Of policies, policing and provision: compliance and productivity in welfare-to- work programmes in the USA and Europe

How different are European welfare-to-work schemes from American ‘workfare’? This paper sets up a distinction between ‘compliance’ and ‘productivity’ orientations in programme design. It analyses communications between politics and administration in the conduct of schemes in the US, the UK and the Netherlands, identifying for each scheme the configuration of legal rights, performance management systems and financial arrangements. It is shown how institutional factors can explain why US ‘workfare’ is compliance-oriented, an orientation achieved by distinctive performance targets and budgetary structures. Different institutional possibilities and constraints characterise the development of schemes in the UK and the Netherlands, which mainly have a productivity orientation, reflected in performance targets and financial incentives which reward placement in employment.