Documents Kirkpatrick, Ian 7 results

"There has been a considerable expansion of agency working in many countries in recent years. Based largely on neo-liberal thinking, this has been seen as a welcome means of promoting labour flexibility and creating jobs. Governments in Anglo-Saxon countries in particular have been keen to limit agency market regulation. However, in line with a shift from new public management (NPM) to post-NPM imperatives, the UK state, as an employer, has adopted an increasingly regulatory stance in its own dealings with employment agencies. Using data from three related research projects, we explore this development in the context of the UK's National Health Service (NHS). We highlight the problems that overt market liberalisation engendered and point to the steps the NHS has taken to address these problems through the introduction of framework agreements and the internalisation of flexibility. While these policies have generated new unforeseen challenges and tensions, they do point to a growing disconnect between the government's approach towards the regulation of agencies in the wider macroeconomic arena and its own approach as a user of agency services."

"In recent years marked changes have occurred in the way employers recruit and select agency workers, with this activity increasingly being outsourced to third party organizations providing ‘vendor managed services' (VMS). Drawing on data from a study of English social services, this article explores the consequences of this outsourcing. The findings reveal that although VMS has delivered cost savings, it has also resulted in less effective placement matching, rising line manager workloads and concerns about service quality. In the conclusion the wider implications of VMS for the future development of partnerships between employers and employment agencies are discussed."

"The aim of this article is to investigate differences between the British public and private sectors in terms of the decentralisation of employment relations. Drawing on data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, the article arrives at three main conclusions. First, the analysis reveals that while local-level managers in both sectors have similar levels of responsibility for employment relations issues, those in the public sector are, on the whole, significantly less likely to be able to exercise authority. Second, the results indicate some marked variations in practice within the public sector, with managers in education having the greatest level of authority. Finally, the article explores the extent to which differences in local-level authority between the public and private sectors can be explained by higher-level collective bargaining, and the presence of higher-level personnel specialists. These factors have only a partial influence, and do not fully explain why local-level employee relations managers in some areas (notably health) are less able to exercise authority than their counterparts in the private sector."

'The last five years have witnessed a steady growth in the use of agency workers to fill core professional roles in public sector organizations. Whereas in the past the use of agency workers was driven mainly by employer demands for improved flexibility, this current expansion is predominantly supply led occurring against a backdrop of increasingly tight labour markets. In this article our objective is to explore some of the factors that lie behind this change. Specifically, we raise questions about how far current trends can be explained using the 'free agent perspective' and the notion of portfolio careers. Focusing on one group of professionals in the UK public sector -local authority social workers -we find only limited evidence to support this interpretation. Instead, it is argued that current moves into agency work are in large part a reaction to increasing rigidities in the employment system and to deteriorating conditions of work.'

"In the UK and elsewhere government efforts to reform or 'modernize' public services are currently having marked consequences for job quality, due to rising levels of work intensification, stress and declining morale. Such change has been linked to absenteeism, recruitment and retention problems. It is also suggested that deteriorating job quality has much to do with the current trend towards agency working among core public service professionals. In this article our aim is to explore this matter focusing on the experiences of National Health Service (NHS) nurses and local authority social workers. Our analysis suggests that benefits such as higher pay and improved flexibility have generated a strong 'pull' into agency contracts. However, the analysis also points to the deterioration of job quality as a key factor influencing decisions to opt out of permanent employment. The article concludes by suggesting that, in the longer term, public sector managers will only be able to stem the tide of nurses and social workers opting to work through agencies if they are also able to address wider problems associated with declining job quality."

"In recent years, there has been a trend towards the negotiation of closer contractual relationships between employers and employment agencies. However, little is known about this change or its likely consequences. In theory, such relationships can benefit employers by lowering fees and also reducing many of the hidden costs associated with the use of agency staff by improving the effectiveness of placement matching. Against this is the suggestion that formal partnerships are unlikely to have a positive impact given the uncertainty of demand for temporary labour and broader tendencies for risk displacement in buyer–supplier networks. In this article, our aim is to explore this matter focusing on recent developments in the UK's National Health Service. We find that new contractual relationships such as framework agreements and master vendor contracts are having mixed effects. While they serve to reduce direct costs for employers in the short term, this has been at the expense of relationship building and improvements in placement matching. These developments are also found to have some potentially negative consequences for the agency workforce itself."