The Government faces a tough task in fixing ‘broken Britain’ by 2020, but an ongoing programme of welfare reform will give it a fighting chance of seeing through this task. Its welfare reform programme since 2010 has helped the Government make some welcome progress. Record numbers of people are now in work and the welfare…
One of the striking features of the recently released Department for Work and Pensions/ European Social Fund 2014-2020 tenders is the emphasis on supporting people to find employment in priority sectors. This welcome development is due to Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) influence and in part, based on an appreciation that overall economic growth will be…
Last week we launched the Learning and Work Institute. After announcing our merger at the IntoWork Convention, this month we’re formally bringing together the expertise of Inclusion and NIACE to create a new organisation that builds on our strengths – around researching and sharing what works, influencing policy, developing new thinking and helping to implement…
As new ideas take shape and plans are developed for introducing a more focused work and health programme, a recent Serco – LGC roundtable was a timely and lively discussion, which provided insight into the opportunities for co-design and co-development of services as well as the challenges and priorities faced by local authorities in different parts of…
If we want more innovation in employment support, we must take time to look sideways – to understand what others are doing, to take inspiration from across the field, to go out of our way to share both our successes and our failures. This core belief is what originally inspired us at Nesta, back in 2012,…
After the dust settles… It always takes a while for the dust to settle after any Budget or Spending Review and this year’s Osborne offering is no different. As employment support providers, large and small, digest the Autumn Statement a number of elements are becoming increasingly clear. First, the days of large consolidated outsourced programmes…
These are the personal views of Mark Cosens MA MIEP @MarkCosens. Mark works for Inspire 2 Independence (i2i). i2i’s latest report on DWP Future Commissioning can be found here: http://www.enteri2i.com/metadot/index.pl?id=13716;isa=DBRow;op=show;dbview_id=2210 The two main employment support programmes, Work Programme and Work Choice, in the UK are coming to their contractual end. This is a time for…
Any opinions represented within this blog are the authors and do not represent the views of ERSA. We are ceaselessly told that benefit sanctions are a vital element in the working-age social security system. But are they? Until the later 1980s there was very little use of anything that could be called a sanction. Unemployment…
As we bid farewell to 2014, listen to intensified talk of devolution and anticipate a 2015 general election, more questions than answers arise around the future of ‘employment support’ services. Even the fact that we are now using the term ‘employment support’, instead of ‘welfare to work’, indicates that significant changes are already underway. As…
Last week, Inclusion published a new report, Making the Work Programme work for ESA claimants, which sets out the problems with the funding model for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants and what could be done to fix it. The report is a part of a wider project called Fit for Purpose, supported by 22…