John Adams

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John Adams

• Director of Research
• ippr north

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Structure of Presentation

• Employment amongst disadvantaged groups
• Summary of Recommendations

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Employment amongst disadvantaged groups

• Employment rate is approaching a post-war high
• but levels of economic inactivity remain
  worryingly high.

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Employment amongst disadvantaged groups
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Employment amongst disadvantaged groups
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Summary of Recommendations

• The 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review should set
  an unambiguous target to achieve an 80 per cent
  employment rate among all adults aged 16-64 by
  2020. It should aim to halve the difference
  between the best and worst performing regions,
  and set a floor target of 75 per cent of all
  adults aged 16-64 in every local labour market.
  Tackling economic inactivity needs to remain the
  Governments labour market priority.

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Summary of Recommendations

• The 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review ought to
  develop a broader definition of disadvantaged
  groups, including categories such as refugees,
  the homeless, ex-offenders and people recovering
  from substance addiction.

8
Summary of Recommendations

• Jobcentre Plus needs to start punching its
  weight in regional and local debates. The lack
  of institutional capacity at Jobcentre Plus
  threatens the success of the Governments
  strategy. The quality and quantity of Personal
  Advisers is crucial, and in particular the DWP
  cannot allow their number to be reduced.

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Summary of Recommendations

• The private and voluntary sectors ought to have a
  greater role in providing employment support
  initiatives, and Jobcentre Plus needs to be more
  open in its procurement practices. The RDAs need
  to give greater priority to employment issues,
  and they ought to create a challenge-fund so
  that the voluntary sector can bid for resources
  to run active labour market policies.

10
Summary of Recommendations

• DTI and HM Treasury need to ensure that the
  employment strand of the new EU Structural Fund
  Competitiveness and Employment objective is
  prioritised, and that resources are concentrated
  on local labour markets with employment rates at
  or below 70 per cent. HM Treasury also needs to
  compensate lagging regions for lower levels of EU
  spending.

11
Summary of Recommendations

• Adult skills policy needs to be fundamentally
  restructured. Individuals need to be empowered to
  make their own learning choices, and the current
  focus on level 2 NVQs qualifications is far too
  narrow. It is failing to deliver on either the
  employment or the productivity agenda, and is
  squeezing out many worthwhile initiatives run
  by colleges and community organisations.

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Summary of Recommendations

• Any reform to Incapacity Benefit needs to
  understand there are no hard and fast
  distinctions when it comes to disability and
  work health and ill-health are not static
  experiences. The DWP should reconsider their
  reforms to Incapacity Benefit, which would create
  two new benefits. The Pathways to Work approach
  seems broadly correct and Jobcentre Plus needs to
  prioritise support for this client group.

13
Summary of Recommendations

• The New Deal for 50 Plus does not appear to be
  delivering for older workers. The Government
  should abolish this programme and divert
  resources towards expanding Pathways to Work for
  people with health problems or disabilities.

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Summary of Recommendations

• Improved child care and early years education is
  necessary to improve employment rates amongst
  lone parents, and the public expenditure may need
  to rise to fund this objective. Greater
  conditionality on lone parents with children aged
  over 11 could also help improve employment rates.

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Summary of Recommendations

• The Government lacks clarity over the appropriate
  spatial scale for different types of policy
  intervention. Regeneration policy at the
  neighbourhood level should focus on housing
  policy, particularly reducing residential
  segregation. The focus of employment policy needs
  to be at the broader Travel-To-Work Area, and
  policies are required to increase the demand for
  labour across travel to work areas with an acute
  lack of jobs.