Select committee: Work and Pensions Committee
Conclusion 38
Eighth Report - Plan for Jobs and employment support
Published 19 Jul 2023
Paragraph 244
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 Government’s Plan for Jobs and DWP’s response to the pandemic introduced a number of measures to support the recovery of the labour market and help people return to work. Although these initiatives have shown some success at helping people re-enter the labour market, they have not been able to reverse the significant increase in economic inactivity, particularly among young people, older people and people with disabilities or long-term health conditions. In this Report we have looked at how successful the Plan for Jobs and DWP’s other employment support programmes have been at supporting people into work; we have proposed a number of measures to help combat economic inactivity among those groups experiencing higher levels of worklessness; and we have made recommendations about how DWP should aim to transform its approach to support.
From: Work and Pensions Committee, Eighth Report - Plan for Jobs and employment support (HC 600), paragraph 244, 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.