New Deal (United Kingdom)
The New Deal (renamed Flexible New Deal from October 2009) was a programme of active labour market policies introduced in the United Kingdom by the Labour government in 1998, initially funded by a one-off £5 billion windfall tax on privatised utility companies. The stated purpose is to reduce unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work to the unemployed. Spending on the New Deal was £1.3 billion in 2001.
The New Deal architecture was devised by LSE Professor Richard Layard, who has since been elevated to the House of Lords as a Labour peer. It was based on similar active labour market policies in Sweden, which Layard has spent much of his academic career studying.
Read more about New Deal (United Kingdom): Purpose, New Deal Programmes, Referral Procedure, Flexible New Deal, Steps To Work, Criticisms
Famous quotes containing the word deal:
“The people needed to be rehoused, but I feel disgusted and depressed when I see how they have done it. It did not suit the planners to think how they might deal with the community, or the individuals that made up the community. All they could think was, “Sweep it away!” The bureaucrats put their heads together, and if anyone had told them, “A community is people,” they would not have known what they were on about.”
—May Hobbs (b. 1938)