Underneath the headlines, the ‘Get Britain Working’ White Paper sets out radical changes to Jobcentres

Yesterday, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published one of the first major policy papers of the new Labour government – the ‘Get Britain Working’ White Paper. Ignore the headlines which accompanied it (‘Young people who refuse to work to lose benefits’, as BBC News had it): reading the White Paper in full, there are radical changes to Jobcentres which should be welcomed.

Fundamentally, the White Paper commits to ‘transforming Jobcentre Plus across Great Britain into a genuine public employment service’. This means that it will be ‘universal and… available for anyone who wants to look for work, or consider looking for work, and anyone who wants help to increase their earnings or re-train, upskill or change their career.’ This follows the recommendation that Demos made in our 2022 report Working Together in which we called for a ‘Universal Work Service’ – a public employment service open to all. This is a hugely significant reform: currently, Jobcentre Plus is only accessible to people receiving Universal Credit, and sometimes people are literally turned away at the door.

The White Paper backs up the creation of a genuine public employment service with a commitment to personalised support for all, and – for those receiving benefits – the service will ‘prioritise providing genuine support for people over monitoring compliance and benefits administration’. Specifically, the White Paper states that ‘checking work-related requirements will move from the foreground to the background of the customer-work coach relationship… allow[ing] more time and space for more personalised conversations, including about training or seeking skills provision.’ This is excellent: Demos’s research highlighted a wide range of evidence that shows a high quality, trusting relationship between the adviser/coach and citizen delivers better outcomes, and that at times this is undermined by the role of Jobcentre Work Coaches in monitoring compliance with benefits rules. Of course, questions remain about whether this can be delivered in practice – but the example of Youth Employment Hubs suggests that reducing the emphasis on conditionality and sanctions, without removing them entirely, can be an important part of improving people’s experiences of support, as Demos’s research shows.

The government has committed to merging Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service, as Demos previously recommended, to make it easier for people to know where to go to get advice and support. The new service, however, lacks a name – ‘national jobs and careers service’ is being used as a placeholder, but the White Paper includes a reference to ‘exploring whether rebranding Jobcentre Plus could be a useful step towards delivering a trusted, universal jobs and careers service’. In focus groups we have run at Demos, some people do have very negative perceptions of Jobcentres. These perceptions will be difficult to change, but a rebrand would help to achieve the government’s objective of encouraging more people to use the service. Success depends on people actually wanting to use the new public employment service.

There is also a welcome commitment to ‘a new, radically enhanced digital offer’ as part of the new service. There are no details of what this could look like in the White Paper, but Demos’s report Open Door Policy has a series of practical ideas about how this could work in practice: creating a ‘digital front door’ to enable people to access employment and careers support, and ensuring this aligns with regional and local efforts to integrate services.

Also positive is the emphasis on employer engagement: ‘Our vision is for a service that all employers want to engage with, as they know it is a place where they can find high quality, highly motivated future employees.’ This is absolutely the right vision, but it will require changing the ‘brand’ that Jobcentre Plus currently has: qualitative research with over 100 employers revealed that ‘many [employers] felt the service had an “image problem”… most employers want to recruit people who both want and are able to do their jobs, and can be reluctant to engage in a system widely viewed as punitive.’ As well as changing the ‘brand’, delivering on this vision also means ensuring there are enough staff who specialise in employer engagement – there are already some of these within Jobcentres, but achieving this objective will require more staff with this specialism.

A similar challenge exists for citizens: Demos’s research shows that people who use Jobcentres often criticise the buildings and atmosphere, as well as sometimes referring to the associated social stigma of using them. This will take a long time to change, and communications and branding will be critical. Two recommendations we have made at Demos are to use an ‘Employment Advice Guarantee’ as a simple communication device to ensure people know that advice is available for anyone who wants it, and to build a high quality digital service for those who will be reluctant to use a Jobcentre building initially. The government should also consider which groups it wants to target: in Demos research we segmented the population into seven groups based on their attitudes towards accessing employment/careers advice, and argued these groups will need different types of messaging.

Success will also depend on changing the culture and working practices of Jobcentres. For a long time now, almost all Jobcentre users have been there because they had to be – not by choice. A genuine public employment service has to be one which people voluntarily want to use. Specifically, the first conversation or interaction someone has with the service is vital: this first impression will affect people’s perception of the whole service. High quality, well-trained professionals who are able to have this initial ‘welcome and triage’ conversation are essential. The White Paper rightly references professional development for staff and a new ‘coaching academy’ offering training. A challenge, however, will be resources: currently, most people have a short 10-minute appointment with their Work Coach, which the White Paper correctly describes as ‘too focused on box ticking around monitoring benefit compliance’. A more relational, personalised approach is certainly the right one – but will require longer meetings, and that in turn will require more staff, and there is only £55 million additional funding.

Beyond the initial conversation, it is also important to ensure there is specialist support available for those who need it. Two important groups are disabled people and people with health conditions, and people in their 50s and 60s, both groups who on average have worse outcomes when using existing services, as DWP’s research shows. The White Paper has a good section on supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, but lacks anything specific on supporting people in their 50s and 60s. This is a gap: the government should train specialist staff working for the new jobs and careers service to provide advice to people in their 50s and 60s, as well as working with employers specifically on supporting people in their 50s and 60s, building on the Centre for Ageing Better’s Age-friendly Employer Pledge.

Although the White Paper leaves many details to be worked out later, it provides a clear vision for a public employment service across Britain. A universal service, rather than one only available for people receiving Universal Credit. A service which prioritises support and engagement over benefits administration and sanctions. A service which focuses on high-quality employer engagement, and has much greater flexibility to work with local partners. These are the right principles for a public employment service which can help the government deliver higher employment and contribute to success in its economic growth mission.