Professor Del Fletcher BSc (Hons) MSoc, Sc
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Summary
Del Roy Fletcher is a professor of labour market studies at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research. He has extensive experience of research exploring the difficulties faced by severely disadvantaged groups in the labour market and the evaluation of pilot programmes.
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About
In respect of the former, he is an acknowledged national expert on ethicality and ethicacy offender employment issues. He has, for example, directed a landmark study into the problems experienced by those with a criminal record in the labour market and the first ever review of offender enterprise support in England. He is currently directing SHUs input into a major ESRC funded five year study exploring the of welfare conditionality. In addition to key informant interviews and focus groups the study comprises qualitative longitudinal research in ten case study towns and cities in England and Scotland with 481 welfare recipients drawn from nine priority groups including ex-offenders.
Del has directed several national evaluations of labour market pilot programmes including the Jobseekers Mandatory Activity, Working Neighbourhoods Pilot, the New Deal Innovation Fund (rounds one, two and three) and the National Development Programme. He was part of the team responsible for evaluating the City Strategy and is currently evaluating Talent Match, an initiative designed to tackle high levels of youth unemployment, for the Big Lottery Fund. Del is also directing the West Yorkshire Finding Independence Pilot Evaluation which seeks to provide a joined-up approach to those with multiple and complex needs. He has authored 28 academic publications including 24 articles in national peer-reviewed academic journals.
Research interests
- the role and impact of welfare conditionality
- UK welfare reform and its impact on deprived individuals and communities
- worklessness and labour market disadvantage
- offenders in the post-industrial labour market
- evaluation of labour market pilot programmes.
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Research
- Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research
2014-2020 West Yorkshire Finding Independence Evaluation, Big Lottery Fund. Role: Director.
2013-2018 Evaluation of Talent Match, Big Lottery Fund. Role: Member of research team.
2013-2018 Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change: Understanding the Role and Impact of Welfare Conditionality, ESRC. Role: Co-Investigator.
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Publications
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Postgraduate supervision
Del is currently director of studies for two PhDs. The topics currently supervised are
- The experiences of vulnerable women at the intersection of tje welfare and criminal justice system (student: Larissa Povery)
- The use of emotional labour by the claimant unemployed to eschew undesirable activation and retain benefits (student: Jamie Redman)
He would welcome discussion in supervising students around following the areas
- Welfare Reform
- Welfare conditionality and offenders