Select committee: Work and Pensions Committee
Conclusion 28
Eighth Report - Plan for Jobs and employment support
Published 19 Jul 2023
Paragraph 170
Addressed to Department for Work and Pensions
Work and Pensions Committee Plan for Jobs and employment support All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The move from ESF to UKSPF is of significant concern for external support providers. Whilst the Government’s eventual decision to lift the restriction on the use of the UKSPF for people and skills spending is welcome, there is still expected to be disruption due to comparatively less funding under the UKSPF, especially to the services that smaller organisations deliver. This puts services at risk of collapse and will impact the extent of support available to economically inactive people. The Flexible Support Fund (FSF) offers organisations access to a limited amount of funding for delivery of employment support programmes. DWP should expand FSF to help mitigate the loss of essential services for economically inactive people.
From: Work and Pensions Committee, Eighth Report - Plan for Jobs and employment support (HC 600), paragraph 170, 19 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 23 October 2023 (deadline 24 October 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the report's focus on economic inactivity and points to its Spring Budget 2023 package, while declining several recommendations, including devolving all employment support and separating support from benefit administration.
- On the Housing Benefit and Universal Credit cliff edge, the Department "acknowledges the challenge" and officials are working to develop options, but says it "would be challenging to eradicate this issue as early as April 2024" and funding "would also need to be secured through a future fiscal event".
- It does not agree that Restart should be extended to inactive people, or that employment support should be separated from benefit administration, giving conditionality and welfare spend management as reasons for the latter.
- It does not agree to automatically devolve all employment support, deciding the delivery approach "on a programme-to-programme basis". It will trial a more devolved approach in the Greater Manchester and West Midlands deals before considering further rollout.
- On Jobs Plus, the government says it is "supportive of Jobs Plus and will be implementing a pilot scheme based on the Jobs Plus model", though no date is given.