DWP needs ‘fundamental reform’

DWP needs ‘fundamental reform’ because tinkering at the edges of the benefit system will never solve the problems of the broader economy
Employment Minister says we need to be looking at the options that people have in the labour market and asking ourselves whether those choices are good enough
The DWP is in need of ‘fundamental reform’ because tinkering at the edges of the benefit system will never solve the problems of the broader economy, Employment Minister Alison McGovern has said today.
Speaking at the launch of the Final report of the Commission on the Future of Employment – which highlights that the UK’s employment services are the least well-used in Europe and often act more as an extension of the benefits system – Ms McGovern pledged to ‘turn the page’ on years of failure, saying there has been too much focus on welfare and social security and not enough on helping people into work.
NB – the Commission’s report argues for reforms to help reverse significant falls in labour force participation, address insecurity and poverty in work, and tackle long-standing inequalities in the labour market, and makes recommendations for action in four main areas –
introducing online employment services – an on-the-high street network of employment, skills and careers centres that are open to all, and on the doorstep integration of employment and careers advice within wider public, community and voluntary services, alongside a clear, joined-up offer for employers;
developing New Labour Market Partnerships within local areas – so that ‘work, health and skills plans’ can enable areas to join up services, broaden access to support and tailor provision to local needs;
ending the ‘compliance culture’ in jobcentres – including by ending the ’35-hour rule’ for jobseekers and those in low paid work, having a clearer separation between benefits administration and employment support, and replacing the claimant commitment with forward-looking Action Plans; and
setting a clear framework for a reformed system across national and local services – underpinned by specific objectives on raising employment, tackling poverty at work and reducing inequalities, a guarantee that if you want help you will be able to get it, and common standards for the quality of services for individuals and employers.
Ahead of the publication of the government’s more detailed plans in a Get Britain Working Again White Paper due in the autumn, Ms McGovern said today –
‘We’re going to change the Department for Work and Pensions fundamentally. Because if you go around Jobcentres they still have paper listings on the wall as if it’s 1985. Meanwhile, the rest of the economy is galloping to our AI future …
For too long, the question of how to increase employment in the UK has been reduced simply to a question of the individuals out of work. The only question has been whether the social security system undermines a person’s will to work.
Because for too long, that narrow focus has dominated all thinking. We’ve lost sight of the labour market as a whole.
For far too long in politics, we’ve asked whether this change or that change to social security will result in more people working, instead of looking at the options that people have in the labour market and asking ourselves whether those options and choices are good enough.’
William Beveridge called it out in 1909, the Minister said –
‘He said: The first question must be ‘not what is to be done with the unemployed individual, but why [are they] thus unemployed’.
The truth is, for any individual, you can look at the ups and downs of life and describe why they aren’t working: they got sick, they had kids, there was a bus that could get them there but it was cancelled. But when there are over 7.2 million people like that who are out of work, that is no longer an individual problem – it’s a failure of our whole economy. As Beveridge described it, it’s a problem of industry and a failure of organisation.’
But Beveridge didn’t think social security was a cure-all, the Minister said, and what’s needed is an acknowledgement that tinkering with its edges will never solve the problems of the broader economy.
As a result, the Minster said –
‘… we need to give people the good choices and chances that they need … a market for labour that has businesses crying out for staff, and a queue at the foodbank door is failing this country. We cannot load every economic problem we face onto minor tweaks in the social security rules.
Which is why, as part of our Get Britain Working White Paper, we are bringing forward fundamental reforms to employment support.
That includes changing the outcomes against which we measure its success – for example, not focusing alone on getting people into work but on achieving higher engagement with everyone, much higher employment in the short-term, and higher earnings too …
I know change won’t happen overnight, but I am determined to fix the foundations in the Department for Work and Pensions so that more families can benefit from the security, dignity and prosperity of good work.’
NB – an accompanying news release issued ahead of the Minister’s speech includes a passage not delivered at the launch event that focuses on the Department’s commitment to address the record number of young people either out of work due to long-term sickness or not in education, work or training, saying that ‘the lockdown generation has been failed and consigned to the scrapheap’, and setting out the government’s plans for a new Youth Guarantee.
The transcript of the Minister’s speech Learning from the past to deliver the future: Getting Britain’s labour market and economy working again is available from gov.uk
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