The Get Britain Working White Paper: Does it have what it takes to tackle economic inactivity?
Posted on
The Get Britain Working White Paper, unveiled on Tuesday by the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, outlines a series of proposals to boost workforce participation and increase the UK employment rate to 80%.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, 671,000 working-age people in the UK have left the labour market due to long-term sickness, while 946,000 young people aged 18 to 24 are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). In response, the White Paper outlines a three-pillared strategy, backed by a £240 million investment, to provide targeted support to young people and individuals with long-term health conditions:
· Reforming employment support in collaboration with mayoral authorities and the Welsh government to reduce economic inactivity,
· Delivering a Youth Guarantee in eight areas to improve young people’s access to education, training or employment, and
· Launching an independent employer review into the role of employers in promoting healthy and inclusive workplaces.
While these initiatives are promising, critical questions remain: will they be enough to address the complex challenges driving economic inactivity, do they truly align with the needs of those most affected, and will they be backed by sufficient funding to succeed?
Reforming Jobcentres to achieve tailored support is welcome
One of the White Paper’s flagship proposals is the transformation of Jobcentres into a modern National Careers Service in England. With £55 million allocated for 2025/26, the Government plans to prioritise increasing tailored employment support and enhancing access to training and skills development, equipping individuals with the tools they need to re-enter the workforce with confidence.
The White Paper also outlines an investment of over £125 million across eight areas in England and Wales to reduce economic inactivity. This includes funding in three trailblazer regions – North East, South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire- to pilot NHS accelerators. These initiatives will be designed to prevent workers from leaving the workforce entirely due to health conditions by integrating healthcare and employment services. As frontrunners, these eight trailblazer areas will serve as test beds for innovative, locally tailored solutions.
This more decentralised approach has the potential to better align interventions with the specific needs of communities, leading to improved outcomes for individuals, employers and local economies overall – but only if funding is sustained into the future, and areas are actively supported to evaluate what is working in their areas.
Youth Guarantee can be a pathway to opportunity
The White Paper introduces a new Youth Guarantee, ensuring that every young person aged 18-21 has access to an apprenticeship, training or education. In return, young people will have a ‘responsibility’ to take up one of these options or face the prospect of losing some or all of their access to benefits – the scale of the potential sanction is due to be subject to extensive consultation in the coming months.
Providing additional support for young people is important, as extended periods outside of work at a young age can have a scarring effect, meaning it can be harder to enter employment in the future. But to be successful, Government must ensure these measures don’t simply ratchet up the pressure on young people to enter poor quality, insecure work in fear of losing their benefits.
The UK Insecure Work Index outlines that young people (16-24) are already 2.2 times more likely to find themselves in insecure jobs, where pay and hours are precarious. Evidence shows this can lead to a cycle of poor quality jobs and ultimately a return to unemployment. It’s critical, therefore, that revamped Jobcentres prioritise providing young people with more secure and sustainable employment options going forward.
Benefit reforms need to go further
The success of these measures will also depend on broader changes to the benefits system. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that “half of claims for Britain’s main benefit will be for poor health by the end of the parliamentary term, with the cost of payments for sickness topping £100 billion a year for the first time.”
For those out of the labour market due to long-term health issues, it is crucial that wider reforms seek to de-risk the pathway back to employment. In particular, policies must avoid inadvertently pushing those suffering with illness into insecure, low-quality jobs that could worsen their health. And those with long term conditions should not have to fear losing their welfare entitlements if they attempt to re-enter the labour market but find that they are not ultimately able to sustain it. Overall, a more flexible and supportive benefits system is essential to ensure that attempts to return to work do not come at the cost of long-term wellbeing.
The reforms also present an opportunity to better support Universal Credit (UC) recipients in prioritising training and skills development. Our research found that conditionality requirements imposed on UC recipients often significantly limit their ability to engage with training.
Success requires collaboration with employers
It is encouraging to see the White Paper emphasise the role of employers in creating healthy and inclusive workplaces that could help people with disabilities and chronic illnesses to return to work. And it is also positive to see the Government commit to a review of employer policies that could help stem the flow of people into health-related economic inactivity in the first place.
This review, to be led by former John Lewis Chair, Sir Charlie Mayhew, must not only focus on the interventions employers can take when instances of ill health arise, but the upstream measures that can mitigate the risks of illness themselves. The Work Foundation will shortly be publishing new research and recommendations as to how this could be achieved.
A promising start, but tough, long term challenges remain
The Get Britain Working White Paper provides a valuable framework for addressing some of the key barriers to workforce participation. However, its success will depend on the Government’s dedication to a long-term pan-departmental approach that combines tailored support, systemic benefits reform, and a renewed focus on retention and prevention.
As of today, inevitably there remains some significant unanswered questions, and substantial challenges ahead.
Delivering the changes proposed over the long term will likely require additional investment at the next Spending Review, and yet in the 2024 Budget the Government committed to cutting £3 billion from benefits expenditure in the years ahead. Critically, we will have to wait until Spring 2025 for more detail on how changes to the Work Capability Assessment – which could impact over 400,000 people – will contribute to these savings.
The wider economic and financial landscape will make delivery of the Government’s ambitions more challenging too – with employers already citing major concerns regarding their ability to recruit and retain staff while dealing with the recently announced rise in employer national insurance contributions.
And with no timeline to achieve their 80% employment target, the Government has yet to make clear when it expects the impacts of the reforms set out in the White Paper to bear fruit.
Related Blogs
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed by our bloggers and those providing comments are personal, and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Lancaster University. Responsibility for the accuracy of any of the information contained within blog posts belongs to the blogger.
Back to blog listing