The employment service and public private partnerships

This paper outlines the role and purpose of the employment service and its relationship with its provider network and the private sector. It describes the front line legacy that New Labour inherited and the ways in which the employment service has reinvented itself. It then assesses the progress of the New Deals and the role that local partnerships have played in delivering the programmes. Finally, it considers the capacity of the existing mixed economy of private, voluntary and public sector providers to deliver the Government's ambitious agenda with a particular focus on the emergence of the new intermediaries and the growing role of the private sector.