Conference examines welfare’s new deals, new hopes

Keith Bradley, a leader of Britain’s Labour Party and its spokesperson on welfare reform, will be the featured speaker at a UW–Madison conference March 19-20.

Bradley will present a lecture titled “New Hope and the New Deal” March 19, 8 p.m., in the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center. “New Deal” is the name given by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the Labour government’s welfare-reform program.

Bradley’s lecture is part of a two-day conference sponsored by the Robert M. La Follette Institute of Public Affairs to examine the New Hope Project, a welfare-reform demonstration program in Milwaukee. Both the New Hope Project and the state’s welfare-reform efforts are seen in Britain as providing important lessons for reform strategy. The conference is co- sponsored by the Department of International Studies.

Donald Kettl, director of the La Follette Institute, says Bradley is the highest-ranking government official, domestic or foreign, ever to visit Madison for a La Follette student-faculty conference.

The focus of the conference is “Understanding, Evaluating and Sharing New Hope.” In addition to linking the New Hope program to reform efforts in Europe, the conference features discussions of Wisconsin’s welfare-reform efforts, reforms in other states and the possibility of undertaking similar projects in other cities.

Conference participants will include La Follette students, UW–Madison faculty and experts in program evaluation from a variety of universities and research organizations.

For more information, call 262-3581.