There is a dangerous group of policy issues that matter enormously, but that are often overlooked as being a little dull. Housing is one; pensions are another; and skills are definitely a third. Each area is equally important, but skills are perhaps more equally important than the others. 85 per cent of London graduates are employed, whereas only 42 per cent of unskilled Londoners have a job. The job market will continue to polarise – 60 per cent of the jobs created in the next 10 years in London will need a degree-level qualification or above. Only 12 per cent will be unskilled jobs.
This distribution may be more skewed in London than elsewhere, but the same change is happening throughout the country – it is not a London thing. Skills go to the heart of our Labour mission. A person out of work will probably be poor; a person in unskilled work may be poor; a person in skilled work will probably not be poor. Yet still skills policy seems unsexy!
Skills for work is one of those areas where the government is failing against its own objectives. The Work Programme was always going to be a difficult sell when, on the government’s own figures, 60 per cent of unemployed people passing through the programme will not get jobs at the end. The National Audit Office thinks the figure is nearer 75 per cent. Yet the programme shouldn’t be judged on job outcomes alone – it is a make-skills programme, as well as a make-work programme.
The trouble is that the Work Programme is failing even on its own terms – as a programme to give long-term unemployed people the skills, confidence and aptitude to get back to work. Partly this is a design fault. Work Programme rules are set in Whitehall, yet these are often perverse. Providers in Tottenham have been asked to work with terminally ill clients with only months to live, alongside those with fragile mental health, for whom looking for a job will significantly worsen their condition. Payment by results is fine, but the funding is so back-dated that only organisations with the deepest pockets can afford to take part. It benefits A4e at the expense of organisations in the business, community and voluntary sectors with detailed local knowledge.
This is the Work Programme’s biggest failing. In theory, large prime contractors should harness local knowledge through their sub-contractors. In practice, that is not happening. In the whole of Waltham Forest, there are only two registered sub-contractors. Local knowledge is not feeding into the programme, which is fatal to its chances of success.
Between 2008 and 2011, unemployment increased by 67 per cent among men in my borough, but 214 per cent among women. White Job Seekers Allowance claimants increased by 64 per cent, Asian by 85 per cent and black claimants by an enormous 203 per cent. These are truly shocking figures – how do we explain them? Other areas will have equally shocking figures, which may be the same or different to those in Waltham Forest. But, even if they are the same, can we assume that they have the same explanation? Unemployment has hit women harder than men throughout Britain, but do the same explanations and remedies apply in Walthamstow as they do in Wimbledon?
The Work Programme theory is that the scheme can cope with these differences – prime contractors will hire local sub-contractors which understand the local picture. But that is just not happening. The London Voluntary Sector Council reports that, of 25 voluntary sector sub-contractors, 23 have received no referrals. This is not a problem only for those organisations – it is a problem for the people who are not receiving the skills assistance that they need.
The government have also shown that, underneath their sugar-coated localist rhetoric, lies a deep mistrust of local democracy. Prime contractors are not obliged to find local knowledge from anywhere, let alone from local councils. This is a mistake – it diminishes the tools available to contractors to remedy local issues, and it reduces the impetus within councils to really delve deep into the reasons for skills shortages in their areas.
No make-work programme is going to succeed until the government returns the country to economic and job growth. The Work Programme should be preparing unskilled and unemployed people for the chance to take advantage of that growth when it comes. Without the profound local understanding which the scheme is currently missing, it will fail. And skills will continue to play Cinderella, waiting for a Labour Prince Charming to put them in their rightful place at the centre of government policy.
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Mark Rusling is a Labour and Cooperative councillor in the London borough of Waltham Forest and writes the Changing to Survive column
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Photo: Luigi de Guzman