This blog summarises a new LPIP Hub policy briefing authored by Susan Jarvis, which explores how Liverpool City Region demonstrates the power of place-based relationships in sustaining innovation and collaboration in employment support policy.
Read the full Policy Briefing.
Persistent challenges and local resilience
Persistent worklessness and labour market disparities remain long-standing challenges in disadvantaged urban areas. Yet Liverpool City Region shows how strong place-based networks can sustain innovation despite decades of national policy change. Over time, national frameworks have shifted from Labour Government’s post-1997 area-based initiatives, through the Coalition Government’s Work Programme, to today’s devolved programmes led by combined authorities in England. Throughout this evolution, local actors have drawn on resilient relationships to coordinate services, empower users, and maintain a consistent focus on inclusion and trust.
The ‘invisible thread’ of collaboration
The Policy Briefing highlights that successive Liverpool City Region programmes – from the City Strategy Pathfinder to Youth Employment Gateway and Households into Work – share a common thread of relational policymaking. This approach relies on collaboration, co-production, and boundary spanning across public, voluntary, and community sectors. Together, these practices have enabled institutional learning, allowing innovation to take root and evolve even when national structures shifted.
Evidence from the case study illustrates that centrally administered labour market policies often fail to capture the complexity of local realities. Top-down models can be fragmented and slow to adapt to the diverse barriers that individuals face. Localised employment policy, by contrast, offers more responsive solutions. Boundary-spanning actors such as employment advisers are central to this. They bridge professional divides, align institutional goals, and maintain the relationships necessary for long-term engagement with disadvantaged communities.
Evolving policy and local innovation
Liverpool City Region’s experience sits within a wider pattern of devolved governance that has gradually increased local influence. Like the Glasgow City Region, it shares a legacy of industrial restructuring and higher economic inactivity than the national average. In both areas, locally tailored interventions have proved critical in addressing persistent inequality and unemployment.
Across three major policy phases, the Liverpool City Region story reflects both disruption and adaptation. Labour Government’s area-based programmes, such as the City Strategy Pathfinder, promoted local collaboration, while national initiatives like the Future Jobs Fund expanded job opportunities across the city region, but progress was limited when central funding ended. The Coalition Government’s Work Programme (2010-2015) introduced marketised delivery and reduced the role of local actors in service delivery, undermining cooperation. English devolution after 2015 reversed this trend, enabling locally designed initiatives such as Households into Work to emerge under the Mayoral Combined Authority model.
Lessons for policy and practice
Each major programme contributed distinct lessons. The City Strategy Pathfinder aligned £80 million of discretionary funding from DWP, the Learning and Skills Council and EU sources, facilitating consistent service delivery across the city region. The Future Jobs Fund expanded local job opportunities and built cross-sector coordination. The Youth Employment Gateway achieved over 130% of job targets through personalised, adviser-led support and flexible participant budgets. The ongoing Households into Work programme takes this further, offering one-to-one advocacy, integrating employment with housing and health services, and applying a whole-household model. Participants valued the empathy and continuity of support, and the initiative proved adaptable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Together, these experiences show how ‘remembering’, ‘borrowing’, and ‘sharing’ – concepts developed by Lowndes – explain the persistence of innovation amid change. Earlier partnership models were remembered and refined, national schemes were borrowed and adapted, and learning was shared across institutions. This process created a durable foundation for collaborative governance across the city region.
Several policy lessons stand out. Collaborative governance structures are essential for coherent, joined-up services. Personalised, trust-based adviser roles sustain engagement and build confidence. Integration across policy domains, particularly employment, housing, and health, supports individuals with complex barriers. However, short-term funding and policy churn have often disrupted progress, while centralised programmes like the Work Programme weakened local responsiveness. Consistent user empowerment has also been uneven, constrained by national welfare conditionality.
Conclusion
The Liverpool City Region case exemplifies both the potential and fragility of place-based employment policy. When given flexibility, local partnerships can align resources, build trust, and design responsive support tailored to their communities. Yet national instability and fragmented devolution have repeatedly challenged continuity. The region’s success rests on relational policymaking – an ‘invisible thread’ of trust, boundary spanning, and co-production that weaves together institutions, practitioners, and service users.
As new employment reforms unfold through the Get Britain Working White Paper and the Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, the key message is clear: local innovation flourishes only when supported by structural collaboration, stable funding, and a balance between national oversight and local autonomy.
This blog was written by Dr Kostas Kollydas, Research Fellow, City-REDI, University of Birmingham.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the author and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.
Artificial Intelligence was involved when writing this blog.
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