“An employment service fit for the future, not stuck in the past”
20 Sep 2024
This week, we launched the final report of our Commission on the Future of Employment Support in partnership with abrdn Financial Fairness Trust.
The proposals that we set out are the culmination of two-years of evidence gathering, consultation and development work – engaging with hundreds of people and organisations who deliver employment support and use those services (or in many cases don’t) as well as with policy makers, researchers and wider stakeholders. You can read more about the Commission here. The report proposes far-reaching reforms to our approach to employment support that we believe will help raise employment, reduce poverty and insecurity in work, and tackle the significant inequalities that many people face in the labour market.
The UK is almost unique in the developed world in having seen our employment rate fall over the last five years, and much of the coverage of the report – in The Guardian, The Times and the Financial Times – led on the fiscal and economic consequences of this reversal, which we estimate runs into tens of billions of pounds a year. However at our launch event on Wednesday, the discussion was much more positive and optimistic. In particular, we were delighted to welcome Alison McGovern MP, Minister of State for Employment, who gave her first major speech since taking office. Her speech is available on the GOV.UK website and is worth reading. It sets out many of the challenges that we face (“a market for labour that has businesses crying out for staff and a queue at the foodbank door is failing this country”) but also the government’s ambition to build “an employment service fit for the future, not stuck in the past”. We hope and believe that the proposals that we have made can help deliver that change, and we look forward to the government’s White Paper in the autumn.
Finally, I would like to thank the ten Commissioners who have led and steered this work over the last two years, and on their behalf to thank everyone who has contributed – through submitting evidence; joining workshops, roundtables or focus groups; and commenting on and helping refine the final proposals. We have heard clearly over the last two years that things need to change, but also that there is a huge amount of expertise, shared wisdom and goodwill that we can build on – and a real opportunity in the coming years to get things right.
Tony Wilson, Institute Director