utilises concepts of scales or multi-level policy (e.g. EU – implementation in member states; in the US implementation of federal policy in different states, but also nationally in the UK for instance – implementation of national policy - impact) – to think about the relation between e.g. national policy and its implementation at local levels or through different networks of actors. Policy windows - First, the “problem” stream emerges when an existing condition is defined as a problem– a discrepancy between current reality and a desired goal – and critical policymakers accept the definition of the problem. The “policy” stream emerges as consensus grows around policy instruments to solve the problem. The “politics” stream emerges as the “national mood” and leading politicians accept the gravity of the problem and are willing to implement the policies required to address it. When these three streams converge, a policy window is created that can move issues onto the political agenda and into formal policy. Policy entrepreneurs – focus on identifying key individuals that influence policy formation. Individual policy entrepreneurs can be found anywhere (Kingdon 1995), including within governmental bureaucracies, political parties, NGOs, or expert communities. These individuals share a common willingness to invest their resources (time, reputation, and/or knowledge) in a particular proposal for policy change and possess good networking skills.
- 1) the meanings, norms and constructions of need that can be linked to them, 2) the material and socio-technical implications of the policy and associated strategies (e.g. housing), 3) the implications for the temporal ordering of daily life.
- Overarching framing for department – austerity and cuts to welfare. Historically spending on welfare difficult politically (Taylor-Gooby) Worklessness is a problem of individuals and families personal abilities or failures to get into work – lack of training (rather than structural of cultural), lack of trying to get a job, laziness/fecklessness – deserving and undeserving poor - policies like workfare emerge - no challenge to existing work practices Other examples in disability policy, pensions reform, ABC as continuity across policy areas – applying a practice approach here similarities?
- Overarching framing for department – austerity and cuts to welfare. Historically spending on welfare difficult politically (Taylor-Gooby) Worklessness is a problem of individuals and families personal abilities or failures to get into work – lack of training (rather than structural of cultural), lack of trying to get a job, laziness/fecklessness – deserving and undeserving poor - policies like workfare emerge - no challenge to existing work practices Other examples in disability policy, pensions reform, ABC as continuity across policy areas – applying a practice approach here similarities?
- So these are some of the possible directions for the research and challenges that I see moving forward… So firstly there are questions about the shape the narratives that I’m creating take at the moment they are conceptual – reimaginings of different framings and their outcomes but I want to give more thought to how it might be possible to ground outcomes of policy in data so the possibilities for demonstrating increased demand arising from particular approaches to policy Added bonus of being able to illustrate impacts – current policy – don’t necessarily know – more anticipatory – Health policy in welfare