What Labour should say about 50 Plus employment
As the prospect of a General Election looms ever closer, we’re beginning to learn what we might expect from each party’s manifestoes.
Labour have started to give some indications what they have in store for older workers. Now our Deputy Director for Work, Dr Emily Andrews, urges them to go further and bolder.
Nothing new was announced in the budget to help workers over 50. But we still have a pretty good idea of what the Conservatives will do on this agenda if they win the next election.
The cornerstone would be their new ‘Universal Support’ programme, which will offer individualised employment support to people with long-term health conditions – though apparently not any specialised support for people over 50.
Hopefully, the 50 Plus champions programme in Jobcentre Plus would be continued – growing a dedicated cohort of JCP staff to help improve the experience of the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) 50+ clients.
And, given their high levels of Ministerial support, it seems likely that the current mid-life MOT pilots would continue into a new phase.
Perhaps given another term, a Conservative government might be willing to build on the progress they have made on flexible working and carer’s leave.
The Labour position has been more of a mystery.
But last week, we got a hint from shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall that Labour have been doing their own thinking about older workers. As she fleshed out Labour’s proposals on youth employment, she teased that she would be outlining back-to-work plans for the over 50s in the coming weeks.
So, what hints do we already have about what this might include? And what advice do we have for Liz Kendall as she finalises her proposals?
In her speech, Kendall outlined in broad brushstrokes some potentially big changes for DWP.
She emphasised that she wanted Jobcentre Plus to focus more on ‘support’ and less on benefits and box-ticking. Efforts to detoxify the Jobcentre will be crucial if it is going to become an effective mechanism to help older workers back to work. Right now, only one in ten people aged 50-64 who are out of work are actually accessing employment support.
The Leicester West MP also recognised that effective employment support has to be tailored to local labour markets. We have heard this time and time again from older jobseekers as well as delivery providers.
The indication that Labour would devolve employment support to local areas could create real opportunities for the kind of holistic support that we often need as we get older. At a local level, support for health, caring, employment and skills can all be much more easily joined-up, addressing multiple barriers to work at once.
And she emphasised good-quality work: decent pay, more secure contracts and more access to flexible work. All of these things have the potential to make work more sustainable and accessible for older workers. Many employers are already taking steps to make their workplaces more age-friendly via our Age-friendly Employer Pledge but further regulation to bring up the stragglers is a good thing.
What should Liz Kendall commit to for 50+ workers?
It sounds like the shadow work and pensions team are busy. If I am correctly interpreting what she has said so far on the issue, the big reforms the party are considering could make a real difference for older workers.
And it is encouraging to hear that Labour are planning some specific proposals to make employment support work better for us when we reach our 50s and 60s.
In her next speech, we want to hear about a national programme of dedicated 50+ employment support – tailored, targeted support that older workers can feel confident will work for them.
We want to know that the Labour Party has taken note of the evidence of what works, or what is showing real promise, for improving outcomes on 50+ employment support: group coaching, in-work support, different routes in, and opportunities to trial a new job role before taking a leap.
Mid-life reviews are a policy that have been championed by the current government and should not be allowed to fade out if there is a change of governing party this year.
This idea was originally incubated by a Lid-Dem-led department in the Coalition years and should be viewed by all parties as an opportunity to help all of us take stock, look forward and potentially pivot as we reach the middle of our working lives. We want a commitment to retaining this from Liz Kendall.
DWP doesn’t hold all the levers to improve the prospects for older workers in this country. Under their proposed ‘New Deal for Older Workers’, it sounds like the shadow business and trade team is drawing up plans for a right to paid carer’s leave to give carers the best chance of balancing employment with their many other responsibilities. This should include provisions for ten days of paid leave, and six months of unpaid leave.
More than anything, we want a signal from all political parties that they will no longer tolerate a situation where fewer than one in five participants in their 60s are getting a job from public employment support (as is the case on the Work and Health programme).
If we do not reinvest some of the savings to the public purse from increasing the state pension age in helping people keep working in their late 60s, then those ‘savings’ will simply mean holding more people in poverty for longer.
And that’s not something any political party wants on their record.
