Professor Dennis Nickson, head of the Department of Human Resource Management, recently chaired a high profile conference on welfare reform in Scotland. The conference, which was organised by Capita Conferences, brought together over 70 practitioners and policymakers to consider the major transformation in the welfare-to-work agenda in Scotland.
The conference was due to be addressed by the UK Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Freud, though urgent business in the House of Lords meant he had to call off at short notice.
However, other speakers included the Scottish Government's Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning, Angela Constance; Mark Fisher, director for Jobseekers and Skills at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) who is responsible for the DWP's regime to unemployed people throughout the UK; and Laurie Russell, chief executive of the Wise Group, the influential intermediate labour market organisation.
Speaking after the conference, Professor Nickson said, "As someone who has a long standing research interest in the nature of skills and employability in the labour market, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to chair a conference which brought together a range of experts to consider the challenging issues arising from these major changes in the welfare-to-work agenda."