It is hard to speak the truth about valued national institutions. But when they are not fit for purpose, we must speak out. Reports on Monday suggested the government is considering a radical overhaul of the Jobcentre Plus system that is so badly failing to help the unemployed find work. The news doesn’t come a day too soon. Our one-size-fit-all national system doesn’t reflect the varying and specific needs of individuals and needs serious reform.
The system in its current form is clunky, impersonal, and suited neither to today’s society. Time and time again I meet young people being let down by a framework that fails to help people find lasting employment.
For Britain to build a balanced and sustainable economy, and to avoid a genocide of wasted talent and potential, that needs to change.
Some people will feel an instinctive hesitation about scrapping an organisation that aims to support the unemployed and help them find work. The fact is that jobcentres are totally failing in their primary aim: only around one in three claimants find sustainable work within six months of claiming benefits. That is not good enough for an institution that receives many millions in state funding and serves, in theory at least, a crucial purpose. Back in November I gave a speech calling for exactly these reforms.
As the MP for an area like Tottenham you quickly learn that the factors leading to unemployment are as numerous as they are diverse. 18% of the working population, for example, has a mental health condition that creates a barrier to sustainable work. The unique nature of each case of unemployment means services must be personalised and responsive to individual needs. That could not be further from the reality of Jobcentre Plus. The fault is not with the advisers themselves but with a system that forces them to see too many people in too little time. When each overburdened adviser has an average caseload of 168 people, it is virtually impossible for individuals to be given any specialised support or treatments tailored to particular needs. It is hardly surprising, then, that two-thirds of unemployed young people feel that government services aren’t giving them enough support.
A report by the thinktank Policy Exchange outlines much of what needs to change. The current system should be abolished and replaced with a flexible alternative that can treat cases on an individual basis. The number of support providers should be increased so that specialist help is always available. And we should separate the system that distributes unemployment benefits from the organisations that help the unemployed into work. That will mean the young unemployed are treated not as benefit scroungers but as what they are: people with the potential to make a hugely valuable contribution to society. Unemployed people should be treated as potential to be realised, not a problem to be solved.
For this to happen, Jobcentre Plus’s role of helping people into employment should be handed to specialist organisations, creating a network of regulated charities and private sector organisations that already have expertise in this area. This would mean that individuals could be referred to an organisation best suited to their needs, with support packages tailored to each person. This system should be geared towards helping people on a case-by-case basis, working with individuals to work out the barriers preventing them from finding work and building a plan for overcoming those barriers. It is this kind of methodical and personal approach that will help people not simply to find work but, equally importantly, find the type of work that they are best suited to.
There is also a real need for services to be better integrated. Each organisation tasked with helping people into work should act as a central hub for combating the many different reasons that lead to people ending up unemployed– from health issues to confidence problems to a lack of training and skills. The limited powers of Jobcentre Plus staff mean that too often they try to force people into work without making efforts to tackle the underlying problems that make employment difficult. It is not surprising, then, that 40% of people that Jobcentres help into work end up back on benefits within six months.
Jobcentres have become a bastion of green and yellow-branded stigma; a silo where the unemployed are forced to trek each week for the briefest of appointments with an overworked and under-equipped adviser. It would make much more sense to move employment support organisations to the places where people spend their time: in shops, on high streets and in community buildings. We need to make it as easy as possible for those who need help and support to get it.
To tackle the scourge of young unemployment we need to be ambitious. That means radical reform of an institution that in its current form is not fit for purpose. The government should be brave in undertaking reform of the employment support system. It is the very least our young people deserve.
