Welfare to Work Green Paper
Response to Welfare to Work Green Paper Keith
Faulkner, Managing Director of Working Links
Working Links, a public private voluntary organisation which has
helped many thousands of long-term unemployed people back into work
in Britain, welcomes the Green Paper. It is a timely and important
demonstration of the Government’s commitment to address both
economic growth and significant social issues such as child
poverty, building on the consultations since the original “new deal
for welfare” published in January 2006 and the valuable work of
David Freud published earlier this year.
The benefits of employment are widely acknowledged to be huge
and far reaching. They include fiscal savings, a more competitive
economy, lower crime levels, increased self esteem, improved
health, a higher life expectancy and the list goes on.
Whilst we recognise the success of the New Deal in significantly
reducing unemployment, we know that a new approach is now needed if
the Government is to achieve its ambitions of an 80% employment
rate and an end to child poverty.
Welfare to work programmes must be responsive to an individual’s
needs and we have long advocated that people be offered an
individually tailored, flexible package of support to help them
into work. Our experience shows that the majority of the barriers
jobseekers face are not easily identifiable and it is therefore
often difficult to immediately determine the most appropriate
support. One of the best indicators of those who are likely to
require additional support is the area in which they live. In areas
which have levels of economic activity well below average people
are far more likely to suffer disadvantage and a range of barriers.
Furthermore, there is often an inter-generational culture of
worklessness in these areas which needs addressing. This suggests
that solutions to the problem of worklessness must be locally
driven recognising the differing character and needs of
communities. This reinforces the importance of the City Strategies
now at the pathfinder stage in 15 locations.
As a public, private and voluntary partnership, we know the
value of increased partnership between these sectors and recognise
the special value and experience each of them has to offer. We
understand the need for Treasury saving to precede provider reward
and accept that the private sector has a role to play in taking
risk on behalf of Government.
However, concerns have been raised that smaller providers risk
being ‘squeezed out’ of the kind of market envisaged by Freud. We
recognise the important contribution of many smaller providers who
often have specialised expertise and can be particularly successful
in reaching some of the so called ‘harder to help’ groups. We
believe that the role of larger organisations is to draw on this
capability while shielding smaller providers from the more rigorous
demands and commercial risks of professional procurement processes
and helping them contribute even more fully within their
communities. Government should favour such arrangements in taking
forward the commissioning of their welfare proposals.
We are strongly supportive of the Government’s ambition to
eliminate child poverty and believe that in a country such as the
UK it cannot be acceptable that 2.8 million children still live in
relative poverty. We would therefore welcome an opportunity to use
our experience in moving people into employment and then helping
them achieve in work progression, in order to lift them and their
families out of poverty.
Working Links recognises that supporting people into employment
alone is not enough. Individuals must also be helped to sustain
their jobs and progress in the workplace. Public agencies and
providers must therefore be able to work with people moving into
employment over much longer periods.
We understand the importance of balancing rights and
responsibilities and welcome the debate around conditionality.
However, any moves towards greater compulsion must be accompanied
by additional support otherwise sanctions will serve only as
‘sticking plasters’, not addressing the real barriers which prevent
people moving into employment.
As these proposals continue to be developed and rolled out, we
will work with the Government to ensure that genuine and lasting
solutions are found that will benefit not only disadvantaged
individuals and communities but the economy and country as a
whole