A leading figure at a centre-right think tank has accused ministers of failing to grasp the scale of the unemployment crisis and claimed that government welfare reforms will not be sufficient to solve “huge structural problems” in the labour market.
Matthew Oakley, the head of economics and social policy at Policy Exchange, told a Westminster debate that the Work Programme will not do enough in the short term to address long-term worklessness and youth unemployment.
He said: “There are still huge structural problems in the UK labour market, and despite all of the talk from ministers I don’t think that any of them have the answers.
“The Work Programme is effective and will prove to be a good thing, but we need to actually be honest and sell the message that there is an awfully long way to go.”
Oakley called for a longer-term policy approach to welfare that offers more personalised support for jobseekers, delivers on ministerial pledges to make work pay and incorporates conditionality measures to encourage self-improvement through learning and working.
Oakley said: “Despite what the coalition says, we don’t think that enough personalisation happens, and people on jobseekers’ allowance or income support have to wait for six months to get onto the Work Programme. That is a long time for people to become demoralised and demotivated.
“Instead let’s send them to a specialist service from day one. That will involve changing the Work Programme contracts and it is also going to entail joining up employment and skills agendas across Whitehall.”
Oakley also urged ministers to adopt incentives over sanctions to break the costly cycle of low skills and generational worklessness.
He added: “The sanction of ‘three strikes and you’re out’ is not helpful, and when you apply it you actually damage the lives of the dependents you are trying to help.”
About 90% of unemployed people coming to the Job Centre get work and so do not go onto the Work Programme. The WP was not designed or costed to include all job seekers – they were designed for those needing most assistance.
If the Work Programme contracts were changed to deal with people from day 1, then there may be no need for Job Centre Plus (perhaps this is part of the agenda).
There is an issue of greater help and at an earlier time (especially for young people), but this needs to be thought through more fully, so as to avoid the usual ‘creaming and parking’ problems of the most employable being targeted and the others left etc.
I agree with Oakley about the importance of offering high quality, personalised help to job seekers from Day One of their unemployment if possible. Doing this would lessen some of the damage done to individuals by unemployment and might at least result in no extra costs to the tax payer.
It’ll take a massive shift in governmental culture, departmental budgets, DWP staffing and the Work Programme itself to implement such changes.
Providing personalised help of the levels necessary to support all types of job seeker – young graduates and experienced professionals as well as those aiming for unskilled or semi-skilled jobs – can only be done if JCP staff have enough time to build relationships with each “client” and conduct problem-solving interviews and are differently trained.