Professor Jon Clark

Distinguished scholar of industrial relations

Jonathan William Clark, scholar of industrial relations: born Beckenham, Kent 1 June 1949; Research Officer, LSE 1976-77; Research Fellow, Groupe de Sociologie de Travail, University of Paris VII 1977-78; Lecturer, Southampton University 1978-86, Senior Lecturer 1986-90, Professor of Industrial Relations 1990-99 (Emeritus), Dean of Social Sciences 1994-97; Professorial Research Fellow, Warwick University 1991-93; Chair, UK Police Negotiating Board 2000-04; Chair, Police Advisory Board for England and Wales 2001-04; CBE 2004; died Zurich, Switzerland 21 October 2005.

In 2000 Jon Clark, Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations at Southampton University, was appointed Independent Chair of the Police Negotiating Board. With quick intelligence and quiet diplomacy he negotiated a path through a bureaucracy that Jack Straw, then Home Secretary, had previously described in Parliament as "Byzantine".

Clark delivered on an elusive but vital political goal - the modernisation of the pay and conditions structure of the UK police service. Moreover, he did so against the background of profoundly different interests between rank-and-file police officers, middle managers and senior commanders; managing shifting political requirements and constant disruptive media interference, stoked politically behind the scenes. It was a remarkable achievement, for which he was deservedly appointed CBE in 2004.

There was little in Jon Clark's modest childhood circumstances to indicate the distinguished and intricate career path he would follow. Like many families in post-war London, his kept chickens in the garden; like many urban children, Jon loved football more than life itself (he treasured a blurry photograph of himself and other Juniors at his Spurs trial, with the 1961 "double" manager, Bill Nicholson).

Nevertheless, two small events were signal. A visit to a London County Council concert for schools at the Finchley Gaumont in the 1950s sparked in him a lifelong love of orchestral music. An argument with his grandfather over Sunday dinner, which he lost on an "elders and betters" basis, led Jon to empty his plate in his better's lap. It was possibly the last time that Jon pursued diplomacy by other means.

After grammar school in High Wycombe, Jon Clark took a first in German at Birmingham University in 1972, spending two intercalated years in Berlin. The research posts that followed, at the Department of Industrial Relations at LSE and the Groupe de Sociologie du Travail at the University of Paris, suggested a career change; but his DPhil (1979) - researched in Bremen, written in German and later published as a book in Germany (Bruno Schönlank und die Arbeitersprechchorbewegung, 1984) - offered an analysis of Bruno Schönlank's socialist theatre in the Weimar Republic.

Clark was a fine linguist; his doctoral supervisor remembers an hour-long conversation between a youthful Clark and the notable German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who was astonished to discover that Clark was neither a native German-speaker nor philosopher. Or, it might have been added, a sociologist. His appointment in 1978, at the age of 29, to a lectureship in Industrial Relations at Southampton University confirmed Clark's remarkable intellectual range.

Industrial relations took to him as well as he to it. Within 12 years, Clark held a personal chair in the discipline, awarded in recognition of his outstanding contributions in two distinct fields. His work on the impact of technological change in the workplace brought much-needed empirical rigour to this critical area. Case studies at British Telecom and Pirelli produced two books, Human Resource Management and Technical Change (1993) and Managing Innovation and Change: people, technology and strategy (1996), that mark out this territory. At the same time, his interests in legal regulation of employment led him to "muscle in" on the territory of labour lawyers. But there was no turf war; instead a series of collaborations followed, most notably with Roy Lewis, resulting in Labour Law and Industrial Relations (1983).

Almost as a sideline, Clark edited a string of books in the Falmer series, on the work of significant contemporary sociologists, including James Coleman, Anthony Giddens, John Goldthorpe, Robert Merton and Alain Touraine.

Clark's intellect was matched by his humanity - a combination that guaranteed his excellence as a teacher. He displayed a real commitment to his students and had the ability to challenge them and to lift them to more incisive analysis, greater creativity. This passionate love for education, combined with his expertise in organisational development and change management made Clark ideal material for a Deanery role. He served with distinction in the Southampton Faculty of Social Sciences (1993-96), raising the research profiles of its constituent departments and establishing a Graduate Centre for future generations of students.

His commitment to scholarship led to his appointment as Director of New College (1998-99), managing the organisational change required to integrate the former La Sainte Union teacher training college into the university and to re-open it as a provider of access to higher education. A career in academic top management beckoned - Clark was certainly the best Deputy Vice-Chancellor that Southampton never had - but the drive to reinvent himself surfaced again and he retired from academic life in 1999 to pursue a career in public service.

Since 1989, Clark had been a member of Acas's National Panel of Arbitrators and Mediators. In this role, he conducted more than 60 arbitrations, appeals, hearings and commissions of inquiry. The challenge of reforming police pay was irresistible. The Prime Minister appointed him as Independent Chair of the Police Negotiating Board in 2000 and in 2001 the Home Secretary followed suit, appointing him Chair of the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales.

In these roles, Clark's skill as a negotiator was legendary. No meeting was held without meticulous preparation and, as in his decanal days, he was able to deploy unusual reserves of patience, forbearance and empathy with the many participants in the bargaining process. His capacity for analysis was such that he understood and articulated diverse points of view, sometimes better than their proponents could. The resulting Police Reform Agreement 2002 was a masterpiece of negotiation and a triumph of rational compromise.

During this period, Clark also found a way to use his skills in the service of the music that played such a central role in his life. As a non-executive director of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (2002-03), he contributed his skills to yet another difficult negotiation, successfully restructuring the orchestra's commercial management to ensure its continued success in a competitive arts market.

Jon Clark's final negotiation was with illness. Diagnosed with a virulent form of cancer, he managed the last two years of his life with remarkable courage, fighting to change what could be changed; accepting without rancour that ultimately he could do no more than manage the last few days of his life with dignity.

Bob Remington