Among the white paper’s recommendations, the government is proposing to overhaul the JobCentre into a new national jobs and career service while the Apprenticeship Levy in England will be remodelled into a more flexible Growth and Skills Levy.
Regional mayors and local authorities will be given new powers to join up work, health and skills support to meet the needs of local areas while an independent review will also be launched into how employers can be better supported to employ and retain people with disabilities health conditions.
A new Youth Guarantee will be created to ensure every young person has access to education or training to help them find a job.
The government says its proposals will establish a fundamentally different approach to the employment support system to target and tackle the root causes of unemployment and inactivity, and better join up health skills and employment support based on the needs of local communities.
Dr Emily Andrews, Deputy Director for Work at the Centre for Ageing Better, said:
“There is much to welcome in this long-awaited white paper to get Britain working. Successful implementation of these plans will be essential for the government’s growth plans and ultimately, how successful they are in office.
“Health is such a huge determining factor for employment in this country, and increasingly so as we get older. Recent analysis we carried out older people with a long-term health condition are 60% more likely to be out of work than people with long-term health conditions in younger age groups Other countries are more successful in helping older workers balance their health conditions with work. We need our employment support to have a much greater age focus if the government is to drastically overhaul the growing numbers of economically inactive.
“Ageing Better welcomes the government’s recognition that this country’s employment support system should be more focussed on helping people back into work rather than monitoring benefit claims, and that we need to end the blaming and shaming of people. We hope these good intentions will result in a less punitive system, which evidence shows is ineffective and is especially likely to push older jobseekers to disengage, to be replaced with one that provides many more incentivising and supporting carrots.
“It is also encouraging to see in the White Paper plans for an independent review into how employers can be better supported to employ and retain people with disabilities and health conditions, alongside the recognition that the views and voices of disabled people must be at the heart of any policy changes that directly affect them. This is very much the principle at the heart of our newly-launched Supporting Disabled Older Workers (SDOW) project and we hope that this will deliver important insights for the government to build upon.
“W The facts don’t lie, centralised employment support is not delivering for many people looking for work. Our own work with mayoral combined authorities is showing how tailoring approaches to the needs of the local people and the local labour market can reap greater success.
“We also hope the government can deliver on its promises of a radically improved digital offer within the National Jobs and Career Service. It will be important that these reforms are done at a pace, and with non-digital alternatives, to avoid the risk of some being digitally excluded from accessing support. But we also know that this will be received by many 50+ jobseekers who want to be able to access tailored and self-serve support online.
“Reform of the Apprenticeship Levy into a more flexible Growth and Skills Levy is needed. We hope the government will recognise that training and upskilling is vital throughout a career and not just at the beginning. The current skills system is not working for people in their 50s and 60s, we need a redesign which matches the changes we are seeing to the 50-year-career span.
“The UK labour market is diverse, vibrant and multigenerational. We welcome the support for young workers, which is much needed at this time. However, in order to hit the 80% employment target – and drive growth at a time of demographic change – the government will need to specifically drive improvements in the 50+ employment rate.
“This white paper would be improved with a more specific focus on the 50+ workforce who have powered employment growth since the turn of the century until the pandemic. Getting this right and raising the employment rates of 50+ workforce is absolutely key to the government’s growth mission and could increase GDP by at least £9bn a year.”
