Voluntary Sector Delivering Youth Employment Services in the UK

This thesis contributes to the longstanding debates on the role and experience of the voluntary sector (VS) in employment service delivery within a landscape shaped by fragmentation, competition, outsourcing and performance-based contracting. Since the late 1990s, welfare provision in the UK has shifted from residual support towards a contractual, market-driven system underpinned by New Public Management and the ‘Third Way’ reforms. These developments, accelerated by the New Labour government (1997-2010) and continued under the Conservative-led governments (2010-2024), have redefined the role and experience of voluntary sector organisations (VSOs) delivering youth employment services (YES). Drawing on a qualitative, place-based case study of VSOs across South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, and the Humber/Hull & East Riding, this study examines how VSOs navigated external tensions between 2013 and 2024 from their delivery of the National Lottery-funded Talent Match programme and European Social Fund (ESF) initiatives to the transitional uncertainties surrounding the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). Nuanced accounts were grounded in a multi-level theoretical framework combining strategic action field theory, neo-institutional theory, institutional logics, and institutional work perspectives. The findings show that the VSOs are operating within an increasingly fragmented landscape marked by austerity, short-term funding and the tension of co-opetition. Whilst VSOs are struggling to navigate accountability and performance isomorphic pressures of the delivery environment, the loss of ESF funds and the transition to the UKSPF have heightened both operational and relational dilemmas. The VSOs now face the dual pressures of adopting business-like approaches required by funders while maintaining their value-based commitments to young people. Case evidence reveals significant strategic responses across organisations, shaped by factors such as resource dependencies, local level relations, and strategic positioning within shifting YES fields. Importantly, the thesis foregrounds the often-overlooked perspectives of young people, whose experiences highlight how institutional work is mediated through trust, values, and perceptions of service legitimacy.