DWP issues update over Jobcentre shake-up affecting two million people on benefits

The Department for Work and Pensions has issued a fresh update over its plans for sweeping Jobcentre reforms. The DWP employment minister wants to create new ‘public employment service’ to transform the UK job market, she has said.

Labour Party MP Alison McGovern told the Guardian newspaper of the government's new plans to “Get Britain Working”. “The big question, I think that everybody’s been thinking about, post-pandemic in the country, is how we can deal with the fact that we seem to have a nation that is less well than it was before, and as a consequence, partly of that, partly of other things, seems to be working less,” McGovern says.

The government is targeting an 80 per cent employment rate meaning two million people claiming Universal Credit, Jobseekers' Allowance and other benefits will be pushed back into work. The plan includes plans to “transform” the UK’s 650 jobcentres into “a genuine public employment service”.

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“The problem is, by and large, not work coaches,” Ms McGovern went on to say in her interview. “The problem is time. So if you are spending your time dealing with old technology and inadequate systems that are laborious, the person in front of you is just sat there.”

“The ‘into work rate’ is poor and falling,” she says. “So whilst there’s lots of jobcentres doing the right thing, the system is not helping.” She added: “We need people to have a jobcentre in their pocket, if that’s what’s best for them, and that frees up time for people who really need it.”

This week's white paper marks part of the government’s efforts to lower the record 2.8 million people off work as a result of long-term illness, leading to growing welfare costs and denting Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s hopes of securing economic growth.