Edinburgh Napier University

  This report is the UK part of the Seventh Framework European Commission programme: Local Worlds of Social Cohesion (LOCALISE). LOCALISE is focused on the organisational challenges of integrating social and employment policy, partly in response to the radical changes in the local governance of social cohesion across many Member States of the European Union. The programme brings together six European countries and develops a common theoretical and methodological approach that guides the research in each of the work packages .
This report is a comparative analysis of three UK case studies: Edinburgh, Cardiff and Newcastle. Each case explores the levels and types of integration of employment policy at local level. The focus is on three types of integration, those between: various policy areas (such as employment, training, health, housing, childcare and social assistance); different political and administrative levels (national, regional, and local); and various stakeholders (public, private and third sector organisations ). These three types of integration (discussed in Figure 2 below) and the theoretical background and hypothesis underpinning this report are explained in more detail in Appendix 1.
The report describes and compares the forms, approaches and modes of integration in each case study. It also aims to identify barriers to, and enablers of, integration at local level during policy development and implementation. The report is divided into six sections. The first section compares the political, institutional and socio-economic context in Edinburgh (Scotland), Cardiff (Wales) and Newcastle (England). The research methods are explained in Section 2. Sections 3, 4, and 5 compare each of the integration levels (multi-level, multi-dimensional, and multi-stakeholder) across the three cities. Finally Section 6 presents the conclusions of the report.