What is in the Government’s plan to ‘get Britain working’?
The number of people off work with a long-term illness has risen to three million, but what can the Government do to get people back to work? ITV News Political Correspondent Harry Horton reports
The Government is set to announce a string of reforms to boost employment in a bid to “get Britain working again”.
During the election, Labour promised to increase the employment rate to 80% from its current level of around 75%, which would mean around two million more people in work.
An official Government policy document setting out the plans, known as a white paper, is due to be published on Tuesday, but ahead of it the Department for Work and Pensions has shared some of its ideas.
Here is what the Government is considering:
Extra NHS staff could be deployed to the 20 areas of England where the highest number of people are out of work. Ill health is considered the biggest driver of joblessness and the extra health workers would help to clear NHS backlogs and treat people, with the aim of getting them back into work.
Some 8,500 new mental health staff will be employed and access to a scheme aimed at helping people who are mentally unwell into employment will be expanded. Together, these steps are estimated to help 140,000 people by 2028/29.
A scheme which joins up health, work and skills support will be piloted in “trailblazer” regions in the North East, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, with the aim of designing something that could rolled out across England and Wales. Some £125 million will be spent on it.
Job centres across the UK will be overhauled into a new work and careers service. The service will not only help people get jobs, but to stay in work and get training they need to progress in their career. Job centre staff will be encouraged to move away from a “tick box” culture and offer a more personalised service to jobseekers while new digital systems will be trialled to free up their time.
Every 18 to 21-year-old in England will have access to an apprenticeship, training, education or help to find a job through the new “youth guarantee”. The Premier League, Channel 4 and the Royal Shakespeare Company are among the partners who have signed up to the guarantee.
The apprenticeship levy, a tax on large employers used to fund apprenticeships, will be reformed into a new growth and skills levy, which ministers say will help to fund more courses like shorter apprenticeships and foundation level schemes.
Regional mayors who are not getting access to cash for pilot schemes will be offered £15 million to help develop their own local plans to get people back into work.
An independent review will be launched into what employers can do to help prevent people falling ill. It will look at how they can do more to recruit and keep disabled people and those with long-term heath conditions. Trade unions, businesses and health experts are among those who will contribute towards it.
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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “From the broken NHS, flatlining economy, and the millions of people left unemployed and trapped in an inactivity spiral - this Government inherited a country that simply isn’t working.
“But today we’ve set out a plan to fix this. A plan that tackles the biggest drivers of unemployment and inactivity and gives young people their future back through real, meaningful change instead of empty rhetoric and sticking plaster politics.”
Sir Keir added that the government’s reforms would “put an end to the culture of blaming and shaming people who for too long haven’t been getting the support they need to get back to work” and help people into “decent, well-paid jobs”.
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