Select committee: Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 22
4th Report – Get Britain Working: Reforming Jobcentres
Published 8 Sep 2025
Addressed to Department for Work and Pensions
Work and Pensions Committee Get Britain Working: Reforming Jobcentres All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
DWP needs to rebuild trust with employers. This will require making better use of its network of Jobcentres and the employer advisers who work in them. To start, DWP should consider setting individual Jobcentres targets for engaging local employers. This engagement should go beyond a surface-level relationship and focus on understanding the needs of these employers, providing information to improve work coaches’ job-matching. 56 As part of this, Jobcentres, particularly the existing employer advisers, should be encouraged to work with local employers to identify how their services can be made more demand-led. We believe that improving the quality of liaison with employers could improve the impact of Jobcentres, as could more innovative practice, such as Paisley Jobcentre’s ‘take a job to work day’. In areas of greatest need, DWP should consider recruiting an additional role of a specialist employer liaison officer, who would have experience of national and local business and would be tasked with building deep relationships with local employers and opening up more opportunities for good jobs for service users. (Recommendation, Paragraph 107)
From: Work and Pensions Committee, 4th Report – Get Britain Working: Reforming Jobcentres (HC 653), 8 September 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 13 November 2025 (deadline 8 November 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government partially accepts or accepts most of the Committee's recommendations on reforming Jobcentres, does not accept three, and says it will publish a report in spring 2026 setting out more detail on delivering the new Jobs and Careers Service.
- On the Claimant Commitment, it partially accepts the recommendation, does "not agree that a public consultation is necessary at this stage" as changes are already being tested in the Pathfinder, and will review the policy once initial findings are available.
- On sanctions, it partially accepts, saying there is "a place for sanctions" where claimants do not meet reasonable requirements without good reason. It has "no current plans for further research" but will keep this under review.
- It accepts the recommendation to review the work coach model, and says a review bringing together the available evidence on work coach and third-party employment support "will be published by the end of 2026".
- It does not accept the recommendations on work coach capacity modelling, an AI ethics framework for employment support, or restoring the 3-month period to search in a preferred sector. On the last, it will "actively consider" whether the policy remains appropriate.