Written evidence from the Local Government Association (LGA) JES0052
Written evidence from the Local Government Association (LGA) JES0052
1.1. The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We are a politically led, cross-party membership organisation, representing councils from England and Wales.
1.2. Our role is to support, promote and improve local government, and raise national awareness of the work of councils. Our ultimate ambition is to support councils to deliver local solutions to national problems.
2.1 Economic inactivity, unemployment and unmet employer skills need affect local areas acutely, so we back the Government prioritising skills, retraining and job creation as a primary part of its levelling up agenda, recognising that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.
2.2 The current skills and employment system is unable to address current labour market or productivity challenges, or tackle social and economic inequalities. Recent analysis by the LGA (April 2021) reveals that across England, around £20 billion is spent on at least 49 nationally contracted or delivered employment and skills related schemes or services, managed by nine Whitehall departments and agencies, and delivered by multiple providers and over different geographies. Programmes include the Levelling Up Fund, Towns Fund and Help to Grow, as well as training and back to work support such as Restart, Bootcamps, Sector based Work Academies and the National Careers Service. No single organisation is responsible for coordinating these programmes nationally or locally, meaning there is no accountability over how the totality of provision is improving local outcomes. This makes it difficult for local areas to plan, target and join-up provision, leading to gaps in provision or duplication. As a result, the system is highly complicated to navigate for both individuals and businesses.
2.3 For too long local government has had limited routes to discuss employment and skills issues with central government. Funding for skills and employment support is short-term, fragmented and held centrally, and powers to affect change are too remote, unless a council is situated in an area with a devolution deal. The Levelling Up White Paper recognised that Whitehall needs to build ‘place’ into national provision and work more with local government. Within it the Government also committed to widen and deeper devolution and announced three new employment and skills pathfinders in Barking and Dagenham, Blackpool, and Walsall. While this is a positive step forward, we want to accelerate these efforts and ensure that all areas can benefit from a place-based, integrated skills and employment service sooner than 2030.
2.4 The LGA’s Work Local model is a ready-made blueprint for making this happen. Work Local would give democratically elected local leaders the power and funding to work with partners to join up careers’ advice and guidance, employment, skills, apprenticeships, business support services and outreach in the community. For a typical medium sized authority, introducing a Work Local Model could improve employment and skills outcomes by about 15 per cent, meaning an extra 2,260 people improving their skills each year and an extra 1,650 people moving into work. This would boost the local economy by £35 million per year and save the taxpayer an extra £25 million per year.
2.5 While the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has recognised the need to work with local government, engagement on their ‘Plan for Jobs’ skills and employment programmes has almost always come after strategic decisions have already been made. This leaves limited scope to shape, align or join up provision with local priorities or services, or build in the flexibility to tailor support to priority groups.
2.6 To join-up local and national skills and employment schemes so they are more than the sum of their parts, local government wants to work far more strategically with DWP. Councils should be given early sight of, and the opportunity to co-design future employment support schemes so that they are place-based, tailored to businesses and residents’ needs and deliver better outcomes for our communities. DWP must also work more effectively across Whitehall departments to design and join-up employment support, and ensure the Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and prime provider network works more effectively with local government and their partners. Where partnership working is already in place, local government is working effectively with the DWP to deliver better outcomes.
2.7 Devolution and a ‘local first’ approach should be the default position for new employment support programmes and initiatives, with the overall aim of trusting local government to design, commission and manage local provision, thereby freeing up DWP to tackle national challenges and opportunities.
2.8 There must be a cross-Government approach, working with local government, to training, employment support and job creation, to remove existing barriers to training and employment. In particular, DWP and the Department for Education (DfE) need to work more closely to strategically align their policies and objectives, with the DWP prioritising skills and training more highly within its plan for jobs and employment support. This will be essential to supporting more people move into quality work and improve their life chances and closing the skills gap to fill labour market shortages, which will in turn support local economies to grow.
2.9 The welfare system continues to hold people back from entering training or education because they will lose out on benefits. This is despite evidence that the lowest qualified people are at the highest risk of unemployment, insecure work and poverty. Government should reform eligibility rules to enable claimants to continue accessing benefits, including the childcare element of Universal Credit, while undertaking work-related training.
2.10 The delay in the commencement of the People & Skills priority of the UKSPF could result in a funding gap for many local skills and employment schemes, risking ending successful local provision which serves those who are furthest from the labour market. We continue to call on the Government to address the funding gap and work with councils to co-design the longer-term fund to deliver better outcomes locally and achieve our shared levelling up ambitions.
3.1. We know that even before the pandemic, certain groups such as young people, older people, disabled people and those from different ethnic minority groups experience multiple barriers to accessing or securing employment, and training and education opportunities. This situation has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Therefore, support for these groups must be as tailored as possible to meet their specific needs, which is best achieved through a local, integrated approach, that builds in wrap-around support
3.2. During the pandemic, the youth labour market contracted with fewer opportunities for new and recent entrants. This was primarily due to young people working in sectors such as hospitality, retail, and leisure which were significantly impacted by the lockdowns.
3.3. Furthermore, the pandemic has not impacted young people equally, for example, young people from ethnic minority groups were disproportionately affected, and the number of long-term unemployed young people also had risen. May 2022 figures show that the unemployment rate among ethnic minority workers has more than doubled, compared to that of their white counterparts. The data also shows that the employment gap has widened significantly since the start of the pandemic with the unemployment rate for ethnic minority workers standing at 7.7 per cent compared to 3.5 per cent for white workers.
3.4. Evidence on the economic and social impact of the pandemic also showed that young people were the worst-affected groups not just in the labour market but also in terms of mental health and well-being outcomes. Youth unemployment can have significant long-term effects, with periods of unemployment having a ‘scarring’ effect on young people’s future employability and wage potential. Therefore, it is important to ensure that young people can access early support to secure employment to avoid long-lasting adverse impacts.
3.5. Councils, despite having wide-range statutory responsibilities for young people, have very few formal levers over commissioning or co-ordination of provision to meet them; Nevertheless, they continue to work hard to mitigate the negative impact of unemployment by providing a holistic support offer:
3.5.1. Nottinghamshire’s Future’s programme has created a localised and integrated support offer to help people of all ages choose a career, get qualified or find a job, working with both individuals and organisations to provide advice, guidance and practical support. They also provide an intensive support offer for young people over the age of 16 who are NEET ((Not in Education, Employment or Training) or in need of wrap-around support. This approach has delivered significant results. January 2022 figures from across Nottinghamshire County show that 97 per cent of young people who have left Year 11 continued into further education, training, or employment, leaving 2.8 per cent as NEET, while just 0.2 per cent of Year 11 leavers’ status as ‘not known’.
3.5.2. Bristol City Council’s employment, skills, and learning service (ESL) bring together apprenticeships, adult community learning, post-16, and employment support, and ‘Bristol One City’ is a multi-agency co-designed approach to tackling emerging local issues – needs and gaps. These initiatives have helped some of the most vulnerable and those experiencing disadvantage.
3.5.3. South Gloucestershire Council has established its Community Learning and Skills Service which provides both learning and career coaching and mentoring opportunities for residents. Working closely with other providers and business, and as part of the West of England Combined Authority, it is bringing together adult community learning, employment support, post-16 and pre-16 transitions support, to create a coherent local offer which is available for residents of all ages through a ‘one-stop shop’ model. This approach has proven accessible especially those who are the most vulnerable and those experiencing disadvantage.
3.6. Disabled people’s participation in the labour market has been particularly impacted by the pandemic. During 2020 employment fell among disabled people and the disability gap widened. At the start of the pandemic many disabled people were advised to shield due to being at risk of the virus, with those who were unable to work from home entitled to statutory sick pay, and many others were furloughed through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
3.7. However, after the Coronavirus and Job Retention Scheme and shielding guidance came to an end on 30 September 2021 and 1 August 2021 respectively, many disabled workers would have faced a return to the workplace with additional barriers and challenges due to the risk of the virus. Research by the TUC on disabled workers experiences during the pandemic found that COVID-19 has exacerbated the workplace barriers disabled people encounter and identified that existing legal protections have not been effective in protecting disabled workers from discrimination and securing adequate workplace health and safety measures. The study found that only 56 per cent of those who faced additional risk to the virus due to a disability or health condition discussed it with their employer; of these, one in four said that their employer took ‘some action but not all’ to protect them, and 7 per cent said their employer took ‘no action at all.’
3.8. In April 2022 52.3 per cent of disabled people were in employment, down from 54.1 per cent a year previously, which indicates that the pandemic has had an ongoing impact on disabled people’s participation in the labour market.
3.9. The Centre for Ageing Better has voiced concerns that people aged 50 to 64 are being left behind by the post-pandemic recovery and face multiple barriers to re-employment. Its report also reveals large regional variation in how the pandemic has impacted older workers.
3.10. Many people who face complex barriers to work, and multiple disadvantages in the labour market, will require wrap-around and tailored support to secure and maintain employment. However, across the country the availability of this support is often either not available or difficult to secure through the national system of skills and employment support, which is complex and fragmented, with different services focussing on specific individual interventions.
4.1 Economically inactive people are not a homogenous group and are not searching for work for several varied reasons including low confidence, untreated health issues, including rising levels of long-COVID, and caring responsibilities. Long-term economic inactivity can affect people’s confidence and social and economic outlook, which creates additional barriers for them in re-entering the labour market.
4.2 According to ONS data the increase in economic inactivity since the start of the coronavirus pandemic has been largely driven by those who were students and the long-term sick, with an increase in the number of people who were in economically inactive due to long-term sickness in the three months preceding August 2022.
4.3 There is a growing awareness of the relationship between health and prosperity, with differences in health helping to explain productivity gaps between places. Poor health is one of the greatest barriers to finding and retaining a satisfying and rewarding job and wider involvement in society. Conversely, having high-quality employment and being socially connected are key factors in a person’s health and wellbeing. The recent Levelling Up White Paper stresses the link between people’s health, education, skills and employment prospects and focuses on policies to ensure everyone, wherever they live, can lead healthy and productive lives. The mental health and wellbeing plan should offer support for more local place-based solutions to employment.
4.4 Where local government has more flexibility to work hand in hand with employers and providers from the outset, there are positive outcomes. There are some emerging areas of good practice being adopted by further education providers – which includes council-run adult and community education - who are linking skills provision with social prescribing as a way of providing residents with alternative ways of acquiring new skills. Councils have developed many innovative interventions over recent years in these areas. Such interventions help their residents to acquire the skills and opportunities to find work that suits them, overcome barriers to work and engagement in society, and become more healthy, active and resilient.
5.1 During the pandemic, when employment support schemes were designed at speed to mitigate the risk of rising unemployment, DWP did engage local government. However, engagement almost always came after strategic decisions have already been made. This leaves local government with limited scope to shape, align or join up provision with local priorities, needs or services, or build in the flexibility to tailor support to priority groups. We need a far more strategic and collaborative relationship with DWP, ensuring that local government is given early sight of and the opportunity to co-design future employment support schemes so that they are place-based, tailored to local businesses and residents’ needs and deliver better outcomes for our communities.
Restart
5.2 People that face multiple barriers entering or re-entering the jobs market and who become long-term unemployed require support that is tailored to their needs, relevant to the local training and jobs on offer, and linked to other services – housing, skills, financial management advice, mental health services – which are vital to support people stay in work.
5.3 As DWP set to develop a support package for long-term unemployed people as a result of the pandemic, the LGA recommended to direct contract provision to smaller, localised contract package areas (CPAs) and allow the programme to be flexibly delivered by a range of providers – such as housing associations, third sector, local government as well as DWP’s prime providers – so that support could be aligned with other local services.
5.4 Despite evidence demonstrating that devolved and localised programmes deliver sustained outcomes for long-term unemployed people by joining up local services they rely on, DWP’s default approach is to deliver nationally contracted programmes over large spatial CPA’s via prime providers. This makes it difficult for any employment support provider working within a CPA to know what combination of support a long-term unemployed person needs in a specific location spanning a CPA from Swindon to St Ives (230 miles apart), or Chester to Carlisle (130 miles apart). Working within a large spatial area, often means that in practice providers have to prioritise particular areas due to capacity issues. There are also often capability issues where providers may not have local knowledge across the whole area, so they need to work with councils or sub-contract to draw in local providers. Moreover, new providers, especially those who cover a significant geographical area, take time to establish, which can leave gaps in provision.
5.5 To address this and improve local join-up of provision, the Government should progressively align employment and skills boundaries – including CPAs, JCP districts, Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) regions, Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas and new Local Skills Improvement Plan footprints to existing devolved and to functional economic areas (FEAs).
5.6 Where partnership working is in place, local government can work effectively with the DWP to deliver better outcomes for residents. As an example, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority told us that they have good relationships with DWP locally. They were involved in the assessment of bids in their CPAs and in commissioning Restart contractors. As a result, the successful contractor had the highest score for local fit which helped them to develop good partnership working arrangements. Partnership working has also allowed the Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) and their local authorities to work with DWP within the confines of the national system to improve youth unemployment services, by ensuring Youth Hubs and Kickstart gateways are aligned with local provision. However, outside of devolution areas, councils have limited ability to foster the same partnership working so are unable to engage with schemes to the same degree.
5.7 Before the Restart scheme was launched, we also made a number of recommendations to DWP on how they could work collaboratively with local government and providers to effectively design and deliver provision. These included enabling councils to add value by:
5.7.1 Identifying and referring those that have most to gain from support and pinpoint how long-term unemployed support can be used to greatest effect through local targeting. This too often get missed through larger contracts.
5.7.2 Increasing the size and scope of the skills offer within Restart by linking it with local skills provision (including councils’ adult community education provision and other training) and the voluntary sector to maximise people’s long-term chances of finding and sustaining quality work. This is hard to do with a standalone national programme.
5.7.3 Providing wrap-around support. Many long-term unemployed people rely on and need access to a range of local services alongside employment support to enable them to be work ready. Councils are best placed to align employment support with other services, such as health, housing, skills support, debt management, support with transport and support for parents (particularly lone parents) through Family Information Services and childcare support, as part of a holistic approach.
5.7.4 Providing local democratic accountability and co-ordination to ensure that the national offer works with the grain of what is on the ground locally, reducing the risk of duplication, and ensuring that providers deliver on their intended outcomes.
5.7.5 Utilising established networks to bring together the full range of partners (council, combined authority, National Careers Service providers, JCP, LEPs, chambers of commerce, business representatives, schools, colleges, the voluntary sector and unions) to bring employers on board and broaden the scheme’s scope and number of opportunities.
5.7.6 While no official figures are yet available for the £2.9 billion Restart programme, we understand referrals have been low. Due to the introduction of Restart, many quality local and devolved DWP-funded programmes working in the same space as Restart did not have their funding extended by the DWP, where they ordinarily would have. This disrupted trusted relationships that had been built up between long-term unemployed claimants and their existing providers.
Kickstart
5.8 Kickstart had the potential to deliver even better outcomes for young people, businesses and communities if it was planned in partnership with councils and their local partners. After the DWP launched the Kickstart scheme, the LGA proposed to Government various ways in which local government could help augment the Kickstart offer. A collaborative local approach could have ensured that the scheme was effectively signposted, targeted and delivered at the local level, offering more choice for young people by supporting a wide range of local businesses to develop and host placements; building in wrap-around support to ensure uptake and completion rates, and developing progression routes for young people after work placements ended.
5.9 As Kickstart was a DWP scheme, it was entirely focused on supporting young Universal Credit claimants into work (18-24). Kickstart could not be used to support under 18-year-olds who were NEET as this group is not a DWP responsibility, nor the 480,000 young people who are estimated to be ‘hidden’ unemployed each year and do not access the benefits system.
5.10 As reported in April 2022, 162,000 young people had started a Kickstart job, which is 36 per cent lower than the 250,000 target, resulting in an underspend of at least £665 million which could have been used to support disengaged young people who were not on Universal Credit.
5.11 We believe Kickstart was a missed opportunity to support 16–17-year-old NEETs and 18-24 NEETS who are not in receipt of benefits, who could have benefited from a period of experience with a local employer. The LGA repeatedly urged the DWP to extend the eligibility criteria for accessing the scheme to all young people who had been NEET for six months or more and to allow councils skills and employment services, and their local partners, to refer young people into the scheme. This would have enabled more young people to benefit from employment opportunities at a time when the pandemic was significantly limiting young people’s job prospects, putting them at heightened risk of becoming long-term unemployed and therefore becoming reliant on DWP support in later years.
5.12 Despite doing significant work to support DWP on Kickstart, many councils were not able to access basic destination information and progression data for local kickstart placements. In effect, this meant councils were unable to help build in transition support for those finishing their placements.
6.1 Access to training and education is essential to support unemployed people to get back into work and enable those in low-paid work to increase their skills and qualifications and progress. DWP’s Way to Work policy has aimed to address high vacancy levels by expecting claimants to look for jobs outside of their previous occupation or sector, if they cannot secure a job in their previous line of work within 4 weeks. This was reduced from a previous cap of 12 weeks, and claimants must comply to continue accessing benefits.
6.2 However, this policy does not include any intervention to address the skills needs of these claimants to help them move into other sectors or find suitable work that they will be able to sustain. This is despite DfE announcing the expansion of its skills Bootcamps a few days earlier, but neither of these interventions were linked. This demonstrates why all Whitehall departments, and especially those leading on employment support (DWP) and training (DfE), must work together to join up policy for people and places and create a holistic approach to training, skills and economic growth opportunities. As a result, Way to Work has had limited benefit for those furthest away from the job market and those with more complex barriers to work.
6.3 In some areas, councils had the opportunity to support the policy by working with JCP to enhance the support provided to job seekers. For example, in September 2020, Chesterfield Borough Council launched market recruitment events, which provided the local JCP with a blueprint to establish a series of regular local recruitment events which have been instrumental in supporting the Way to Work policy and moving claimants into work.
6.4 Due to the lack of alignment across DWP and DfE policy and objectives, the welfare system continues to hold people back from entering training or education because they will lose out on employment benefits. Moreover, the skills funding system is highly complex, with a number of training programmes requiring self-funding or employer support, especially for those who already hold qualifications above a Level 2. This, alongside increasing economic pressures, will make it difficult for those already in work to self-fund to re-train if they wish to, or need to, change careers. If we are to fulfil the ambition of closing the skills gap, creating a high skill economy and tackling economic inequalities, the DWP needs to prioritise skills and education within its jobs and employment strategy and integrate training into its employment support schemes for all those who would benefit from it.
6.5 Previous research for the LGA suggests that the less qualified someone is, the more vulnerable they will be to job loss, and the harder they will find it to secure, sustainable work. Improving people’s skills is essential to support people out of unemployment and insecure employment and improve their life chances. It therefore vital that the DWP Universal Credit rules align with DfE skills policy and enable claimants to retain benefits while training.
6.6 During the pandemic, DWP temporarily relaxed Universal Credit rules to enable claimants to continue accessing benefits while undertaking ‘work-related study’ from the previous cap of 8 weeks to 12 weeks. This enabled people to take advantage of the DfE skills bootcamps and increase their skills. This was a positive step forward and should be made permanent, to enable more people to take advantage of programmes like Bootcamps, sector-based work academies and traineeships which have proven effective in providing short-term skills interventions that support people into work. DWP should also go a step further to enable claimants to access the childcare cost element of Universal Credit while undertaking work-related training or education. At present, claimants’ can only currently access the childcare element if they are in paid work or has a paid offer of work, which acts as a key barrier to people, particularly lone parents, increasing their skills and employability.
7.1 There is a clear indication that the current system is not working for all localities and many people are unable to access the support needed to move into training or sustainable employment. Supporting people into employment in rural areas has long been a challenge due to the sheer scale of geography, poor transport links, cost of transport, and the lack of, or limited, job opportunities. Often long journeys and travel times are cited as a reason for learners dropping out of a college course, and the cost of transport is a key reason many people are unable to accept the offer of a job. Accessible training opportunities alongside employment support are vital to avoid low learner or client numbers, which impacts employment and training providers’ ability to invest in provision in the area due to the financial viability of the contract.
7.2 Councils recognise these challenges and work in partnership with providers to ensure support is in the right place. Many councils have also developed innovative ways to address some of these issues. For example, Hampshire is a largely rural county authority with a high number of young people between the ages of 16-17 years. To expand access to support, the council has developed a host of online opportunities and initiatives, tailored to local area and labour market, to support young people in training and employment. This included:
7.3 Feedback and usage data for these online developments show that they drove positive engagement. For example, the Ted Educational Career Talks launched in January 2021 received 1300 visits to the website in its first four weeks. There was an increase in the number of significant interventions with young people, rising from 41,683 in 2019 to 43,519 in 2020. Feedback from partners indicated the content has enhanced careers packages, increased home learning opportunities, supported young people, parents and carers to explore options, and provided a valuable resource to advisers, teachers and other professionals. Overall, these activities have contributed to strong performance with the September Guarantee in Hampshire.
11.1 The People & Skills priority of the UKSPF does not commence until 2024/25 in England. As a result, the delay creates a funding gap in in the provision of vital employment and skills services after European Social funding (ESF) for skills and employment provision ends in 2023.
11.2 The Government has enabled lead authorities to fund skills and employment provision from the UKSPF before 24/25 only if it is provided by an ‘at risk’ voluntary and community sector organisation. Based on statistics published by Government in March 2022, there are 54 ESF funded programmes that will be still running in the 2023/34 financial year where councils or combined authorities are the main grant recipient. These programmes could therefore be impacted by the funding gap and there is a risk that they will have to reduce provision, which is often relied upon by those furthest away from the job market.
11.3 Lead authorities are only able to commission People & Skills provision for one year (2024/25), which is restrictive and does not allow councils to deliver the long-term provision that is needed to support those furthest away from the job market. Better alignment across Government, between DWP and the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities, could have potentially avoided large gaps in provision between the end of the ESF funding and the commencement of the UKSPF People and Skills priority. We continue to call on the Government to address the funding gap and work with councils to co-design the longer-term fund to deliver better outcomes locally and achieve our levelling up ambitions.
13.1 For too long local government – councils and combined authorities – have had limited routes to discuss employment and skills issues with central government. Funding is short-term, fragmented and held centrally, and powers to affect change are too remote, unless the local authority is situated in an area with a devolution deal.
13.2 Recent analysis by the LGA (April 2021) reveals that across England, around £20 billion is spent on at least 49 nationally contracted or delivered employment and skills related schemes or services, managed by nine Whitehall departments and agencies, and delivered by multiple providers and over different geographies. Programmes include the Levelling Up Fund, Towns Fund and Help to Grow, as well as training and back to work support such as Restart, Bootcamps, Sector based Work Academies and the National Careers Service. No single organisation is responsible for coordinating these programmes nationally or locally, with no accountability over how the totality of provision is improving local outcomes. While well-intended, they are fragmented and too short term to deliver sustainable solutions for local areas. This makes it difficult to plan, target and join up provision, and leads to gaps and duplicated provision and fails to recognise the length of time it takes to support people move towards sustainable employment
13.3 For separate national, local and new schemes to become greater than the sum of their parts, DWP must work more effectively work across Whitehall departments to design and join up employment support and ensure the Department, its JCP and its prime provider network work more effectively with the grain of local services do this, it will be essential to improve links, and work collaboratively with, democratically elected councils and devolved areas.
13.4 Devolution and a ‘local first’ approach should be the default position for new employment support programmes and initiatives, with the overall aim of trusting local government to design, commission and manage local provision, thereby freeing up DWP to tackle national challenges and opportunities. A place-based approach, supported by better sharing of data between DWP providers and councils, would enable councils to take a holistic approach to people’s circumstances, taking into account their finances, their housing, their skills and their wider support needs such as childcare, through an accessible ‘one stop’ service.
13.5 The LGA’s Work Local model is a ready-made blueprint for making this happen. It would give democratically elected local leaders the power and funding to work with partners to join up careers’ advice and guidance, employment, skills, apprenticeships, business support services and outreach in the community. The underpinning principles of Work Local are:
13.6 A cost benefit analysis demonstrates that a Work Local model could result in a 15 per cent increase in the number of people improving their skills or finding work by using existing investment more effectively, by adult skills, contracted employment support and UKSPF, and giving local areas more influence in apprenticeships and 16-19 funding. Based on analysis that £20 billion is spent on employment and skills related provision in England, devolving a small proportion of this overall spend would make a big difference to communities.
13.7 For a typical medium-sized combined authority, with a working age population of 960,000, an around £270 million investment per year – which represents 1.35 per cent of national skills and employment spend in England – could improve employment and skills outcomes by about 15 per cent, meaning an extra 2,260 people improving their skills each year and an extra 1,650 people moving into work. This could boost the local economy by £35 million per year and save the taxpayer an extra £23 million per year. Taking account of wider benefits such as health and wellbeing could more than triple the economic benefits, up to £87 million per year.
13.8 For a typical larger rural local authority, with a working age population of 750,000, an around £77 million investment per year – which represents 0.38 per cent of England spend - could improve employment and skills outcomes by about 15 per cent, meaning an extra 1,150 people improving their skills each year and an extra 640 people moving into work. This could boost the local economy by £14 million per year and save the taxpayer an extra £9 million per year. Taking account of wider benefits such as health and wellbeing could more than triple the economic benefits, up to £54 million per year.
14 Are there any international examples of successful employment support schemes that DWP could learn from?
14.1 Local government in other parts of the UK has developed more effective partnership working with its devolved administrations to join-up employment and skills support.
14.2 Scotland: Each of the 32 local authorities have formal local employability partnerships which are accountable for annual needs-based funding allocations agreed by COSLA and the Scottish Government. The Local Employability Partnership Framework sets out the membership, remit and the coordination role of local authorities. Discussions are ongoing regarding multi-year funding. Scotland’s equivalent to Restart (Fair Start Scotland) will run as a national offer until March 2023 and then will be localised and rolled in to the No One Left Behind approach. A partnership agreement between DWP and local government to improve effectiveness of operations is also in the process of being agreed. At a political level, COSLA co-chairs the Tackling Labour Market Inequalities Group with two Scottish Government Ministers. Community Learning and Development Partnerships operate on the same 32 Local Authority footprints so employment and skills provision is much better aligned locally.
14.3 Northern Ireland: The eleven councils have local labour market partnerships which bring all partners together to address long term unemployment and inactivity, which are then developed into actions plans and signed off by the Minister for Employment. Northern Ireland local authorities have a much stronger role in setting local priorities for employment and skills provision, funding provision and overseeing delivery across services. Our Work Local proposals have some strong similarities to the new Northern Ireland structure for delivering services.
14.4 Wales: There is a strong partnership in place between local government and the devolved Government to deliver ‘Communities for Work’, an employability support and advisory service in more deprived areas. Career Wales, the national careers advice, information and guidance service, actively coordinates with local authorities. Local authorities play a key role in the four City and Growth Deals and the Regional Skills Partnerships (RSPs) which lead labour market intelligence and advise Welsh Government on skills provision. Wales demonstrates the benefits of delivering effective employability services across Wales, and the potential of engaging local government.
15 DWP both provides employment support and administers benefits. How well is it fulfilling that dual role, and is there a case for a different model?
15.1 DWP benefit processing and the employment support functions should be decoupled. The employment support function is delivered by JCP (for those who are short-term unemployed) and DWP prime providers (for those out of work for over 12 months).
15.2 Joined up services are critical to support some groups back into work, especially people that may need wrap-around support including housing, skills and financial management advice, and those with long-term physical and mental health issues who may struggle to get into, retain and progress in work which affects their confidence, pay, living standards and productivity. This employment support for long-term unemployed people should be fully devolved, with local government trusted to design, commission and manage it.
15.3 As illustrated by the following case studies, where local government has more flexibility to work hand in hand with providers from the outset, they can deliver tailored support and improved outcomes. Given that place-based provision delivers better outcomes, we would like to see JCP provision devolved to local areas or at the very least co-commissioned with local government and other relevant partners including housing associations and the VCS.
15.4 Case studies:
15.4.1 Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s (GMCA) ‘Working Well’ suite of devolved and test-and-learn employment and health related programmes, take a whole-population approach to health, skills and employment. To date, these programmes have supported more than 60,000 people, helping more than 15,500 into work - a success rate of 26 per cent. Crucially provision also is targeted at engaging and supporting economically inactive groups. GMCA recognised from the start that to turn Greater Manchester into a ‘northern powerhouse’, it had to tackle the very high level of economic inactivity. In particular, tackling health-related economic inactivity was a key focus and formed an element of Manchester’s health and social care devolution deal.
15.4.2 Central London Forward’s £51 million devolved ‘Work and Health’ programme, ‘Central London Works’, aims to support 21,000 residents with health conditions and disabilities and the long-term unemployed into work. Not only do CLF and Ingeus, the provider, work closely to assess referral numbers, job starts, and the quality of jobs and support, they work with the boroughs to integrate borough-led and JCP provision including through ‘super centres’ in Hackney, Lambeth and Islington, which also helps to support employers’ recruitment needs.
15.4.3 Tees Valley and DWP ‘Routes to Work’ pilot helped 4,000 people who were furthest from the job market prepare for, and access work through its local employment hubs and secured work for 800 across the region. Despite its success, it ends in March 2022, making way for ‘Restart’ delivered by a new provider, which will require re-building client and provider relationships.
15.4.4 Northumberland Council led a ‘North East mental health trailblazer’, on behalf of the North East LEP and seven regional councils, which aimed to support jobseekers with conditions such as anxiety and depression into work, by integrating employment support with treatments to improve their wellbeing, such as talking therapy. The impact of this partnership approach has been significant. The project worked with almost 1,450 people and supported 270 into work. However, the project concluded when it’s limited funding came to an end.
16 Should the Government provide employment support to people who are not on benefits? If so, how could that support best be provided?
16.1 Yes. As vacancy rates continue to rise, identifying, engaging and supporting over 1 million ‘economically inactive’ people who left the jobs market as a result of the pandemic, with the right skills and wider support to re-enter work must be a national priority. While there are many reasons for people becoming economically inactive, we know nearly three fifths are in the over 50s age group, and there has been the largest annual growth in worklessness due to long-term ill health since records began in 1992 – taking the figure to 2.38 million (its highest since 2004). Therefore, there is a clear indication of where support is needed.
16.2 It is also estimated that there are 480,000 young people who are NEET but are not in receipt of benefits and are therefore not captured in official data each year. This is a key concern for councils for many reasons. Firstly, this figure is an estimate, and the actual number could potentially be higher. Secondly, it is a challenge to engage with this ‘hidden’ cohort and a partnership approach is needed to identify them and provide the support.
16.3 Supporting unemployed non-claimants into work could get more people into jobs, increase tax paid into the public purse, help meet employers skills demand and support the local and national economy. However, DWP targets its policy interventions solely at benefit claimants. It was predicted that the pandemic would result in widespread unemployment. However, measures such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme prevented many from becoming long-term unemployed. As a result, DWP’s £2.9 billion Restart programme to support long-term unemployed people back to work experienced low referrals. If the programme had flexibility built into it, some of this resource could have been pivoted to engage economically inactive people who are not in receipt of benefits.
16.4 Local government, working with their partners including housing associations and the community and voluntary sector, come into contact and engage with residents who are economically inactive through local services, so are in a better position to understand what is needed to get them into work. Many councils also run discretionary or devolved employment and skills schemes which are specifically targeted to economically inactive people.
16.5 Over the last year, the need to address economic inactivity has become increasingly clear and DWP has responded by encouraging local government to gear the UKSPF People and Skills allocations to support inactive groups. However, it must be recognised that there are significant demands on the Fund, while the budget is relatively small budget in comparison to the predecessor European Social Fund.
16.6 Government should rethink its role on addressing ‘economic inactivity’ and develop a cross-Government strategy, working with local government and wider partners, to co-design and improve support for this group.
16.7 With devolved responsibility and funding, local government could play a greater role in engaging economically inactive people, utilising existing local networks and data to identify, engage and support these groups with tailored and wrap-around support. This will be essential to overcoming complex barriers to work.
How effective is support from Jobcentre Work Coaches? Are there ways that DWP could be using its resources (eg. Work Coaches) more effectively than it is at the moment?
16.8 Many councils have developed effective working relationships with their respective local JCPs and Partnership Teams. However, the formation of these relationships continues to be dependent on the goodwill of individual JCPs rather a DWP requirement to engage with their local councils. Moreover, councils tell us that high staff turnover often results in them having to frequently re-establish those links.
16.9 As democratic leaders of place and trusted convenors of partners, local government – councils and MCAs/GLA – has the democratic legitimacy, accountability and wide-ranging functions and expertise to get the skills and employment offer right for their residents, communities, businesses and other employers. Working together strategically, both at the national and local level, Job Centre Plus and local government could achieve so much more. For example, new roles such as the in-work progression function being rolled out through national policy often requires rethinking the existing local landscape, rather than working out what is already being delivered locally and how new initiatives could fill gaps in provision to meet local needs. DWP should empower JCP staff to collaborate with local government locally. We want to move to a position where JCP and local government are routinely sharing data and working together to oversee and strategically co-design local skills and employment support, for example through co-commissioning the Flexible Support Fund.
16.10 Local government can add value through the following ways:
Planning, commissioning, and delivering adult skills: through devolved Adult Education Budget (AEB), Mayoral Combined Authorities/ the Greater London Authority have worked with stakeholders and partners to successfully shape and deliver new adult skills approaches to improve outcomes and cultivate an area-wide approach to skills. Council-run adult community learning (ACL) funded through AEB in devolved and non-devolved areas supports 500,000 adults every year, many with low qualifications to develop skills for work and life across 10,000 community venues including libraries, community centres and village halls.
Councils’ education and training duties for young people: this includes finding education and training places for young people up to the age of 17; re-engaging young people who are NEET; and supporting young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND).
Providing support and wrapround services for young people and adults with complex barriers through public health and its link into health services, Family Information Services, childcare support, housing support and debt advice.
Their ‘lead authority’ role for local growth and skills investment including the Levelling Up, Community Renewal, Towns, Shared Prosperity and Multiply Funds which will generate new employment growth including net zero and retrofit jobs, support capital investment in further education, unlock major regeneration projects, target funding to improve people’s skills and employment prospects.
Strategic planning: As large employers, commissioners or deliverers of services, and strategic planners, local government interlinks employment and skills strategies with wider spatial strategies important to delivering local and national priorities: health and social care, inward investment, environment, transport, net zero and digital. It also works with the public and private sector to deliver training and job opportunities through social value clauses in major schemes / contracts.
Supporting the entire local employer base: through their economic development, inward investment functions, as well as delivering Growth Hubs on behalf of Local Enterprise Partnerships, local government works with existing and incoming employers of all sizes and across sectors including micro businesses to multinationals, public, private and charitable sectors as well as representative bodies.
A holistic view on employment, training, skills, and economic growth initiatives. Many councils have discretionary or devolved employment and skills schemes or services to address gaps / join up the system. These include local employment hubs which, as well as providing an out-of-work offer for residents, also provide an in-work offer for the existing workforce (e.g. through skills support for workforce, upskilling grants, plus targeted schemes for those with additional support needs ie. over 50s, women in work, disabled people, lone parents. Existing local employment and skills boards (ESBs) convene partners, promote collaboration, and provide intelligence to agencies including Careers Hubs (many are hosted by local government), JCP and delivery partners.
September 2022