Over two years; or more than 48 months; or 730 days; or 17,520 hours – 99,700 people in Britain have now been unemployed for at least that period of time.
The publication by the government of the latest disastrous figures showing the increasing number of people in Britain who are regarded as ‘long-term unemployed’ once again exposes the myth that the coalition’s work programme is succeeding.
In fact, most people’s only knowledge of the work programme is that it provided David Cameron’s favourite social entrepreneur Emma Harrison, of A4E infamy, with an opportunity to pay herself a salary and dividends of £9m.
But with nearly 100,000 people out of work for two years or more there is a very real risk that another generation of our population will fall into that cycle of unemployment and hopelessness, which leads to so many other social problems and costs to communities and government.
The rationale for the austerity programme, which has been forced upon us since May 2010, was that, while we would lose hundreds of thousands of jobs across the public sector, these lost jobs would be more than made up by the employment opportunities created by the private sector. And where people found it difficult to break into those private sector jobs the work programme, with providers like A4E, would step in to secure real and valuable employment for them.
There is absolutely no prospect that George Osborne will admit that there are any flaws in his economic approach and undergo a Damascene conversion to Keynesianism. And there is an equally slim chance of Chris Grayling admitting that the work programme has little or no prospect of meeting its’ target of placing 36 per cent of participants in long-term employment, falling short by as much as 50 per cent.
What should be Labour’s response to this problem of long-term unemployment and the failure of the work programme? One thing is absolutely certain: we cannot afford to wait until 2015 and the return of a Labour government nationally to start finding solutions and making the case for a more coherent approach to helping those who are without work to get back into the jobs market. Labour in local government must act boldly to do all it can to prevent a whole generation of people who have the capacity to work from being condemned to the scrapheap.
In Southwark, as elsewhere, that means doing two things: generating more opportunities and preparing our residents so that they are able to take those opportunities.
In a flatlining economy, Labour in local government is never going to be able to make up for the inaction of the Tories and Lib Dems in government. But Labour councils are duty-bound to make the most of the comparative advantages that their local areas hold. For Southwark it is in part our position at the heart of London and that’s why I am hugely proud that The Shard opened in Southwark last week, with the promise of 12,500 new jobs coming to our borough – jobs I am confident would not be coming here were it not for the council’s support. And that’s why we’re also targeting our Community Restoration Fund to support the small businesses and entrepreneurs that are the life blood of our communities.
It’s no good creating opportunities, though, if they are closed to local people. So we are also investing £1m from our Youth Fund to provide training and work opportunities to our young unemployed with local employers; doing what we can to help them have the capacity to find and keep a job after the withdrawal of the Future Jobs Fund. Whether by work experience, paid internships, equipping them for interviews, helping them write their CV, or simply getting ready for the world of work, the many opportunities provided by the Southwark Youth Fund will not provide a complete solution to the employment problems in our borough – but it does demonstrate what local government can do to stimulate economic development within the community.
And as a party we need to make the case to the DWP and national government for the funding of the work programme to be devolved to local government. Every community and area has different skills shortages and needs, which are both immediate or predictable for the future. A programme whose sole objective is to process thousands through a system with the hope that, maybe, one in three of them might stay in work for a year, and which is completely disconnected from local economic thinking and planning, is not a good use of scarce resources at this time.
Labour is seizing the employment agenda. For the benefit of all our communities we now need the full resources to deliver that agenda.
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Peter John is the leader of Southwark council. He tweets @peterjohn6
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As Secretary of Bermondsey & Old Southwark (one of Southwark’s three CLPs), I’m immensely proud of what Labour has done since winning back the council in 2010. They promised to protect the most vulnerable, and they’re doing just that. Keep it up, Peter!
All parties have some blame to shoulder,personal goals are put in front of what is in the general good of the public. Policy is all over the place and Government contradicts its self constantly,the figures on the WP are massaged on a daily basis. As an example unpaid interns should now be paid the NMW in most circumstances under a new HMRC guideline with the exception under sec3 of Mandatory Work Activity when mandated they are not eligible. Creating almost a caste system.
Spot on Peter. The Work Programme is doomed to fail without growth in the economy. Unfortunately the Coalition have shown they haven’t got a clue how to deliver this. I wrote something on this here – http://labourlist.org/2012/06/the-work-programme-is-doomed-to-fail/
Great to hear Southwark are doing such great work locally. There are some other good examples of local authorities leading on tackling worklessness, including in Newham. It’d be great if we could share learning between areas on the work they’re doing.