EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Managing Decentralisation: A New Role for Labour Market Policy

Managing Decentralisation: A New Role for Labour Market Policy

Introduction

Today, governments devote significant efforts to improve local governance. Through improving local governance, governments seek to make their actions more coherent locally and enhance their contribution to solving local problems in areas falling between individual policy fields. Decentralisation and partnership are tools that they use to reach this goal. Labour market policy is often at the core of government initiatives to improve local governance. This report, published by the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme, explores the issue of decentralisation in relation to labour market policy from many different perspectives. The report looks at a wide range of different countries, making it possible for professionals to compare cases and learn from other practices.

Description

Decentralising labour market policy is a delicate and challenging subject of political debate. Does decentralisation really enable co-ordination of policies? At the local level, how do we make the best use of decentralised powers? How can greater flexibility be provided in managing policies while still guaranteeing efficiency and accountability? To enhance responsiveness to citizens’ needs, governments increasingly decentralise the way policies are designed and implemented. In the labour market policy area, many stakeholders, from business and local government to community groups and NGOs have been receptive. The OECD invited leading experts and experienced policy makers and practitioners to address these questions and share their experiences in dealing with such issues. This report, supported by statistical data, summarises the lessons learnt from their experiences. It is intended for researchers, leading experts, business communities, economists in government circles and NGOs.

Conclusions

The 'managing decentralisation' report concludes that:

While it can be helpful to create new local partnership organisations, it is more helpful to embed local governance principles in the decision making process of existing organisations;
It is important to stimulate coordination between labour market policy, local and regional economic development, social inclusion, as well as education;
The participation of employers, trade unions and civil society in the design and implementation of measures should be encouraged.

Contact info

OECD LEED Programme
cfe.contact@oecd.org
Sylvain Giguere

Publication date

08/07/2008

Project finished

08/07/2008

Researcher

OECD Local Economic & Employment Development

Article info
ISBN: 9789264104709

Links

For more information or to order, please visit the OECD website

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy

Keywords

Economy knowledge & employment