Bid to get 10,000 back to work in South Yorkshire - and start national overhaul 'failed' benefits system

It follows a recent Pathways to Work commission report ordered by Barnsley Council and chaired by former Health Secretary Alan Milburn which criticised the “chaotic mass” of multiple initiatives to get economically inactive people back to work and a misguided focus on toughening up benefit rules instead of tackling root causes of why people are out of work, such as ill-health.

Barnsley Council leader Sir Steve Houghton told The Yorkshire Post it is hoped that millions of pounds of Government funding can be secured to support a new approach being trialled in South Yorkshire over the next four years.

In October, the Government announced £240m of funding for ‘Get Britain Working trailblazer’ projects and officials in South Yorkshire are hopeful the region will be among those allocated funding.

In Barnsley there are 42,000 people not in paid work or looking for a job due to personal circumstances but research by the Pathways to Work commission found 70 per cent of those affected would like to find employment.

The research identified 67 different services in Barnsley offering support for people in this position, which the report said was “impossible to navigate” for those affected.

It said that is contributing to a “catastrophic systems failure” in which 80 per cent of economically inactive people in South Yorkshire are receiving benefits but only 10 per cent having to take steps to find work.

The report recommended a project in Barnsley that would be then rolled out across South Yorkshire and involve a new multi-agency approach to tackling joblessness.

In July, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall attended the launch of the Barnsley Pathways to Work report and promised to deliver on the commission’s proposals to get more people back to work.

She said: “You say achieving this will require a radically new approach not only across Government but by employers, the NHS, mayors, councils, charities, colleges, communities, and by citizens themselves. I am here today to say loudly and clearly, that’s precisely what this Government will deliver.”

Sir Steve told The Yorkshire Post: “What we know is the economic return would be £4 or £5 to every £1 spent because you save on the benefits system, people are paying income tax that currently don’t and you are putting money back into the local economy.

“This is not another programme; there are 70 already out there, we don’t need any more. This is a whole system change, changing the way we do it and making it personalised for clients and supportive for employers, simplifying and navigating what is out there much better.

“Jobseekers would have a personalised worker to them who will understand their needs and challenges and whose job will find solutions to help them get back to work.

“That worker will work with employers as well to match the person to a suitable job.

“That worker will also work with health providers if the person has health needs to make sure the health support is right and flexible and gives them what they need to help them back into work. They will also work with education providers to give them the skillsets they need if that is a problem.”

Sir Steve said local employers in Barnsley are positive about the potential changes and 200 vacancies have already been identified.

The DWP is due to published a Get Britain Working White Paper, setting out the Government’s plans for reform, in the coming weeks.

‘Reinvention’ of how job centres operate on cards

A prospective South Yorkshire pilot scheme to get people back into work could pave the way to reinvent how job centres and the benefits system operate nationally.

Former Health Secretary Alan Milburn, who chaired the Pathways to Work Commission in Barnsley, said acting on the recommendations in the commission’s report could result in a national reinvention of how employment support is offered.

Officials in South Yorkshire are hoping to secure Government support to start a four-year pilot of the Pathways to Work proposals from next year.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Mr Milburn said change to the current system is vital. He said: “Barnsley is symptomatic of what has happened in the country over the last few decades. We have gone from high unemployment to more or less full employment economy with the exception of 2.8m people who are off work sick.

“One of the biggest constraints on economic growth in Barnsley and the rest of the country is a shortage of labour. You ask employers and virtually any sector you care to mention, their biggest problem is a shortage of skilled labour. Yet we’ve got 2.8 million people across the country who are the potential workers of the future.

“There’s a huge health problem that underpins a lot of this. Three in four people in Barnsley who are economically inactive have some sort of health condition and the benefits system tends to write them off as being unfit to work.

“Yet seven in 10 say they would like to be able to work. Eight in ten get a state benefit but only one in ten have any help to get back into work. That is a system that is clearly not working – not for the taxpayer, not for local employers and not for people who would like to be able to work and are currently unable to get the help they need to do so.

“This is a national problem, not a local one, and some of the solutions are ones I know the Government is looking very closely at.”

When asked what success would be if the South Yorkshire pilot does go ahead, Mr Milburn said: “It would demonstrate there are a group of people who have been written off who with the right interventions can get back to sustainable employment. We need to reinvent how that happens. Employment support services have got to be changed radically.”

When asked who would deliver the new support services being proposed, Mr Milburn added: “There’s a whole host of people in job centres who are spending a lot of their time on benefit compliance and chasing clients. They would be better employed providing help and signposting for people to get back into work. Frankly people working in job centres would much prefer to help people into a job than hassle them about benefits.

"There are also a myriad of local organisations and schemes that are interacting with people who are economically interactive.

"There is an army of people out there but the problem is the army isn’t coordinated or properly led. So part of what the Barnsley pilot is intended to do is coalesce a lot of that effort.”

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said last month that Labour would deliver “the fundamental reforms needed to tackle spiralling inactivity, grow the economy, and take our first steps to our ambitious 80 per cent employment rate”.