Oxford Think-Tank Critiques Means-Tested Benefit Reforms

PRESS RELEASE


Tuesday 6 October 2009


The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, an Oxford University affiliated think-tank, has published a series of policy briefs examining welfare policy which are largely critical of measures to tighten eligibility for employment benefits. The publications originate from an Oxford conference attended by leading policymakers and political scientists, and are published as the Conservatives announce plans to impose medical assessments on incapacity benefit claimants to reduce public spending.

Professor Robert Goodin, a renowned political philosopher, argues against such moves in his policy brief, suggesting that, “In practice it is impossible to get the fine-grained personalized information that would be required to implement, without unacceptable levels of error, policies holding people personally responsible for their own welfare and denying public benefits to those whose plight is their own fault.”

He goes on to argue that, “Instead of backward-looking blame-responsibility, public policy should be organized around forward-looking principles of task-responsibility. The issue should not be ‘who caused the problem' but, rather, ‘who is best able to get us out of the problem’.”

The Conservative policy, described by David Cameron as the centrepiece of their conference, aims to move up to 500,000 incapacity benefits claimants to the lower level Jobseeker’s Allowance, in what call a “tough and tender” approach.  In a second policy brief by Professor Peter Vincent-Jones, however, the degree of fairness and reciprocity in Jobseeker’s Agreements is brought into question, as he claims that the pretence of ‘contract’ in welfare policy embodied in such agreements should be abandoned.

“The prevailing economic recession is leading to widening social inequalities and increasing the potential for unfairness in the formation and implementation of welfare contracts”, he states. “Structural unemployment and constraints on public finance are limiting the capacity of the state effectively to assist citizens in acquiring skills and finding work, and undermining the relational foundations of this governance mechanism.”

The policy briefs and workshop report form part of the body of publications in the Foundation for Law Justice and Society’s Social Contract Revisited programme, which aims to analyse the reciprocal rights and obligations between citizens and the state in modern liberal society.

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Notes for editors

•    The workshop report and policy briefs examining equality and personal responsibility in the New Social Contract were published on 28 August 2009. They are available to download from the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society website at: www.fljs.org/sc4.

•    The publications originated at a workshop entitled 'Equality and Personal Responsibility in the New Social Contract', held at St Hugh’s College, Oxford on 29 April-1 May 2009. Full details are available at: http://www.fljs.org/section.aspx?id=3165

•    The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society is an independent institution affiliated with the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford.

•    Founded in 2005, the mission of the Foundation is to study, reflect on and promote an understanding of the role that law plays in society. This is achieved through three programmes examining the role of courts in the making of public policy, the social contract, and the social foundations of constitutions.

•    The Foundation draws on the work of scholars and researchers, and aims to make its work easily accessible to professionals in government, business, or the law.
http://www.fljs.org

•    For more information, please contact Phil Dines, Communications Manager:
+44 (0)7809 219 543 (mobile)
+44 (0)1865 284433 (day)
phil.dines@fljs.org


•    Robert Goodin is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Research School of the Social Sciences at the Australian National University, where he has taught since 1989. Goodin is General Editor of a 10-volume series of Oxford Handbooks of Political Science for Oxford University Press; as well as founding Editor of Blackwell's Journal of Political Philosophy, and founding Editor of a series of books on 'Theories of Institutional Design' for Cambridge University Press.

His own work focuses on political theory and public policy. His books include: Political Theory & Public Policy (U Chicago Press, 1982); Protecting the Vulnerable (U Chicago Press, 1985); and Reasons for Welfare (Princeton U Press, 1988).   


•    Peter Vincent-Jones is Professor of Law at Leeds University. He has published extensively on public contracts, housing, and public management issues from a socio-legal perspective, with a particular expertise in the privatisation and contractualisation of public services in the UK and Europe. He is currently engaged in a five-year research project comparing patterns of health care reform in Britain, France, and Hungary, as part of a larger integrated project, 'Reflexive Governance in the Public Interest', involving 28 partner institutions across Europe.