This article outlines the measures announced in the new DWP white paper, ‘Building Britain's Recovery: Achieving full employment’, published today. A further consultation on HB reform is also released today: ‘Supporting people into work: the next stage of Housing Benefit reform’.
The White Paper £400m package is funded by savings because unemployment is lower than expected in this year’s Budget.
Commenting on the white paper, Dave Simmonds, Chief Executive of Inclusion says:
“This is one of the most comprehensive wide-ranging employment white papers for years. We welcome the new ambition to get over one million more people into work over the next five years. The white paper’s detailed proposals will both help claimants find work now and benefit from the recovery when it comes.”
New support for young people to get them back in work
- A dedicated personal adviser from day one of their unemployment claim and more time with an adviser throughout their claim
- Extra support for 16–17 year olds from Jobcentre Plus, working closely with local Connexions services
- A new subsidy for employers taking on 16–17-year-old apprentices
- A January guarantee for 16–17 year olds who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) of an offer of an Entry to Employment place, and Education Maintenance Allowance to go with it
- A new Young Person’s Guarantee for 18–24-year-olds that, if they are still unemployed after six months, they will be offered a job, training or internship and will be required to take it up before they complete 10 months on JSA (announced in Pre-Budget Report)
- The Graduate Guarantee that graduates still unemployed at six months will be offered a graduate internship or other support (announced in the Queen’s Speech)
- Over 100,000 government-funded additional training and job opportunities, on top of the 300,000 already pledged for the next 18 months, to help deliver the Young Person’s Guarantee.
Support for people who reach 24-months unemployment
- Focus on mandatory activity, personalised support and enhanced help in unemployment hotspots.
Helping unemployed people start their own business
- Bringing forward advice, support and financial assistance earlier in JSA claim, with intensive support and a self-employment allowance available from three months of unemployment.
- Advice available from day one.
Skills training
- Setting up a single budget between the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to fund training for the unemployed
- Skills accounts bring together in one place the skills training that an individual will be able to access in their local area
- Skills accounts will help Jobcentre Plus advisers and individuals have a consistent and meaningful discussion about training options
- New funding to ensure people on JSA who take up training have their travel and childcare costs paid.
Better Off Guarantee
- Introduction of a £40 a week Better off in Work Credit, guaranteeing that everyone who moves into work after being on benefit for six or more months will be at least £40 a week better off.
More support for over-50s
- More tailored support for the over-50s, including help to tackle age discrimination and fast tracking to more support
Support for parents and carers
- Introduction of new legislation allowing lone parents who have a youngest child aged under 16 and are engaged in full-time study or training to claim Income Support in the summer period, instead of JSA
- Trial of a low cost loan scheme – providing parents with affordable loans to cover the upfront costs of childcare
- Using improved IT and action through Jobcentre Plus to promote part-time vacancies and make it easier for people looking for part-time work
- Making enterprise and employment support more accessible for parents by providing it in locations by schools.
- Consultation on to help people meet their caring responsibilities while remaining in work. This may include additional unpaid leave for planned responsibilities such as hospital visits and unpaid leave for carers of someone with a terminal illness.
- Ensuring the benefits system encourages lone parents to try out work for a few hours a week as a stepping stone towards a move off benefits
- Widening access to free school meals for those in work, as announced in the Pre-Budget Report
- Raising the earnings limit within Carer’s Allowance from £95 to £100 a week
- The launch of the Family Friendly Working Hours Taskforce which will look at what more needs to be done to make work more family friendly. The Taskforce will report in the spring
- Exploring how best to recognise those employers with exemplar flexible working practices, for example through a voluntary kitemark Jobcentre Plus will do more, using new IT, to identify jobs which can be offered on a part-time or flexible basis.
Partners of JSA claimants
- Acceleration of plans to make out-of-work partners of benefits recipients who can work look for a job – ending the historic anomaly whereby partners could claim benefit without seeking work when they are able to do so
Transitions for HB
Consultation on reforms to Housing Benefit published today, including:
- fixing HB payments at the out-of-work rate for three months when an individual moves off benefits into work reducing the uncertainty surrounding HB payments by moving to fixed period awards (of up to six months)
- ensuring the benefits system does not support customers to be housed in very high-cost accommodation that would be unaffordable if they moved off benefit.
Support for disabled people
- An increase in personalised help
- The roll out of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Work Capability Assessment to those currently on benefits
- A review of Pathways to Work
- Increased health support for those on JSA
- Expansion of Work Choice and Access to Work
- The introduction of a national network of mental health co-ordinators in Jobcentre Plus
- Considering the scope to passport people moving from ESA into work on to the disabled worker element (worth up to £48.50 a week) and 16-hours rule in Working Tax Credit.
Supporting people to progress in work
- Fast-tracking people with a poor employment history so they get access to greater support from the start of a new unemployment claim.
- Improving links between Jobcentre Plus and the new adult advancement and careers service so that, when people enter work, they will be able to talk to career experts about the skills and training they need to stay and progress in work.
Launch of fit note
- Launch of the ‘fit note’ to replace the old ‘sick note’ and to provide greater support for employers to help them keep their employees in work (piloting Fit for Work services, piloting an occupational health adviceline for small businesses, refreshing business health check tool and developing an employer toolkit)
Modernising Jobcentre Plus
- Exploring different models of flexible, personalised support, including piloting a delegated flexibility model in four Jobcentre Plus districts
- Introduction of a revised learning and development structure, offering advisers accreditation of their advisory skills
- Development of an extended online jobsearch facility with automated job matching and an integrated system of personal accounts Inviting local partners to have a greater influence and involvement in commissioning processes
- Increasing Jobcentre Plus’ outreach services, working with local authorities and other partners in some of the most deprived parts of the country
- Working with private and voluntary sector providers to test approaches in which a contractor takes on people from different benefits and provides the help that individuals require to get into work, with payments increasing the higher proportion of people the contractor moves into sustainable jobs
- Building on the Total Place pilots to integrate better the support offered by Jobcentre Plus and other providers to ensure services are joined up and tailored to the specific needs of local communities
- Review of the performance management structure for Jobcentre Plus and its partners with the aim of establishing a coherent single system based on sustained employment outcomes.
Pre-budget report announcements
New internship scheme for students from low-income backgrounds
- Provides bursary-style support for undergraduates to take short unpaid internships in professions with historically poor access to people from low income backgrounds.
More support for small businesses
The government is working to secure a contribution from banks in a £500m growth capital fund to invest in small businesses. The ‘Time to pay’ scheme is extended for as long as it is needed – allowing small businesses to spread tax payments over a timetable they can afford. Empty property relief is to be continued: in 2010-11, empty commercial properties with a rateable value below £18,000 will be exempt from business rates. The corporation tax rate will not increase in 2010 for small businesses: the increase will be deferred.
Expansion of Working Tax Credit
From April 2011 people aged 65 and over will qualify for WTC if they work at least 16 hours a week, rather than the current 30 hours.
Increase to some benefits, tax credits and state pension brought forward
To compensate for an anticipated peak in inflation in 2010, a proportion of increases to benefits which would come in 2011 will be brought forward by a year. Working on the expectation that inflation will have increased significantly by April 2011, benefits and tax credits normally uprated by the Retail Price Index (RPI) will be increased by 1.5% in April 2011. Given the RPI decreased this year, these benefits would otherwise have been cut. The increase will affect:
- Child Benefit Guardian’s Allowance
- the disability elements of the Child Tax Credit
- all elements of the Working Tax Credit (WTC), apart from the childcare element
- the disregard for Working Tax Credit in Housing Benefit.
As announced in Budget 2009, the child element of the Child Tax Credit will rise by £20 above indexation in April 2010, an increase of £65 in cash terms.
Child poverty announcements
Eligibility to free school meals will be extended to primary school pupils in working families with a household income below £16,190. Free school meal provision is currently largely only provided for workless households. This is designed to meet the aim that all primary school pupils in low income working families will be entitled to receive free school meals from September 2011. The extension will be staged: with a first roll-out implemented by September 2010. The Government will extend the current pilots of universal free school meals for children, to all English regions.
A further child poverty measure seeks to reduce the number of people not claiming their full benefit entitlement. In 2010 a new online service will be launched which brings together information on a whole range of benefits and entitlements.
