Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 30
30
Accepted
Achieving an 80% national employment rate remains a significantly stretching aspiration for the Department.
Conclusion
We asked the Department how big a challenge it will be to get to 80%. The Department told us that it clearly is a stretching aspiration. The Department explained that, to achieve an 80% employment rate, its focus is on areas and groups where the employment rate is below 80%, and that it is acting to narrow the gap through its planned reforms. It said that there are areas and localities with an 80% employment rate, but there are also some with a much lower rate.62
Government Response Summary
The government states that it has already set out a roadmap in the Get Britain Working White Paper and highlights the Pathways to Work programme and other cross-government initiatives that contribute to the 80% employment rate ambition.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
6.2 Through the Get Britain Working White Paper, the department has already set out a roadmap for how the government’s long-term ambition of achieving an 80% employment rate will be realised. Pathways to Work will contribute to this ambition by supporting disabled people and people with long-term health conditions into, or toward, employment, backed by £1 billion a year of funding by 2030 and a total of £2.2 billion over four years. 6.3 Coordinated cross-government action is key to this long-term ambition. The department’s reforms sit alongside wider government initiatives, including the launch of Skills England to create a shared national plan to boost the nation’s skills, creating more good jobs through the modern Industrial Strategy, strengthening employment rights through the Plan to Make Work Pay and creating a National Health Service fit for the future through the 10 Year Health Plan for England.