The UK may be emerging from recession, but disadvantaged groups still struggle to find long-term employment. Tim Gibson reports on a round table that considered the issue in detail.
If recent GDP figures are to be believed, the UK is finally emerging from one of the longest periods of recession in living history. We’ve had false dawns before, of course, but there does seem to be a consistent pattern of growth to warm the cockles of even the most pessimistic soothsayer.
Before we get too excited, however, it’s worth noting that the brute fact of economic growth alone does not spell an end to our nation’s travails. There are plenty of other challenges to meet, both social and economic, before the country can really consider itself to be back on track.
Take the situation of the long-term unemployed as a case in point. While there are more people in work than might be expected given the length and depth of the economic downturn, there remains a section of society that has stubbornly resisted a variety of policy attempts to get it working again.
That’s because many are caught in a cycle of worklessness, from which it seems impossible to escape. This includes people in disadvantaged groups, for whom finding work feels like a very distant possibility. The task facing public service providers, then, is to help these people enjoy the benefits of the rising tide of economic wellbeing, even though they may currently feel all at sea.
Acknowledging success, identifying challenges
To examine the issue in more detail, CSW convened a round table, sponsored by Work Programme provider Working Links. The intention was to gather civil servants from across government to identify the challenges facing disadvantaged groups, and establish ways of responding to them.
The first task involved identifying the groups that most struggle to find employment. These include people with disabilities and long-term health complaints, young people, ethnic minorities and ex-offenders.
Lumping such a diverse cross-section of people together is always invidious, and it is important to be aware of the nuances between them. Even so, Pat Russell, deputy director of the social justice division at DWP, said it was possible to speak in general terms about the people who most struggle to find sustained employment. She described them as people “whose lives are so chaotic that going into a [government work] scheme is just unimaginable. I think of the victims of domestic abuse, for example, or those with health problems.”
Whatever their precise circumstances, Russell added that the challenge posed by these people is straightforward, but no less intractable for that: “[We are] not just dealing with people who need a bit of help, and hoping that when the labour market picks up they’ll need even less help,” she opined. “[The issue is] how do we help the people that need an awful lot of help, because they’re the ones that cost government an awful lot of money in services.”
Helping the helpless
Such a diagnosis of the situation could have led to a feeling of pessimism around the table, but Bill Wells, deputy director of the analysis briefing and minimum wage directorate in BIS, struck a bullish note. “There are always jobs for everybody,” he asserted, “and we have a much better spread of employment in terms of disadvantaged groups than most other countries.”
That’s as maybe, but finding opportunities for people is only part of the equation. As Stephen Evans, director of employment, skills and justice at Working Links, observed, you also need to “persuade people that they will be better off in work”, through the right fiscal policies. He said that Universal Credit may begin to do this, but acknowledged it would be a long process.
Quite apart from the benefits system, the daily challenge of persuading the long-term unemployed back into work is about human relationships, as Bill Wells observed. This falls to Jobcentre plus, which he lauded as a beacon of good practice that is admired throughout the world. He said the strength of this system lies in the individualised attention it gives to citizens, which involves developing a job-search strategy that is specific to their needs, then supporting them throughout the process of finding employment.
The success of this approach relies on establishing the right sort of relationship with unemployed people, and encouraging them to recognise their value in the jobs market. It sounds simple enough in the abstract; but as Debbie Kiernan, who works as an advisor for Jobcentre Plus, reported, it’s not always easy to get people out of the “suffocating black cloud” that comes from long-term unemployment.
“We have the tools to boost their confidence,” Kiernan said, “[including] the Flexible Support Fund [which can be used to buy interview outfits, or pay for a haircut]. Once they’ve overcome these obstacles, they feel better about themselves, and are more likely to be successful.”
As Kiernan’s comments illustrate, support and encouragement from committed public servants is undoubtedly crucial in helping people to find employment. It is resource-heavy, however, which begs a question: are there other ways in which state interventions can empower people to find jobs?
Yasmin Robinson, London central recovery officer at HMRC, answered in the affirmative, drawing on her own experience of unemployment to make her case. “What helped me [when I was unemployed],” she said, “was joining a government scheme, [because it] helped get over the feeling of isolation – we talked to each other, helped each other get jobs, encouraged each other.”
It’s not just the camaraderie that comes from involvement in such schemes that helps participants, as Simon Hankin, community rail policy advisor in the Department for Transport, noted. He said programmes like this provide ways into full-time employment, thanks to activities such as work placements. He spoke of the success of work experience placements at the DfT, which often resulted in candidates being offered traineeships with rail companies.
The techniques addressed so far could all be described as gentle in their approach to people who have been out of work a long time, without making too many demands on the job seekers themselves. But BIS’s Bill Wells injected a dose of reality into the discussion, arguing that “tough love” is also necessary to achieve a successful outcome.
“[The thing] for me,” remarked Wells, “is the rights and responsibilities agenda. We need to nag [people seeking work].” He added that the UK benefits system is predicated upon the belief that recipients of state support are not entitled to do nothing. To receive help from the public purse, they must show a willingness to improve their skills or seek employment. If they do not, then state support ought not to be forthcoming.
Addressing employer expectations
So much for the methods of helping unemployed people find opportunities and successfully secure work. As Pat Russell from DWP stated, there is also the “demand side” to consider, which has to do with the attitudes of UK employers to disadvantaged people, and their willingness to take them on.
At a general level, this speaks of a wider issue facing the UK as it emerges from recession – namely, the changing nature of the workplace, and shifts in the employment needs of large companies and organisations. This is something HM Treasury has been wrestling with, as accounting standards policy analyst William Lacey explained: “[We have to think about] what kind of employers we are going to have in this country [in the future],” he said. “[There is a] changing pattern of what industries we can have in this country, [so we need to ask] how are we going to have an economy that keeps people in work?”
A response to this question was offered by Steven Pavey, a motorcycle and car examiner for the DSA. Drawing on his pre-Civil Service career as a factory manager, he said it was crucial to give people seeking work the opportunity to acquire the skills needed by modern employers, whatever they may be. This would also help them to hold on to their jobs, and develop a skillset to progress their career.
Providing opportunities to develop skills is part of the story. Quite apart from their skills set, though, disadvantaged groups also have to overcome stigma in order to even enter the workplace. And the first step to addressing this, said Brigid Shea, head of public affairs for Working Links, is to give would-be employers direct experience of people in the groups in question, perhaps through work experience.
Lest that all seems rather theoretical, Richard Ward, a member of the social disadvantage team in the pre-employment and basic skills unit at BIS, provided a worked example. He described Railtrack’s experience of employing and training prisoners released on a temporary license, who often prove to be strong additions to the workforce, with good prospects in the long term.
Despite the success of such schemes, prison governor Nigel Atkinson was quick to point out how difficult it can be to break down perceptions, especially when it comes to people with a criminal record. “Some companies have a great record of employing ex-offenders, [while others do not],” he noted, before suggesting that more could be done to draw attention to those that are prepared to employ from disadvantaged groups, in order to shape wider public attitudes.
As it happens, the government has the power to do more than shape public attitudes. It can open up employment opportunities for a wider cross-section of society, by mandating jobs for such people within its own contracts. For example, as Working Links director Stephen Evans noted, government procurements such as Crossrail include a requirement that suppliers create apprenticeships for every million pounds they receive from a contract. Elsewhere, the Mayor of London scores bidders on their willingness to appoint long-term unemployed people, so as to drive best practice in this area.
Sharing and caring
Talking of best practice, a major challenge facing the government is how to scale up individual schemes and initiatives so they deliver success on a national scale. This involves retaining their good elements, reflected head of the DWP’s disability employment strategy team Paschal Kane, while showing sensitivity to particular contexts.
The capacity to balance sensitivity to context and the needs of individual citizens in a nationally deployable model explains the enduring success of Jobcentre Plus, which has been around in one form or another since the birth of the modern welfare state in 1948. Despite this success, the roundtable participants agreed that the model should not stand still, with DWP’s Pat Russell asserting that greater collaboration across government organisations, such as the NHS, the Prison Service, HMRC and DWP would be crucial to any ongoing attempts to improve the employment prospects of society’s worst off.
Without question, the group agreed that such effort would be worthwhile, and not only because of the money that would be saved if the long-term unemployed could support themselves again. As Russell concluded, it is also a matter of “social justice”. This means that the employment rate of people from disadvantaged groups is more than just an indicator of the UK’s economic wellbeing. It’s a sign of the health of our whole nation.
Chaired by Joshua Chambers, deputy and online editor, Civil Service World