Dr. Tom Boland:

As we might expect, one answer is Scandinavia. I have colleagues in Denmark. It is not as much ideological as relating to the systems and processes. The Danish system is scaling back from the infrastructure we are building up to activate people and direct them into work. It is beginning to say people will find work in their own way. Another element of the Danish system that appeals to us as researchers is that the department is very open. At present, officers of the Intreo office cannot speak to us about their work in the way that people in almost any other walk of life can. That openness to research and researchers is something we would like to copy from abroad.

Those systems in Scandinavia focus much more on supporting people back into education and training. There is a great deal of debate about the effect of various forms of activation. The UK study from which Dr. Fitzpatrick and I are quoting shows that when people are sanctioned, they will generally just accept any job at all, so they may take the lowest paid job and often quickly end up back on the dole because of short contracts and so on. There is some good evidence to suggest that if people are given proper supports and training, even though they may spend longer unemployed, they will eventually find their way into a more secure job with a career progression path ahead of it. It is about patience.