Welfare, Employment and Energy Demand

Tensions andOpportunities in the Delivery of

Demand Reduction

Dr Catherine Butler@drcbutler

Project BackgroundTheme 4: Normality Need and Entitlement (4.1 Energy, Need and Justice and 4.3 Implicit – invisible – energy governance)

The role of government objectives, investments and ways of providing in shaping social practice and in doing so constituting the need for energy (e.g. Bourdieu, 1990; Shove, 2004; Hand et al. 2005; Butler et al. 2014)

To effectively unravel, and ultimately reconfigure, the constitution of demand we must attend to a broad sweep of policies that extend beyond what is currently recognised as energy policy.

Tensions between energy demand reduction and wider social goals being addressed in other policy areas for example, social justice, health and wellbeing.

Project Overview• Focus on welfare and employment policy and the Department of

Work and Pensions (DWP) as the main policy body with responsibilities in this area.

• Synergies and conflicts between welfare policy and energy demand reduction (e.g. improving poor quality housing; welfare reforms).

• Examine implications of welfare and employment policy for practice in terms of: 1) the meanings, norms and constructions of need that can be linked to them; 2) the material and socio-technical implications of the policy and associated strategies (e.g. housing, transport); 3) the implications for the temporal ordering of daily life.

Project Objectives• To understand how welfare and employment goals are currently defined,

conceptualised and applied, and what implications they have for practice and energy demand

• To develop insights into the key areas of tension and opportunity within and between welfare and employment and energy demand reduction policies

• To create knowledge of the challenges and possibilities for using welfare and employment policy to radically transform energy demand in line with the UK’s legally binding carbon targets

• To bring insights relevant to policy innovation that might foster opportunities to reduce energy demand while meeting other important societal goals

Project Methods

WP1: Document analysis

WP 2: Policy and stakeholder interviews

WP 3: Policy innovation workshops

• Analysis of policies, speeches, manifestos

• Develop narrative accounts – outcomes for practice

• Qualitative Interviews with policy, agencies, ngos

• Reflexively engage with areas of conflict and opportunities to reduce energy demand

• Future oriented

Department for Work and Pensions• Created in 2001 (merging of department

of social security and policy groups from department of education and employment)

• Secretary of State - Iain Duncan Smith since 2010

• Whitehall’s ‘highest-spending’ department 170bn

• Main responsibilities: Pensions and ageing society, poverty and social justice, welfare reform

Department for Work and PensionsHelping to reduce poverty and improve social justice

Simplifying the welfare system and making sure work pays

Helping people find and stay in work

Making European funding work better for the UK economy

Improving opportunities for older people

Helping households to cut energy bills

Improving the health and safety system

Reviewing the state pension age

Helping people to save more for their retirement through work place pensions

Making the state pension fairer and simpler

Improving the child maintenance system

Fulfilling the commitments of the armed forces covenant

Poverty and social justice

Welfare reform

EmploymentEuropean funds

Older people

Household energyHealth and safety reform

State pension ageAutomatic enrolment in workplace pensions

State pension simplifcation

Child maintenance reform

DWP Policies and Changes • 2010-2015 Welfare reforms

• Employment benefits – E.g. Universal Credit - Workfare

• Housing benefits – E.g. Bedroom size limit rule

• Pensions reform – E.g. Accessing pensions earlier, state pension, working past pension age, workplace

pensions

• Disability benefits– E.g. Disability Living Allowance Personal Independence Payments (work assessments)

DWP Policy Future • Post election 2015

• 12-15 billion in cuts to working age benefits

• Proposals include…– Child tax credits and working tax credit

cuts– A cap on access to work fund payments– Cuts to mortgage support (means tested

support for mortgage interest SMI)

Policy Analysis Concepts

• Policy implementation, policy integration, policy change, political action (e.g. Jordon, 2008; Jasanoff, 2003; Kingdon, 1995; Marres, 2005)

• Territorial policy versus globalisation, multi-scalar policy.

• Governing, governance, government and governmentality (Jordon, 2008; Renn, 2008; Dean, 2010; Miller and Rose, 2008; Rose, 1999; Berthou, 2014)

• Governance and practice (Schatzki, 2014)

Policy Analysis & Practice

• Governmentality - key concepts of problematising, rationalities, and technologies (Foucault, 1979; Dean, 2010; Miller and Rose, 2008; Rose, 1999)

• Modes of governing (Bulkeley et al. 2007)

• Bourdieu (1989) practice approach to understanding the role of state activity in creating social structures (e.g. family)

• Schatzki (2005) practice-arrangement bundles; making some things more or less possible depending on current arrangements

Policy Analysis Approach• Analyse high level problem

understandings

• Unpack how relate to constructions of governing modes and policy solutions

• Understand implications for practices and energy demand (meaning, materials, temporal patterning)

• Re-imaginings, alternatives and possible win-win outcomes

Problematising

Modes of governing and

policies

Practices – change or

continuities in energy demand

An Example Case

Austerity and funding cuts.

Worklessness – individual

Getting into work -

workfare

Practices –continuities and

increases in energy demand e.g. work travel

“Work for those who can is the most sustainable route out of poverty”.

“Worklessness - There are currently around 3.9 million workless households in the UK. That is almost one in five of all households.” (Social Justice: Transforming Lives, 2012)

“Your work coach may refer you to these schemes… you may do work experience to add some career history to your CV”. (Back to Work Schemes, 2014)

An Example Case

Austerity and funding cuts.

Worklessness – individual

Getting into work -

training

Practices –continuities and

increases in energy demand e.g. work travel

Workplace hubs in areas of high employment

Practice change - materials, temporal ordering, meanings

Future Plans and Challenges• Conceptual cases versus data driven – understanding policy impact and

evaluation

• Implications of energy policy for welfare and employment (e.g. solar PV/community benefits/community energy strategy).

• Defining welfare and employment policy – scope to think about relationship between welfare and energy more broadly.

• Detailed analysis of policies – change and fluctuation with democratic cycles and reshuffles.

• Policy buy-in and connections – influence and impact – engaging with energy demand - outcomes for incremental change as well as more fundamental re-imaginings.

• Devolved government – differences (e.g. Wales closer links between welfare and energy policy)

??

Thank you

c.butler@exeter.ac.uk

@drcbutler