Professor Del Fletcher BSc (Hons) MSoc, Sc

His research interests include worklessness and labour market disadvantage, the impact of welfare reforms on disadvantaged groups, and evaluations of interventions that seek to improve the lives of people with multiple and complex needs (offending, homelessness, problematic substance/alcohol misuse and mental ill health). He was recently a co-investigator on a major ESRC study of the ethnicality and ethicacy of welfare conditionality.

Del has directed several national evaluations of labour market pilot programmes including the Jobseekers Mandatory Activity, Working Neighbourhoods Pilot, and the New Deal Innovation Fund. He is currently directing the evaluation of the West Yorkshire Finding Independance Project which seeks to improve the way services are coordinated and delivered so that people experiencing multiple and complex needs are better able to manage their lives. Del was a commissioner of the Sheffield Fairness Commission and has authored 25 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals.

Research interests

• worklessness and labour market disadvantage
• labour market policy and strategy
• welfare reform and it's impact on disadvantaged groups
• severe and multiple disadvantage
• offender employment interventions
• peer led support.

• 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 Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change. ESRC. Role: Co-Investigator.

Key Publications

Fletcher, D., & Wright, S. (2018). A hand up or a slap down? Criminalising benefit claimants in Britain via strategies of surveillance, sanctions and deterrence. Critical Social Policy, 38 (2), 323-344. http://doi.org/10.1177/0261018317726622

Fletcher, D. (2011). Welfare reform, Jobcentre Plus and the street-level bureaucracy : towards inconsistent and discriminatory welfare for severely disadvantaged groups? Social Policy and Society, 10 (04), 445-458. http://doi.org/10.1017/S1474746411000200

Fletcher, D. (2008). Offenders in the post-industrial labour market : from the underclass to the undercaste? Policy and Politics, 36 (2), 283-297. http://doi.org/10.1332/030557308783995053

Fletcher, D.R. (1997). Evaluating special measures for the unemployed: Some reflections on recent UK experience. Policy and Politics, 25 (2), 173-184. http://doi.org/10.1332/030557397782453318

Journal articles

Fletcher, D.R. (2011). The development of working prisons: Transforming inmates from the lumpenproletariat to the contingent workforce? British Journal of Community Justice, 9 (1-2), 111-124

Del is currently director of studies for two PhDs. The topics currently supervised are

• The experiences of vulnerable women at the intersection of the 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)