ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book offers some reflections on the implications for employment relations of the coalition period. It provides an overview of employment relations under the coalition government in the UK between 2010 and 2015, assessing the principal objectives, motivations and outcomes, drawing on material as appropriate. With regard to the objectives, clearly the primacy of neo-liberal austerity was a dominant influence upon the coalition's approach to employment relations. This was predicated on the belief that reducing the size of the UK's budget deficit, largely through cuts in public spending, was the overriding economic priority. As well as the notable degree of variation, and the important element of political contingency, evident in the coalition's approach to employment relations, the second distinctive contribution made by the book is to highlight the limits of neo-liberal reform imperatives given the re-regulatory pressures that developed between 2010 and 2015.
