Youth unemployment and civil society under devolution: a comparative analysis of sub-state welfare regimes

This research is important for three key reasons: (1) EU comparisons treat the UK as 'one welfare state' when in fact devolution in the four nations of the UK mean that this is not the case and, as yet, we know little about the differences in policy and civil society approaches to tackling youth unemployment between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (2) It takes advantage of a valuable opportunity to compare policy divergences and create the first cross-comparative dataset on civil society activity in youth unemployment in the context of devolution. (3) It will tell us something new and different about what works and what doesn't work in policy and practice within and between four different policy contexts relevant to any country that has decentralised or devolved systems of welfare provision.

Currently 17% of young people are unemployed across Western Europe. In the UK where around 5.4% people are unemployed, 16-24 year olds are nearly three times more likely to be out of work (12.5%). With dropping population wages -nearly £1,600 lower than five years ago- affecting young people in their twenties more (£1,800 lower), hard line austerity measures in the UK since 2010 affecting the cost of living and of wages, increase in precarious employment, the rising cost of further education coupled with welfare reform and tightening government provision for the unemployed means more young unemployed people are dependant on charity support; and civil society organisations are a crucial stop-gap in this scenario. Yet we know little about how civil society organisations operate within and between the four nations of the UK and even less about the effect that devolution is having on their role in youth unemployment. The study will address this gap in knowledge and show which elements of policy, practice and state-civil society relationships seem most effective, ineffective, productive and promising; and crucially, why.

Recent UK central government policies to mitigate youth unemployment have focused on routes into work such as; 'widening access' programmes for universities, encouraging continued education, boosting apprenticeships and placing duties on local authorities to enforce these measures. However, approaches to delivery, scale and supplementation of these policies (e.g. through Work Experience schemes) varies and civil society or not-for-profit organisations, commonly termed the 'third sector', plays a role in balancing-out this variation. Some groups lobby government for better youth unemployment policy and provision, some work with government to shape and delivery policies and some provide additional services and resources for young, out of work people; but all, as research has shown, are likely to become both more important as the consequences of austerity measures and public sector cuts play-out and more divergent as devolution progresses.

Understanding civil society involvement in youth unemployment relies heavily on the social and political contexts within which they are working. However, existing studies tend to treat the UK as 'one' welfare state when in fact devolution since 1998 has steadily eroded the accuracy of this. The UK has four different governments, four very different policy approaches to youth unemployment which means important differences between welfare provision and the role of civil society. The findings from this research will provide the first full picture of civil society's role in devolved youth unemployment policy and provision.

The findings will also have implications for the UK's exit from the EU. Both Wales and Northern Ireland rely heavily on EU youth unemployment initiatives and funding. The extent to which this gap will be filled by the UK government remains unknown, but if funding decreases the role of the third sector in providing welfare for the young unemployed could become more important in filling an ever widening gap in welfare.

This research will generate knowledge on different approaches to youth unemployment and outcomes, with a focus on civil society. Therefore, the findings will yield important opportunities to realise impact through shared learning on divergent approaches to tackling youth unemployment (see Pathways to Impact for details). Devolution of power to sub-national administrations has meant divergence in policy approaches to tackling youth unemployment under four UK governments, subsequently there are divergent patterns of civil society involvement in tackling youth unemployment and equally divergent outcomes. Knowledge and understanding of these outcomes, and their varying effectiveness could inform, influence, shape or better align policy with extant activity.

Government and policy makers:
The UK government has allocated £61.4b to education and £6.3b to work and pensions in its 2017/18 spring budget. Within these departments initiatives for tackling youth unemployment will be funded, monitored and evaluated. The role of civil society in tackling youth unemployment if far less clearly funded and evaluated. The NCVO almanac provides broad details of civil society work but does not specify youth unemployment, neither does it stipulate funding amounts. In addition, there is no collated or centralised information on either youth unemployment initiatives/cases undertaken by civil society or their outcomes. This amounts to a large gap in knowledge for government in terms of the ways in which Treasury-funded initiatives are being complemented, contradicted or (un)affected by parallel civil society work. Such knowledge and information would allow the relevant departments within UK central government and the three devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to better focus and target and work with civil society to tackle youth unemployment; opening the possibility of reducing or reallocating resources.
The UK government's Communities and Local Government Committee has been contacted and informed about this potential research; as has the Parliamentary Outreach Service which carried out work in collaboration with WISERD, and the PI, in the past year.

Devolved administrations:
The UK 's spring budget also allocates £14.2b, £13.4b and £10b to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively over 2017/18. Each devolved administration will allocate part of this bloc grant towards tackling youth unemployment (see case for support for details on devolved policies and approaches) and will monitor their own initiatives internally. Furthermore, Scotland and soon Wales have tax raising powers (explaining the recent drop in Scottish bloc grant funding) and the Scottish Government has legislative control over certain areas of welfare provision.
The National Assembly for Wales Committee for Young People and Education has expressed an interest in the project findings with two meeting to discuss the design having taken place in July 2017. The National Assembly Committee on Young People and Education, the Northern Irish government's Committee for Communities has expressed an interest in the findings (see Appendix 2) and the Scottish government's Committee on Education and Skills and Economy, Jobs and Fair Work have been contacted and informed about the potential for this project to gauge potential interest in future findings.

Civil society and young people:
Shared learning within and between groups of civil society organisations tackling youth unemployment in the four nations of the UK, through a central dataset, will illuminate the different approaches and their outcomes in an informative and useful learning process. Shared learning for improved and more co-ordinated approaches to tackling youth unemployment will also benefit the young people receiving welfare provision, those seeking employment and those in precarious employment.