The Work Foundation had an energetic party conference season this year, partnering with City & Guilds and Tesco. Other supporters were Abbott, NHS Employers, Professional Contractors Group and Working Links.
Areas covered included:
- Where next for Labour?
- China and India — are our jobs safe in a globalised world?
- Is full employment enough? The end of bad jobs
- Escaping the rat race - freelance freedom or job insecurity?
- Is the health of the nation built on the morale of health service workers?
Highlights from this year included:
- The largest audience of our season was during the Liberal Democrat conference at our fringe event with Tesco — A big idea for the Liberal Democrats: Social Mobility. Nick Isles of The Work Foundation chaired a panel which included:
Nick Clegg MP, Shadow Home Secretary
Dr Vince Cable MP, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Emma Reynolds, Government Affairs Manager, Tesco
and Will Hutton, Chief Executive of The Work Foundation
- The fringe we produced with Working Links — A new vision for Welfare Reform created great interest at each conference and we were delighted that David Freud, author of the Government review on Welfare to Work took part in each one. Delegate attendance was liveliest at Labour where the Rt Hon Peter Hain MP gave generously of his time.
Other members of the Cabinet who were pleased to host at our events were:
Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury at our reception hosted with City & Guilds.
Rt Hon John Denham MP, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills at our event China and India — Are our jobs safe in a globalised world?
Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, Secretary of State for Health at the event we ran with NHS Employers which addressed the question,Is the health of the nation built on the morale of NHS staff?
The Work Foundation intends to have a programme of fringe activity at each of the party conferences again in 2008. Details will appear here as soon as we have them.