ABSTRACT
The 2008 financial crisis precipitated the deepest recession in Britain since the 1930s, and the state is contracting in two main ways. Successive governments have used the financial crisis to reduce the size and ambition of the state, using austerity as a means to curb social rights and curtail the provision of public services. Secondly, trends towards a contract state have accelerated, with the state overseeing a network of private and voluntary sector providers and community provision, distancing itself from a responsibility to finance, provide and ensure decent employment standards for its workforce. These trends build on extensive reorganization of the public sector over recent decades that developed detailed systems of performance management, diversified service provision and shifted away from a model employer tradition. Reforms of collective bargaining and trade union representation proceeded in a more cautious manner, but the unexpected election of a Conservative government in 2015 unleashed new measures to undermine trade union representation.
