Geographical consequences of a neo-liberal state: marketisation and privatisation

The development of the neo-liberal state form in Britain during the 1980s has been characterised by liberalisation, deregulation, privatisation and commodification, placing issues of redistribution and social welfare secondary to the demands of business and enterprise. This active neo-liberal strategy has also, although explicitly non-interventionist, been characterised by a strong, centralised government. This paper, looks at the geographical outcomes of an early attempt within Britain to apply these market conditions and principles to an established area of state intervention into labour market regulation. During the 1980s and early 1990s state intervention into industrial training and skills formation in Britain was in part undertaken through the national skillcentre network. These training centres, under the Labour government of 1974-79, played a significant part in delivering Labour's plans for a comprehensive national manpower planning policy. During the 1980s, under a different government, these centres were required to adopt market principles and trade-in-profit. By 1990, this policy formed the basis for the privatisation of the skillcentre network which closed down in 1993, with the privatised company Astra Training Services, going into receivership. This period, representing the beginnings and development of a quasi-market or marketisation of adult skills training provision, had significant and different implications within buoyant and depressed local labour markets in Britain. This paper, by studying these processes within this particular geographical and historical conjuncture, illustrates the impact of market mechanisms upon public sector service provision and geographical outcomes from an active neo-liberal state strategy.