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Category: Blogs
Date: 2010
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The geography of cuts
Thursday, 09 September 2010
Category:
Cities/Ideopolis
The BBC are doing a ‘day of cuts’, and to highlight it they’ve released an index of resilience to economic shocks. The results are familiar: northern cities such as Middlesbrough, and those in the Midlands such as Stoke and Mansfield are vulnerable. Affluent commuter towns near London, such as Elmbridge in Surrey and St Albans have done well.
These results are similar to those we highlighted in July in our paper No City Left Behind. Our spin was different – the problem isn’t just about public sector cuts, it’s about a lack of potential for growth in the recovery.
And in 2008 my colleague Naomi Clayton found similar results in a prescient paper which divided cities into those where the public sector dominated (“Enterprise priorities”) and those which had strong, private sector led economies.
These are longstanding and entrenched problems, and the usual suspects tend to crop up time and again. A more important question is what should be done about it? We have a whole research programme, Cities 2020, devoted to this. We’re arguing that there needs to be a focus on the small number of high growth firms who create the majority of new jobs, that the current regional disparities in bank lending and finance need to be addressed, and that the new Local Enterprise Partnerships need to be strengthened in less successful cities.
Public spending cuts, while necessary, will make this harder, and the southern skew of the Coalition’s voter base adds further complexity. With the deficit looming large there will be a temptation for the government to make high-return investments in the productive areas of London and the South East, rather than those which may not do so well in the North. Initiatives such as the £1 billion Regional Growth Fund and tax breaks for new businesses in deprived areas are intended to help overcome some of these issues but seem insufficient to prevent a growing regional jobs divide. As ever, easy solutions remain elusive.
Neil Lee
Biscuits, plants and hot desks
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Category:
Blogs
As the public sector seeks to make substantial cost savings as part of the government’s austerity drive, the cult of the biscuit, the pot plant and the desk are all at risk in Whitehall.
Jane Sullivan
The low trust and high burn out challenge
Monday, 23 August 2010
Category:
Blogs
HR Review cite a recent report from Ceridian that confidence and trust in employers has been significantly eroded during the recession. The report shows employees have experienced frozen pay (37%), changes to roles as a result of reorganisation (12%), longer working hours (44%) and challenges to work life balance (40%).
Jane Sullivan
Early intervention keeps Phil on course
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Category:
Health and Wellbeing
The news that World No 2 golfer Phil Mickelson has been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis brings into sharp relief the importance of the early diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory conditions if people are to stand the best chance of living normal lives and staying in work.
Stephen Bevan
Thoughts on the Work Capability Assessment scheme
Friday, 06 August 2010
Category:
Health and Wellbeing
Last week the DWP released figures about the number of new claimants who have been found fit for work under the new Work Capability Assessment scheme. The assessments place claimants into three groups: support group, work-related activity group and fit for work. Those who are found fit for work are no longer eligible for employment and support allowance.
Robin McGee
The vanishing DRA
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Category:
Health and Wellbeing
By phasing out the Default Retirement Age of 65 the UK is merely addressing the inevitable adjustments to the future experience of work.
Wilson Wong
Is work ruining our lives?
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Category:
Health and Wellbeing
On Wednesday 21 July, I chaired the 4th Annual Relate Lecture given this year by its new President, Professor Cary Cooper of the University of Lancaster....
Stephen Bevan
Too many managers, not enough innovators?
Friday, 23 July 2010
Category:
Knowledge Economy
Over the next ten years job growth in both the US and UK economies will be driven by an expansion in knowledge intensive services and care related jobs. But there is a striking rise in the predicted number of managerial jobs that will be created in the UK. Given that productivity in the US is 22% higher than the UK , this begs the question - what are all these managers doing?
Ian Brinkley
What’s on the horizon? Implications for people management
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Category:
The Future of HR
On Tuesday 13 June, The Work Foundation held a workshop for their network of partners looking at the drivers shaping the employment relationship over the next ten years, following the launch of the third report, The Deal in 2020.....
Dean Morley, Deputy HR Director, Pensions, Disability and Carers Service, Dep for Work and Pensions
A tale of two anglo-saxon economies
Monday, 12 July 2010
Category:
Knowledge Economy
Once described as two countries divided by a common language, the US and the UK are typically seen as exemplars of ‘hire and fire’ labour market flexibility in contrast to the ‘sclerotic’ over-regulated labour markets of the rest of Europe.
Ian Brinkley
No city left behind?
Thursday, 08 July 2010
Category:
Cities/Ideopolis
The Coalition government believes that ‘rebalancing’ the UK economy is a top priority. It wants to stimulate growth in the private sector outside of the South East of England. And later this summer it will publish a white paper on how it intends to do just that.
Jonathan Wright
Clear vision for policing at risk
Tuesday, 06 July 2010
Category:
Blogs
The Home Secretary’s announcement that police budgets will be hit in the current slashing of the public sector follows in the wake of the 2009 White Paper which called for deep cuts in police budgets...
Jane Sullivan
Publish and be damned
Friday, 02 July 2010
Category:
Knowledge Economy
The Queen's speech promised that "A new Office for Budget Responsibility will maintain confidence in the management of the public finances."The No. 10 website explained: "The OBR would put the UK at the forefront of international best practice, exceeding the IMF's recommendations on fiscal transparency. The UK would be one of the few advanced economies with an independent fiscal agency producing the official fiscal and economic forecasts."
Charles Levy
Green Investment Bank needs to grow
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Category:
Blogs
The call from the Green Investment Bank Commission this week for the establishment of a Green Investment Bank (GIB) looks like a very positive development.
Charles Levy
On your bike – but where to?
Monday, 28 June 2010
Category:
Cities/Ideopolis
On Sunday Iain Duncan Smith made headlines suggesting that unemployed people should move to more economically successful areas to find work.
Neil Lee
Take a break
Friday, 11 June 2010
Category:
Health and Wellbeing
How often do you work through your lunch? According to a survey from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (CSP) about a quarter of UK workers regularly do not take a break during the day.
Robin McGee
Smoking ban works in the workplace
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Category:
Policy Reactions
The ban on smoking came into effect in 2007 and this week research from the University of Bath suggests that the benefits of the smoking ban are becoming evident...
Stephen Bevan
Railing against the cuts?
Wednesday, 09 June 2010
Category:
Policy Reactions
In 1941, Lord Beaverbrook – Churchill’s Minister of Supply - passed an order compulsorily requisitioning all post-1850 iron gates and railings for the war effort.....
Stephen Bevan
Red tape or rights? Vince Cable does eeny-meeny-miny-mo with regulation
Friday, 04 June 2010
Category:
Policy Reactions
It is easy to identify regulation as "excessive" in its cumulative form. Bit-by-bit it mounts up and makes doing stuff more irksome. And it changes at sometimes bewildering speed. But it is much harder to point to specific regulations as excessive because generally they were introduced for good reasons to solve real problems.
Stephen Overell
The Natural Wastage Trap
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Category:
Policy Reactions
There’s something reassuring – even benign – about politicians announcing that they expect that job cuts can be achieved through ‘natural wastage’.....
Stephen Bevan
The darling Budds of May
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Category:
Policy Reactions
The Liberal Conservative coalition have come to power promising to do three things above all others: bring down the size of the fiscal deficit, create a new form of political settlement and clean up politics restoring trust in politicians and Parliament....
Stephen Bevan
Making Innovation Inevitable - Good Morning Belgravia!
Friday, 14 May 2010
Category:
Leadership
Gooood Morning Belgravia!
Picture the scene: a room at the IPA in Belgravia, about thirty managers seated waiting for a presentation to start. The speaker greets the group and receives the sort of polite muted ‘”good morning” you would expect. “I am American,” he replies, “I will need more than that”.....
Gideon Benari
Making Innovation Inevitable
Friday, 14 May 2010
Category:
Leadership
As we emerge from one of the most severe economic crises of the last century, there is a growing understanding that in order for the economy to grow and flourish we need to do things differently.....
Louise Shevlane
What happens next?
Friday, 30 April 2010
Category:
Other
So that is that. The last of the three televised leaders' debates has now been now broadcast. They have certainly had a dynamising impact on the general election. Last night's debate was on the economy.
Stephen Bevan
Bigot
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Category:
Other
Bigot’s a strong word. It should be used with caution. After all there are few of us who don’t have the odd prejudice or two tucked away inside our normal smooth urbane personas. ...
Stephen Bevan
Big Blue’s Bombshell: crowd scaring with crowd sourcing
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Category:
Other
The internet has long held out the exciting– or terrifying – possibility of organising without organisations, thus reshaping how work gets done. No need to employ staff with all the fiddly costs and obligations involved; people can be brought together and dispersed on a project-by-project, as-and-when basis.
Stephen Overell
Are lunch breaks for wimps?
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Category:
Health and Wellbeing
Believe it or not, last week I was quoted in an article in the Daily Mail which was marking the 30th anniversary of the Marks & Spencer sandwich.
Stephen Bevan
Volcanic Ash!
Friday, 23 April 2010
Category:
Health and Wellbeing
Wow! What a trip. Last Wednesday, I went to Stockholm to present the pan-European Fit for Work report at the 1st Baltic & North Sea Conference on Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. I was scheduled to return Thursday afternoon, but needless to say the volcano disrupted my return travel plans.
Robin McGee