Modernisation or casualisation? Numerical flexibility in public services.

Introduction

Traditionally, the trade-off for moderation in demands for wage increases has been the expectation of job security, incremental career progression, pension rights and generous sickness allowances (Fredman & Morris, 1989; Winchester & Bach, 1999). In some respects, public-sector employment is still considered to be more secure than private-sector employment (Morgan et al., 2000), and other benefits remain relatively generous. Public-sector employers also pride themselves on being at the forefront of progressive equal-opportunities policies and the 'management of diversity' (Halford et al., 1997). The public sector remains the sector with the highest density of women managers and professionals.

The 'cost' of the public sector has always been intensely political, but it became the subject of particular political scrutiny towards the end of the 1970s--a scrutiny that gained momentum with the onslaught of the neoliberal 'reforms' of the 1980s and 1990s (Ferlie et al., 1996; Gough, 1979; Pollitt, 1990). The rationale for reform was that protecting the public sector from market mechanisms had made it inflexible and unresponsive. The focus of the Conservative government's restructuring was the removal of public-sector workers' traditional terms and conditions by a number of means. The contracting-out of public services offered a prime example of the way in which opening public services to competition led to the deterioration of the terms and conditions of the workers affected, and particularly women (see, for example, Colling & Ferner, 1995; Escott &Whitfield, 1995).The result has been that public-sector employment is now characterised, according to trade unions, by acute internal unfairness in the form of a 'two-tier workforce' (UNISON, 2002).

More recent pressure for public-sector restructuring has taken on the mantle of modernisation; but the modernisation of local government is not a new concept. Hoggett (1994) used the term in relation to rationalisation under Conservative governments after 1979. This paper argues that there are considerable similarities between modernisation as it was and as it has continued in the political trend of public-sector restructuring, particularly in its veneration of 'flexibility'.

The demand for greater labour flexibility is a key attribute of the modernisation agenda of the current Labour government, as outlined in its 1998 comprehensive spending review (Treasury Department). The concept of flexibility, however, has received a great deal of academic attention, largely in response to Atkinson's (1984, 1985) model of the 'flexible firm'.

This model has been highly criticised, and the debates are discussed in more detail below. However, Atkinson's model drew attention to the fact that flexibility is not a unified concept, and is likely to exist in a number of qualitatively different forms within organisations. One aspect highlighted by Atkinson--numerical flexibility in the form of temporary employment--has become commonplace in public services. It will be argued here that the result is that already-vulnerable groups of workers suffer inferior terms and conditions of employment, and are excluded from equal-opportunities policies (Conley, 2002; Conley, 2003). This is despite the 'single status agreement' of 1997, which sought to harmonise the terms and conditions of local-government public-service workers.

Qualitative data will be used in order to highlight the divisions between temporary and permanent staff in local government services--and particularly the negative impact that temporary employment has on the equality of opportunity available to already-disadvantaged groups of workers. It also considers the impact of the growth of temporary employment on the recruitment and retention of public-services personnel. In relation to these issues, it will be argued that there are contradictions between key aspects of the modernisation agenda and the improvement of public-service delivery.

In conclusion, the paper argues that, if the modernisation agenda encourages greater 'numerical flexibility' as the TUC fears it might, (1) the ensuing casualisation of labour will reinforce union claims of the existence of a two-tier workforce, and undermine progress towards equality of opportunity in public-services employment.

The flexibility debates

The term 'flexibility' arose after a number of arguments had stressed that the declining prosperity of mature economies results largely from rigidities in labour markets and production processes (Piore & Sabel, 1984; Hirst & Zeitlin, 1989). Such rigidities were identified at both macro and micro levels, and were closely related to the post-war growth in job security (Cousins, 1999). In brief, the macro-level rigidities were largely considered to be the over-regulation of national and international labour markets, while micro-level rigidities resulted from employer practices that relied heavily on static internal labour markets. Trade union organisation has also been implicated in maintaining working practices that, some have suggested, added to rigidity (Hayek, 1980; Metcalf, 1988).

A theoretical analysis of the influences underpinning these changes has been posed under the rubric of post-Fordism. The concept of post-Fordism has been hotly debated (e.g. Pollert, 1988b; De Vroey, 1984; Nolan & O'Donnell, 1991). For some (e.g. Piore & Sabel, 1984), post-Fordism offers the restoration of craft production. For others (e.g. Lipietz, 1992), post-Fordism can be either positive or negative, depending on the route taken by the state; and others see only neoliberalism, lurking under a positive gloss (e.g. Rairmie, 1991). In the UK, the concept of flexibility became the subject of academic debate after Atkinson (1984, 1985) (2) developed the model of the flexible firm, itself also the subject of a great deal of critical analysis (Pollert, 1988a, 1988b, 1991; Rubery, 1989).

These were lengthy debates, and a detailed review is outside the remit of this article. However, it is important to highlight a number of points. First, it has been argued that labour-market flexibility is not gender-, ethnicity- or age-neutral: women, ethnic-minority and old and young workers make up the insecure, low-skilled labour-market periphery (Pollert, 1988a, 1988b, 1991; Rubery, 1989; Dex & McCulloch, 1997). Second, the majority of discussion in relation to post-Fordism focused on the concept of 'flexible specialisation'. Flexible specialisation has similarities to Atkinson's concept of functional flexibility, relates largely to (white, male) 'core' workers, and has gained an air of legitimacy because of its claim to promote up-skilling and multi-skilling in what Lipietz (1992) described as 'positive flexibility'.

It is much more difficult, on the other hand, to put any such gloss on numerical flexibility, which remains a form of casualisation by any other name. Lastly, the focus on flexible specialisation was empirically unwarranted since data from the workplace employee-relations survey (WERS) found that, in the UK, while numerical flexibility 'appears to be quite widespread', functional flexibility is either 'non-existent or negligible' (Cully et al., 1998:9).

In the UK, the growth of numerical flexibility has been particularly marked in the public sector (Casey, 1991; Conley, 2002). Casey (1991) notes that 'it might well be the public sector, not the private sector, which is the vanguard of current attempts to promote "flexible" forms of working' (p. 185). Pollert (1988a:53) argues that the flexible-firm thesis 'conflates changes in the public sector, and the services in general, with management strategy in the private sector'. Similarly, Rubery notes that 'It is in the public sector that there have been the most evident changes in employer strategy: the internal labour force has been increasingly subdivided into those on permanent and those on temporary contracts' (1989:166).

In relation to local government, Escott and Whitfield (1995) found that numerical flexibility was an increasing aspect of employment policy and practice. They further note that most temporary workers in local government are female. Therefore, the result is that while restructuring may have created more employment opportunities for women, they are concentrated in ever-more precarious jobs (Dex & McCulloch, 1995).

Fairbrother argues that 'the major reorganisation of labour relations in the public sector must be attributed to the specific political programme of the government' (1991: 167). He further notes that the different context of the employment relationship in the public sector has warranted a different set of proposals for restructure.

The central feature of this relationship is trade unionism, which has proved to be resilient in the face of the neoliberal onslaught. Flexible working practices have therefore been deployed as a 'major weapon to achieve a controlled and malleable workforce in a period of radical restructuring' (Fairbrother, 1991:69).

The cutting edge of this weapon has been the move towards decentralisation and, more recently, modernisation, which have encouraged the redefinition of managerial authority, particularly at the local level. This has been facilitated and enhanced by the use of temporary employment contracts, as evidence suggests that the decision to use temporary workers falls increasingly to local managers. As a result, weakened employee status is likely to bring newly acquired management prerogatives sharply into focus.

The modernisation agenda and flexibility

It is interesting to note that, while the economic, cultural and social shifts that are thought to be taking place in the world generally are collectively termed 'postmodern', politically driven change in welfare states is referred to as 'modernisation'. The implication is that, at the level of the nation state, the public sector is always playing 'catch-up' with the private sector. How far this is true in relation to flexibility is discussed below; but the political desire for the public sector to be more like the private sector has been the kernel of much of the debate concerning public-sector restructuring since the 1970s.

An ideological commitment to a Keynesian welfare state and the social partnership on which it had been founded had begun to wane well before the election of the Conservatives in 1979 (Corby & White, 1999; Farnham & Horton, 1996). However, the change of government proved to be something of a watershed, as the objectives for dismantling the post-war settlement were openly voiced. Thatcher's view of the 'insatiable' public sector (1995: 124) echoed the theories of Bacon and Eltis (1976), whose critique of the welfare state contended that valuable resources ebbed from the 'wealth creating' private sector into the 'wealth consuming' public sector. Under the new ideology, the primary role of the state was openly proclaimed to be that of providing and safeguarding a political environment in which capital could flourish unhindered. Opening the public sector to competition served this purpose in two ways: it would force down the costs of the public sector, which would fund tax cuts and offer profit-making opportunities to capitalist organisations.

The changes required in order to put the ideology into action were imposed in many parts of the public sector, where the government used its power as paymaster and legislator to great effect. However, resilient trade unionism meant that restructuring was fiercely disputed and resisted in local government, which consequently became the location of 'one of the primary political and industrial battlegrounds of the 1980s' (Foster, 1993). Although, as Cochrane (1993) notes, 'attacks' on local government predated the Thatcher government, the pace and the mode altered dramatically after the 1979 election, as the state used its role as legislator in order to radically alter the public-sector industrial-relations environment. Within three weeks of the general election in 1979, after a meeting with local authority associations and unions, the new Secretary of State for the Environment placed a recruitment freeze on all local authorities and commissioned a review of staffing requirements (Karran, 1984).

Reducing the size of the public-sector workforce was a key concern for Conservative governments between 1979 and 1997, but the main 'barrier to business' was considered to be rigid and over-regulated labour markets. The prescription was, therefore, the provision of a 'flexible' workforce. The government again used its position as indirect employer in order to put ideology into practice. A number of documents were issued encouraging local employers and managers to utilise an array of contractual arrangements, particularly fixed-term and temporary contracts. Now, far from lagging behind the private sector, employment statistics show that, in respect of numerical flexibility at least, the public sector is streets ahead.

Analyses of labour-force survey (LFS) data reveal that temporary work in the public sector steadily increased between 1992--when figures on temporary work began to be collected--and 1998 (Sly & Stillwell, 1997). There was a slight decrease in 1999, (3) and temporary workers in the public sector now make up approximately IO per cent of the workforce (Conley, 2002). This percentage is double that of the private sector, but much closer to the European average--which is an interesting point, given the argument that public-sector reform has been influenced by the EU agenda to restrict public spending (Bach, 1999).

There is clearly a greater propensity to use temporary labour in the public sector, and disaggregated analysis of LFS data completed by the then Local Government Management Board (LGMB, 1998), supported by their own joint staffing watch survey, indicated that there was an even greater density of temporary workers in local government. The LGMB analysis found that, in local authorities, one-in-eight workers was employed on a temporary contract, including as many as one-in-five teachers. This can be compared to a figure of one-in-fifteen workers in the wider economy. The study also revealed a higher incidence of temporary contracts in local government among women (14 per cent), young workers (25 per cent), disabled people (17 per cent) and members of ethnic-minority groups (15 per cent).

Interestingly, the LGMB report claimed that, going against the trend nationally, increases in temporary work in local government were more marked among women than men. In relation to this point, the report drew strong links between part-time and temporary work. 22 per cent of part-time workers in local government were classed as temporary, in comparison with 7 per cent of full-time workers. This can be further compared to figures for the wider economy, where 13 per cent of part-time and 5 per cent of full-time workers were classed as temporary.

Given these findings, it might be expected that the newly elected Labour government of 1997, committed to improving gender equality, would reassess the idea of labour-market flexibility as a modernisation strategy for the public services. And for a brief period, it looked as though this might indeed be the case.

In February 1997, three months before the general election, Peter Hain, the then-Labour shadow employment minister, announced that a New Labour government would tackle job insecurity by first looking within the government's 'own back yard' (Hain, 1997). By this, Hain meant public employment, specifically the civil service, after research had revealed a particularly high rate of casualisation following the creation of the 'Next Steps' agencies, which were intended to operationalise the reorganisation of management structures in the civil service. However, following the election, the initiative disappeared without a trace and it is ironic that, in the 2004 budget, the civil service was the target of redundancies in the name of the modernisation agenda.

Ricca (1989: 288) notes that 'many policy-makers seem to confuse the concepts of precariousness and flexibility'--a confusion that led Standing (1997: 28) to claim that the Keynesian welfare state has given way to 'Malthusianism ... that sees the stick of insecurity as essential for the wealth of nations'. In this respect, it is interesting to note how Labour Party concern about the casualisation of public-service work was replaced by the New Labour government's quest for employment flexibility as part of its modernisation agenda.

Modernisation, flexibility and New Labour

Winchester and Bach (1999: 52) note that the newly elected Labour government embraced most of the Conservative agenda for reform of public-service delivery and employment. In the first year following its election in 1997, the New Labour government produced the 'comprehensive spending review', in which it decided to follow, for the most part, the previous Conservative government's spending commitments for public services. In 1999, the first set of 'public service agreements' (PSAS) were issued, to cover the period 1999-2002. PSAS outline a three-year plan, and 'bring together in a single document important information on aims and objectives, resources, performance and efficiency targets and related policy initiatives' (HM Treasury, 1999).

In a foreword to the first set of PSAS, the prime minister wrote that 'extra investment was conditional on clear objectives, higher standards, improved productivity, and the reforms needed to deliver the modern and efficient services the public needs'. The main aim of PSAS is to outline performance targets for each government department, but they do not give details of the impact of these targets on human resources. The only specific human resources-related objective in the agreements is the control of absence from work through sickness throughout the public services.

The modernisation agenda was developed significantly following the re-election of the Labour government in 2001, and flexibility, a concept embraced by previous Conservative administrations, is one of the four key principles of the modernisation agenda for public services. The other three principles are national standards through targets, the devolution of authority to 'front-line' professionals, and greater consumer choice. These principles were launched by the prime minister in October 2001, having been developed by the newly established Office of Public Sector Reform (OPSR).

The four principles were contained in the document Reforming Our Public Services: Principles into Practice, published in March 2002 (OPSR). The term 'flexibility' is used widely in the document; but as a concept, it is left undefined.

However, an analysis of the document makes it possible to piece together some idea of how flexibility is likely to manifest itself for public-service workers. First, customer demand, rather than the work-life-balance needs of employees, is given as the driver for increased flexibility in public-service provision:

   More flexibility is required for public service organisations
   and their staff to achieve the diversity of service
   provision needed to respond to the wide range of customer
   aspirations. This means challenging restrictive practices
   and reducing red tape; greater and more flexible incentives
   and reward for good performance; strong leadership and
   management; and high quality training and development.
   (OPSR, 2002: 10)

Sturdy (2001: 3) notes that 'Customer (cf. public or professional) service is based on the largely flawed, but powerful, neo-liberal concept of the sovereign consumer and free markets'. There are conceptual difficulties in defining public-service users as customers, particularly in relation to social services, where many of the users are forced, using statutory powers, to 'consume'.

Despite this, modernisation documents use the term, and provide clear similarities between the current focus on 'customer aspiration' and the 'public choice' theory favoured by earlier, Conservative administrations. Second, again in the spirit of public-choice theory, there is an assumption that current practice is bureaucratic and dominated by vested interests. And lastly, strong leadership and management are encouraged through devolution and delegation, which are indicated as the way forward in the pursuit of greater flexibility, wherein 'front-line staff and managers have got the authority to experiment and to take on the risks that go with such innovation' (OPSR, 2002: 15).

However, decentralised authority also brings accountability through the application of centrally set national standards. Again, these are not new strategies. Hoggett (1996: 18) argues that public services were subject to a form of 'arm's-length' control when previous, Conservative governments decentralised operations while centralising policy and the allocation of resources. The aim, Hoggett further argues, is a 'high out-put, low commitment workforce' (p. 9), gained through greater managerialism in order to produce an insecure and intensified labour process.

In relation to Hoggett's earlier concerns about Conservative government policy, it is interesting to note that the Labour government's 2002 document on reforming public services includes, within the meaning of 'flexibility', managerial rights to 'change local terms and conditions so that they are best able to customise services' (OPSR, 2002: 19). It is clear from this usage that flexibility could have a negative impact on the terms and conditions of public-sector workers; and the document warns that 'moving towards more flexible systems of pay and working will not be unopposed' (ibid: 21).

Following on from this, the document states that the interests of existing staff will be safeguarded, with the implication that new staff will receive less favourable terms and conditions. However, somewhat contradictorily, the document acknowledges a recruitment-and-retention problem throughout public services, and asserts the need for fair treatment in order to solve these issues.

The two-tier workforce

A number of contradictions are evident in the government's modernisation agenda for public services. Flexibility poses a threat to the terms and conditions of public-sector workers; and decentralisation, as a vehicle for enhancing managerial control, provides the route by which this can be achieved. However, trade union opposition to New Labour has been mixed (McIlroy, 2000). In most trade union leaderships, there has been a desire for what appeared to be the sanctuary offered by social partnership after eighteen years of unbridled neoliberalism; but early optimism was soon tempered. Similarly, the concept of modernisation has been met with some ambivalence. Its acceptance in relation to pay structures has been largely in the expectation that reform will reduce pay-gaps for women and ethnic-minority workers. (4)

If anything, it is the continued push for labour-market flexibility, particularly numerical flexibility, that has prompted concerted dissent. The aftermath of compulsory competitive tendering and the increasing use of casualised labour led the public-sector trade unions to claim that public-service employment is increasingly marked by internal unfairness, which has led to what they call a 'two-tier workforce'. The 'best value code of practice', agreed between the trade unions and public employers and issued in March 2003, goes some way to acknowledging and attempting to resolve this unfairness by reinstating the spirit of the fair wages resolutions abolished by the Conservative government in 1983.

However, the TUC general council statement on public services (September 2003) (5) noted that 'there is still a strong sense that "modernisation and reform" is something that is done to public service workers rather than a process to which they contribute as active partners'. The general council was particularly critical of the use of flexibility, and specifically numerical flexibility, as a cover for the erosion of terms and conditions, adding: 'the resolution of these questions should not be a pretext for the more extensive use of agency or fixed-term contract workers in the public sector as a device to avoid the implications of the two-tier settlement'.

The unclear definition of temporary workers in the 1997 'single status agreement'--and thus uncertainty over their inclusion or otherwise in that agreement (Conley, 200)--is likely to have contributed to the suspicions of the general council. In addition to undermining these collective agreements, the continued extensive use of temporary labour appears to adversely impact on the recruitment and retention of key public-service staff (Conley, 2002), and on the application of equal-opportunities policies (Conley, 2003). Furthermore, decentralisation of management authority for the recruitment of temporary staff was found to be a crucial factor in the disparate treatment of temporary workers. It is to these issues that this paper now turns.

The research

The paper draws on data from in-depth case-study research carried out in two local authorities and their attendant local education authorities (LEAs). Both authorities are in England. A case-study model was chosen for two main reasons. First, the quality and reliability of quantitative data concerning temporary work in local government is limited (Hegewisch, 1999; LGMB, 1998), making secondary analysis less useful. Second, the heterogeneous nature of local-government structure and organisation makes generalisation difficult. The purpose of case-study research is not to attempt numerical generalisations, but to uncover the processes and mechanisms underlying particular phenomenon (Yin, 1994). In this respect, Casey et al. (1997) have noted the benefits of case studies as a method with which to research employers' use of 'non-standard' employment contracts. They contend that the case-study approach allows the researcher to collect data that is 'essential for an understanding of the development of flexible practices in employing organisations and in the labour market' (ibid: 77).

One danger of using case studies is that the chosen sites may be 'atypical' or extreme cases that risk emphasising isolated bad practice. However, the numbers of temporary workers in the sites chosen closely reflected the averaged data collected by the LGMB, suggesting that the case-study sites were not particularly unusual in the extent of their use of temporary labour. The processes that drove the use of temporary labour in the two authorities stemmed from their very different political, geographical, demographic and economic contexts. Despite these organisational differences, the experiences of temporary workers in both authorities were very similar.

The first authority, referred to as 'City', is a large metropolitan council employing in the region of 52,000 workers. City serves an ethnically diverse population, and prides itself on its equality and diversity policies. City has a high employment turnover rate, with almost constant vacancies, particularly in social services. The second authority, 'County', is a small rural county council employing approximately 12,000 people. County serves a largely white, wealthy, ageing population. At the time the research was carried out, County was undergoing centrally imposed local-government reorganisation (LGR). County covers a geographically large area, and the staffing of fairly remote rural services had caused problems for recruitment and retention in the past. However, uncertainty over staffing levels following LGR meant that recruitment was being carefully controlled. By local authority standards, equality of opportunity was not high on the agenda in County.

In both authorities, the social services and education departments were among the main users of temporary labour. These departments also employed the largest percentages of women workers. Therefore, the research was focused on four work sites in each of these departments. The data was collected between I997 and I998, during sixty-one individual, semi-structured interviews with local-government officials, managers, trade union officials and lay officers, and temporary workers themselves. Managers and officials were selected for interview on the basis of their involvement with the recruitment or representation of temporary workers. All temporary workers at the sixteen work sites visited were interviewed. Interview data was supplemented by data collected during joint trade union-employer meetings concerning temporary work, which the author was invited to attend as an observer, and by data from a number of documents that were made available.

The aims of this paper are to explore the contradictions, as highlighted in academic debates, between the UK government's modernisation agenda for public services and its desire for labour-market flexibility. Analysis of policy documents and the research data indicates that the use of numerical flexibility gives rise to tensions in two areas: the recruitment and retention of public-sector workers, and in equality issues. The following sections therefore explore these areas in some detail.

Recruitment and retention

There are some parallels between Conservative ideology based on public-choice theory and the modernisation agenda of the current Labour government. However, while the former was concerned primarily with the reduction in size of the public sector, the latter has recognised that recruitment and retention problems are severely impeding the function of public services.

The Audit Commission is conducting a major research project in relation to recruitment and retention (6) in the public services generally. The DfES has commissioned research into recruitment and retention issues in relation to school teachers (Smithers & Robinson, 2001, 2002), and the Local Government Employers' Organisation (LGEO) has produced a number of documents aimed at improving recruitment and retention in local-government public services.

There is a contradiction between high levels of temporary workers in the public sector and the need to reduce staff turnover rates (Conley, 2002). Approximately 60,800 teachers resigned in 2002, and 52.7 per cent of these were leaving teaching in the public sector entirely (Smithers & Robinson, 2003). Smithers and Robinson further found that 'leavers were significantly more likely to come from those holding fixed-term or part-time contracts' (p. 44). Social-care work is also suffering from acute recruitment and retention difficulties, with some authorities operating with vacancy rates of 46 per cent (LGEO, 2001).

These findings seem incompatible with the levels of involuntary temporary work found in the two case-study authorities. The data suggests that a number of factors have fed this contradiction. The first stems from tensions between centrally set performance indicators and the decentralisation of authority over staffing, intended to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit in order to meet those targets.

As a Labour-controlled authority with close links to the unions, the elected members and executive committee in City found themselves confronting the pressures of 'centralised decentralisation' (Hoggett, 1996). On the one hand was the ever-present threat of budget shortfalls; and on the other, a politically sensitive 'no compulsory redundancy' collective agreement. One council leader suggested that the increased use of temporary workers relieved this pressure, since the shedding of temporary workers in times of budgetary difficulty did not constitute redundancy. In this way, jobs could be lost without breaking the redundancy agreement. Similarly, the agreement included a guarantee of redeployment for all permanent council employees should it become necessary to make their current position redundant. However, this had become difficult to implement, since devolved budgetary restraint meant that local managers were reluctant to accept redeployed staff employed on permanent contracts. Again, temporary work offered a solution, because no such assurances of redeployment were necessary for temporary workers.

Although authority-wide policies limited decision-making capacities at a departmental level, it was clear that devolved authority and budgets gave local managers a high level of discretion. This was particularly apparent in the treatment of temporary workers, whose working arrangements were often ad hoc and informal. Temporary workers were mostly recruited from small, localised pools known only to respective unit managers, and there were complaints from staff that this practice often resulted in a great deal of favouritism and patronage.

Centrally imposed local-government reorganisation was portrayed as the main culprit for the increase in temporary workers in County. In principle, the day-to-day staffing of individual social-services establishments was devolved to unit managers. However, authority-wide policies put in place to meet LGR took precedence. Therefore, in the two-year period prior to the date set for the completion of the reorganisation, all new appointments in County were made on a temporary basis. The express intention was that these workers could be cheaply and easily shed, if necessary, once the reorganisation had been completed. As in City, the devolved recruitment and selection of temporary workers gave local managers a high level of discretion. Although LGR meant that choosing between permanent and temporary workers was no longer an option, local managers still had discretion over the selection and length of contract of temporary workers.

Devolved budgets and the decentralisation of decisionmaking in relation to personnel issues has been uniform and more clearly delineated in schools, under the Education Reform Act 1988.

Discretion over the contractual arrangements of staff is now exercised by the head teacher and governing body, with the role of the LEA, although still the legal employer, relegated largely to that of administrator. Uncertainty over insufficient school budgets was the driving force for the recruitment of temporary teaching staff in both City and County. The absurdity of this situation was highlighted in the 2003 school year, when some schools were making redundancies whilst simultaneously in the midst of recruitment and retention difficulties.

Government initiatives to increase 'customer' choice in education further destabilised school budgets and staffing levels. One secondary-school deputy head teacher noted the way fluctuations in students' curriculum choices was necessitating the use of temporary teaching staff:

   Well, it basically revolves around our budget, and it is
   also driven by the students' options. So if the students
   want psychology one year, then we have to employ
   somebody ... It depends what the curriculum is; it is driven
   by the curriculum, you see. For example, if psychology
   in the sixth form is very big one year and then it dips,
   then obviously you have to let that colleague go. (Deputy
   head teacher, County)

Infant schools, on the other hand, have the uncertainty of not knowing how many children will be received into reception classes until almost the first day of each school year. One infant-school head teacher explained how increasing scope for parental choice had exacerbated this problem, and how difficult staff planning was as a result. The following quote from that head teacher gives some indication of how the entrepreneurial spirit sought by the modernisation agenda impacts on school staffing:

   Some parents just look at pure statistics and move their
   kids away ... There is a market out there of four-year-olds,
   and parents are very discerning now. Now we have
   to maintain bums on seats to make sure that we can
   maintain our present provision of staffing ... It is a pure
   business now. I don't regard myself as head teacher at all.
   I regard myself as the person who controls this business,
   which is educating children. (Head teacher, County)

One related aspect identified in both City and County was the casualisation of newly qualified teachers (NQTS) and unqualified teaching assistants. LEA officials in both City and County were concerned at the growing number of NQTS employed on temporary contracts.

However, rather paradoxically, the LEAS in both authorities maintained a 'pool' of NQTS who were available for schools to recruit on a temporary basis, largely as a consequence of the preference of head teachers for 'trying out' NQTS. Smithers and Robinson (2001, 2003) have highlighted the fact that a third of NQTS leaves the profession less than five years after qualifying. Given the acute recruitment and retention shortages in teaching, and the turnover rates amongst NQTS, it seems extraordinary that they should not be given the incentive of a permanent contract once they have completed their training.

Equal opportunities

The Labour government has given a high profile to equality with the founding of the Women and Equality Unit and the Home Office Equality Unit. Following the Kingsmill report, commissioned by the government in 2001 as an independent review into women's employment and pay, the government decided that every public-sector organisation must have undertaken an employment-and-pay review by March 2003 as part of the modernisation agenda. And as part of the equality initiative, the government set an 'equality standard for local government'. The aims of the standard are to 'combat the institutional processes that lead to discrimination and which form part of the culture and administration and governance in Britain' (LGEO, undated: 1).

Most progressive local authorities take equality seriously (Halford, Savage & Witz, 1997), but numerical flexibility and the operation of a core/periphery model, which offers privileges to core workers and disadvantages to those in the periphery, are incompatible with the development of equal-opportunities policy and practice (Conley, 2003). There is a strong tradition of research whose results relate labour-market segmentation to segregation (e.g. Barton & Norris, 1976; Doeringer & Piore, 1971; Hakim, 1979).

The figures collected by the LGMB, cited above, indicate that temporary work in local government is an example of the relationship between segmentation and segregation. Temporary work in the two case-study authorities was clearly segregated along gender lines, and a strong relationship between part-time and temporary work was a major cause. In both City and County, temporary workers were more likely to also be part-time workers, and therefore women. This relationship was particularly marked in education, where both qualified teachers and unqualified teaching assistants were more likely to be employed on temporary contracts.

This is an interesting point, because the use of teaching assistants is the very example of good practice concerning employment flexibility that is cited in the government's Principles into Practice document (OPSR, 2002: 19). In City and County, teaching assistants were almost all female, and were invariably employed on relatively short-term temporary contracts. There was some evidence in City that workers from ethnic-minority groups were more likely to be employed on temporary contracts. This effect was less pronounced, but was probably related to a lack of professional teaching or social-work qualifications (Conley, 2003).

In addition to the inevitable job insecurity experienced by temporary workers in the case-study authorities, a number of other disadvantages were identified. One important issue, given the recent, high-profile sex-discrimination cases concerning pension rights for part-time workers, was the limited access that temporary workers have to pension schemes.

Casual staff in both authorities were not eligible to join pension schemes and, although fixed-term staff were formally eligible, the short-term and often intermittent nature of their employment often militated against them joining. One of the temporary teachers had given up trying to maintain her pension contributions through her various, intermittent teaching contracts:

   Somehow everything [pension details] just got lost, so I
   never bothered chasing it again. Simply, again, because I
   didn't fit the masses, I have fallen by the wayside. (Fiona,
   teacher, City)

Fiona's experience highlights the way public-sector pension schemes--in this case, the teachers' pension scheme--were designed with secure, unbroken employment patterns in mind, and not for flexible working patterns. This is an issue that requires further consideration by the government when it advocates more flexible forms of public-sector employment in its modernisation agenda.

Other equality issues are related to training and development opportunities for temporary staff. Principles into Practice places emphasis on 'high quality training and development' (OPSR, 2002: 10). However, one of the major concerns of the temporary workers in City and County was their lack of access to training provision. Managers, asked about access to training provision for temporary workers, gave a positive response; but temporary workers themselves had a different view. All but one of the workers interviewed considered their training to have been insufficient.

The opinions of the NQTS were divided over training. Two said that they had been given the non-contact time required by statute for NQTS, intended to allow some 'self-motivated' training. Another, Samantha, felt that she had been given priority, as a NQT, for training both in terms of non-contact hours, and also in the provision of external courses. Katy identified a very different situation in her school, and added that cost was the influencing factor behind her poor training provision:

   We are supposed to have training as NQTS, but because
   there are six of us out of twelve staff that work there,
   what she [head teacher] did is that we had a two-and-a-half-hour
   staff meeting after school that was classed as
   NQT training, for the simple reason that she didn't want
   to have to pay for supply [teachers] and our wages. She
   just wasn't going to do it, and that is how she got around
   it. So we had two and a half hours after school. (Katy,
   NQT, City)

The variation in training provision for teachers results from the control head teachers have over such issues as a result of 'local management of schools' (LMS). The decentralisation of budgets, in turn, places considerable pressures on local managers to prioritise resources. The issue of costs, and the way this was a prime concern for managers in social services and schools, was raised by a number of the managers and workers interviewed. A few also raised the issue of how cost had, in particular, caused reluctance to provide training for what was seen as a transient and 'shared' resource. Sandra had not had any training in her eight years of temporary work even though, paradoxically, it had been largely at the same school.

   I didn't do any courses because it wasn't looked upon as
   an investment, because I was only temporary (Sandra,
   teacher, County)

Pamela, a black worker in City social services, noted the way issues of arbitrary control and the inequality of training provision are facilitated by decentralisation. Pamela further noted that, although fixed-term staff have formal rights to training under various internal policies, and now under statutory regulations, (7) in practice they were excluded. As a result, Pamela felt that she had not even been provided with the basic form of training for her work:

   They say, 'you have the same rights as other workers'; but
   you fred that when they have training or whatever they
   say, 'well you are only here for three months', and you
   don't seem to get the priority of the training like the
   permanent staff. And it is up to the managers whether you
   can go on this training. I have never been on training
   since I have been here--not even first aid. I had to go and
   do first aid myself.

Two other temporary workers noted organisational problems in relation to training for temporary workers. Marie, a temporary teacher in County, felt that temporary staff missed out on many of the training courses because they were offered primarily to permanent staff. Marie added that even if the courses were offered to temporary workers, it might be impractical for them to consider signing up for them, since the waiting lists were often longer than their contracts.

Max, also a black worker in City social services, noted that the nature of one form of training in social services, called 'supervision', militated against genuine input on the part of temporary workers. Supervision is a form of training that requires workers to discuss with their line manager any difficulties they have experienced in their work, with a view to initiating Joint problem-solving exercises. In practice, supervision sessions take on an almost confessional quality. Max felt that the vulnerable position of temporary staff prevented them from adequately identifying any shortcomings for fear this might lead to the non-renewal of their contracts.

Pamela was concerned that her lack of training was affecting the quality of her work and, as a result, causing her inability to progress to a permanent contract:

   Without training, we [temporary workers] will always be
   in this position. And then you get them [managers] saying
   'such and such should have followed this and that
   procedure'. But my argument is that if we are not getting
   the training, they want us to function in certain ways-but
   flour minds are not opened to certain things, whatever,
   then we are not going to do it. And that means the kids
   [children in care] are not getting it, are they?

Overall, the opportunity for training and related staff development was limited for temporary workers, which impacted on their ability to shift from temporary to permanent status. This raises issues about equality of opportunity for women and black workers. In relation to the modernisation agenda, it is also interesting to note that temporary workers raised major concerns about the quality of the service they were providing as a result of insufficient training. In the two case-study authorities, numerical flexibility and quality of service provision were not compatible.

Conclusions

There are continuities between the ideologies of past public-sector restructuring and the current modernisation agenda for public services. The emphasis on labour flexibility is an important example of continuity. However, there are also key differences, particularly in relation to the size of the public-sector workforce considered necessary for the provision of quality 'front-line' public services.

Whereas previous Conservative administrations were concerned with reducing the size of the public-sector workforce, unemployment levels are now much lower, and the current government is beset with problems of recruitment and retention in core public services. In relation to this point, while the pursuit of numerical flexibility might be consistent with a reduction in the number of public-sector employees, it is not consistent with a policy of sustained expansion of 'front-line' public services. It is therefore surprising that, in local government, the use of temporary workers is highest in education and social services--the areas in which recruitment and retention are most problematic.

Flexibility is an amorphous term, used to describe many qualitatively different forms of work, and it is sometimes, as Lipietz (I992) has pointed out, employed as a term holding both positive and negative connotations.

Similarly, the term is undefined within the modernisation agenda; but nevertheless, labour-market flexibility in the public sector has taken the form of numerical flexibility, utilising temporary work to a much larger extent than does the private sector.

For this reason, the public-sector trade unions are keen for the government to be more precise in its definition of flexibility as a key principle of its modernisation agenda. The TUC general council is particularly concerned that modernisation should not lead to greater numerical flexibility. Divisions between permanent and temporary staff reinforce union claims of the existence of a two-tier workforce, and are therefore incompatible with the 'single status agreement' and the best-value code of practice.

Equality of opportunity is also, quite rightly, at the forefront of the modernisation agenda. However, the use of numerical flexibility, it is argued in this paper, is inconsistent with equality of treatment. The relationship between labourmarket segmentation and segregation means that groups that are already socially disadvantaged are those likely to be further disadvantaged by temporary employment. Temporary workers, by definition, do not have the same job security as their permanent colleagues.

Furthermore, the research data indicates that they suffer important disadvantages in relation to pensions, training and development, making temporary work a trap rather than a bridge to progression and higher-paid, more secure work. These findings add another dimension to trade union claims of a 'two-tier workforce'. They also cast doubts on pay modernisation agreements premised on the closing of pay-gaps for disadvantaged groups of workers.

Other key areas of continuity between the ideologies of past and current governments have exacerbated the disadvantages faced by temporary workers in public services. The emphasis on 'customer choice', particularly in education, has created instability in curriculums in secondary schools, and in the numbers of pupils in primary schools, with serious implications for staffing levels, which are now directly linked to funding. A further area of continuity, the decentralisation of authority over staffing and budgets, has placed pressure on managers to prioritise resources. Temporary staff are therefore extremely vulnerable when fluctuations in demand, and therefore funds, occur.

The percentage of temporary workers in public services, although double that of the private sector, is still average by European standards and thus it cannot, perhaps, be considered indicative of an overwhelming trend towards casualisation. But usage of temporary workers is much higher than average in education and social services, and this must give cause for concern, not least because teachers and socialcare staff are of central importance to modern public services. Therefore, while flexibility in its positive, employee-friendly forms should be key to the modernisation agenda, casualisation, in the guise of numerical flexibility, must surely be consigned to the past.

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Notes

(1.) TUC general council statement on public services, 2 September 2003, online at <http://www.tuc.org.uk/ publicsector/tuc-7011-fo.cfm> [accessed 9 September 2005].

(2.) According to Atkinson (1985), flexibility can be divided into three main categories: functional, financial and numerical. Temporary work falls into the category of numerical flexibility, which requires that a certain segment of the workforce must be able to be easily discarded. The model was further developed in order to include the concept of the 'core' and 'peripheral' workforces. Core workers are regarded as the stable component, and are considered to possess skills unique to the firm. They represent valuable assets, and are therefore highly regarded and rewarded by the employer. There are two groups of peripheral workers. The first group has skills that are needed at certain times, but which are not specific to the firm and are available in the external labour market. The second group consists of workers who have limited skills or are unskilled. In order to achieve numerical flexibility, the last two groups are likely to be employed on a temporary basis through the use of fixed-term and temporary contracts, staffing agencies or directly hired casual work.

(3.) The slight decrease in 1999 may have been the result of anticipation of the Fixed-Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations, passed in October 2002. However, the legislation still allows the use of fixedterm contracts for a period of four years, which is far in excess of the length of fixed-term contracts typically used in the public sector.

(4.) For example, the Single Status Agreement in Local Government, the Agenda for Change in the NHS, and the National Framework Agreement in Higher Education.

(5.) Online at: <http://www.tuc.org.uk/publicsector/tuc-7oixfo.cfm> [accessed 9 September 2005].

(6.) Online at <http://ww2.audit-commission.gov.uk/itc/ recruitment.shtml> [accessed 5 February 2004].

(7.) The Fixed-Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 now also cover training.