Poverty, social exclusion and enterprise policy: A study of UK policies’ effectiveness over 40 years

This article is concerned with enterprise policy and its effectiveness when applied to those experiencing social exclusion through unemployment and poverty. In particular, the article focuses on the introduction of the New Enterprise Allowance Scheme designed to support the transition from unemployment to enterprise, and it explores the extent to which knowledge about previous similar schemes has been used to inform this. Findings suggest that lessons learned from previous schemes have had little impact on decisions made in recent years. Scholarly evidence of and knowledge about the relationships between social exclusion, poverty and enterprise are not referenced and this suggests that policy understanding of the connection between social exclusion, unemployment and enterprise has developed little in the time period studied.