Diseño, Tipo y Modalidad de la investigación

The impacts of the recession on Merthyr Tydfil must be seen in the wider context of long-term economic decline precipitated by the swift de-industrialisation during the 1970s and 1980s as detailed in the introductory chapter, as well as the recession of the early 1990s which further contributed to the town’s socio-economic difficulties. It must also be contextualised within the wider South Wales Valleys area which has also suffered post-industrial decline. Merthyr Tydfil is generally seen to be suffering from higher levels of concentrated disadvantage across a range of indicators than some neighbouring boroughs, which is compounded by geographical factors such as the relative distance from Cardiff at the top of the Heads of the Valleys area, with the M4 corridor benefitting from development and investment in recent years, while the relatively inhospitable terrain of the Valleys makes access more difficult. The fact that Merthyr Tydfil is the smallest unitary authority in Wales is also seen to limit its political clout against bigger or well-funded authorities such as Rhondda Cynon Taff.

Beatty et al (2005) examine the economic fortunes of the British coalfields since the strikes of 1984-85, noting that the large size of the South Wales coalfield has impacted on its ability to regenerate, and, pertinently for Merthyr Tydfil’s recent press attention (see next section), that the true rate of joblessness is masked by higher levels of incapacity benefit claims there. The specific focus on male jobs (or joblessness) in the English and Welsh coalfields alludes to the shift towards a service economy in these areas, and the loss of specifically ‘male’ jobs in these areas which are replaced by what Walkerdine and Jimenez’s participants saw as ‘women’s work’ in shops (Walkerdine and Jimenez, 2012) as well as call centres, which tend to be lower-paid. What is striking is that South Wales has only replaced 19% of coal jobs for men with non-coal jobs, indicating a significant crisis of employment for men, as they must now compete with women for the same jobs.

The incapacity benefit claimant count in South Wales is singled out as the highest out of all the coalfield areas, and the authors argue that this ‘hidden unemployment’ is not wholly down to health factors, but also reflects local labour market characteristics, and that were there a stronger economy in South Wales and elsewhere, that these men would have been employed. As will be demonstrated in the empirical chapters (Chapter Six), this has

serious implications, because this section of the population tends to give up looking for work sooner or later, and become part of a group of long-term unemployed who then go on to suffer difficulties such as mental health problems, or who become de-skilled and disengaged from the labour market.

Filling the Void

In this situation of extreme distress, the voluntary sector has established a large presence in the town and particularly in its poorest areas such as the Gurnos, in order to try and mediate some of the structural disadvantage. But more broadly in Merthyr Tydfil, the collapse of industry has not just removed the area’s economic base, but has also swept away other key civic institutions such as trade unions and apprenticeships. Mackenzie et al (2006) identify the workplace as a key site of socialisation, occupational solidarity and identity formation, with or without the presence of trade unions, although Salaman (1971) and Strangleman (2001) both identify trade unionism as a key means of strengthening identity and solidarity. Apprenticeships were another key means by which young men were socialised into adulthood and where informal social control and oversight took place.

This void has been only partially filled by the voluntary sector. While the development trust in the Gurnos area has provided a degree of socialisation and training via youth projects and education support for the past decade or so, no comparable employment sources have replaced the old industries in Merthyr and so the local economy remains depressed. In December 2009, 3,200 people were unemployed, or 12.6% of the working-age population against 8.3% for Wales and 7.7% for the UK (statistics available at:

http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/2038432110/subreports/ea_time_series/repo rt.aspx? (Source: Office for National Statistics) The shift to the service industry is evident in the development of Cyfarthfa Retail Park and the presence of a call centre in the town run by the mobile phone company T-Mobile, alongside the slow decline of the Hoover factory at Troedyrhiw, a formerly significant employer.

Public sector cuts and cuts to the police were highlighted by local officers and statutory and voluntary workers, who identified several key side effects of the long-term

youth worker was of the opinion that cuts to the police would take the estate back ‘twenty or thirty years’ in terms of crime, and two other community workers ‘Elin and ‘Carwyn’

argued that those who had been unemployed the longest, who lacked skills and confidence, were again being overlooked:

Since the recession we’ve been inundated with job brokers, these get people back into employment projects, upskill and get people job ready, it’s almost like they’ve missed a trick, they’ve missed a whole section, of well actually, since we’ve got 4^th generation unemployment actually, and people have been claiming sickness benefit for 15, 20 years, it’s going to take a hell of a lot, a hell of a long time to get them job ready.

– ‘Elin’, community worker.

The job-brokers were a phenomenon identified by several different actors within the voluntary and statutory sectors has having descended on the town, and indeed the wider Valleys area, in recent years. As explained by ‘Elin’, their role was to help people back into work by ‘upskilling’ them or training them and enhancing their work-related skills, which may be lacking due to time out of the workplace or, conversely, because a person had spent a very long time in a single manual job, for example. However, their status as private sector bodies meant that they were target-driven and in competition with each other, and with the massive levels of need identified in the area, it was perceived by those in the voluntary sector that the brokers were simply ‘creaming off’ the most able people and leaving behind those who had the most difficulty. Duplication of services was also identified as a problem, and a lack of communication between bodies and with the voluntary sector, however the key difficulty identified by all was a lack of permanent and well-paid jobs into which people could move after being re-skilled.

This cuts to the heart of why Merthyr Tydfil and the Gurnos are such a useful setting in which to increase understanding of informal social control. The long-term context of de-industrialisation and resulting elevated levels of deprivation enhances the critical aspect of the case, as do the cuts to the public and voluntary services which are heavily relied upon for employment and for supporting the local civic society. This also adds to the revelatory aspect of the case study, in that while some groups will be affected heavily by the current

recession, the longer-term context means that other groups will be affected less, for instance if they are already unemployed. The overall effect on informal social control is not a straightforwardly negative one, and so this justifies the revelatory label in attempting to uncover these varying dynamics of social control.

Adamson and Bromiley (2008) assessed the success of the Communities First initiative in Wales in terms of its practical impact in empowering local communities.

Communities First was set up by the Welsh Assembly Government in 2002 and targets the 132 most deprived areas in Wales through multi-agency community regeneration partnerships consisting of community members and voluntary and statutory actors (Adamson and Bromily, 2008, vii). As noted in Chapter Two, in the Gurnos, Galon Uchaf and Penydarren areas this is run by the local development trust which has taken on the responsibilities for community regeneration and development. The aim of Communities First is to empower local communities to work alongside service providers, in order to channel service delivery towards particular areas and issues of concern.

The structure of Communities First is a ‘three-thirds’ approach, in that the community must make up one-third of the partnership alongside the statutory sector, and finally the voluntary and business sectors combined. Funding can come from the local authorities, a voluntary sector organisation or a mature community organisation (p5). The partnerships have the potential ability to determine funding priorities and it is expected that the public sector should ‘bend’ its funding for programmes in the direction of Communities First partnerships. Typically, the issues covered include housing, education, jobs, health, community safety and active community (p6).

The 2008 report argues that community representation and empowerment are key issues for Communities First, in that achieving their participation and engagement in practice has been somewhat patchy. A variety of reasons were identified, such as geographical factors which impinge on people’s ability to participate, a lack of pre-existing social capital in some areas which necessitated more development work in order to support community participation, and the failure of the statutory sector in some areas to properly respond to the community’s agenda and to facilitate their engagement. A key issue, in considering that Communities First is based in areas of such high deprivation, is the

inequality between community members and professional actors in terms of language, knowledge, education and expertise.

Despite this, the authors found that the community members had both enthusiasm and local expertise to contribute to the partnerships, and that a wide range of people were found to be contributing to the nine partnerships analysed for the research. As was the case in the Gurnos, community ‘stalwarts’ with long experience of community work were found to be present, as were people whose other roles often included acting as councillors, or as members of tenants’ and residents’ associations. There was also evidence to suggest that in the majority of partnerships analysed, their influence over statutory agencies was limited, and that their ability to influence decision-making and programme-bending was not apparent. This would appear to demonstrate that the ability of communities to gain serious influence over the policy process is limited, and that there are difficulties around the genuine empowerment of communities in this way.