By Richard Johnstone | 4 March 2013
Charities, housing associations and other local organisations should be given a greater role in employment services to ensure Universal Credit benefit changes do not damage deprived areas, according to the Respublica think-tank.
Its report, published today, said the government’s flagship welfare reform, which will merge six benefits into one, risked ‘breaking up local communities’ if policies on welfare and employment were not co-ordinated.
Responsible recovery: a social contract for local growth found that, after previous recessions, those on low incomes and in the poorest communities were often the last to benefit from growth. Efforts by successive governments to boost employment had often overlooked community assets and local labour markets, it added.
The Universal Credit was being introduced as problems, such as insecure, low-paid work and stubbornly high levels of worklessness, were ‘not only persisting but growing’, the report stated.
Benefit reforms were intended to improve flexibility and responsiveness but the system needed ‘sufficient leeway’ to take account of the realities of the labour markets, it added. ‘To begin to achieve this, there needs to be greater local discretion, particularly in terms of conditionality.’
Localising employment support, by splitting Jobcentre Plus’s employment service from its role as a benefit agency, would mean help could be provided as close as possible to disadvantaged communities, the report said.
It called for the functions of the Jobcentre Plus network to be split and opened up to bids from community groups, to ensure the support could better match local circumstances.
The ‘right to challenge’ powers within the Localism Act should be used to open up these services, allowing council workers, charities and housing associations to bid to run employment support schemes.
Government departments and local authorities should also work together to offer long-term ‘community deals’ to deprived areas, allowing organisations such as social landlords to act as budget holders for some central and local government services. In return for the freedom to choose the most locally appropriate way of providing services, these organisations would be expected to develop local skills and create employment for local people.
Respublica managing director Caroline Macfarland said such a ‘social contract’ would provide reciprocal benefit within communities.
‘This is not something the state can do to people – instead national and local government should promote diverse local service providers and encourage local employers to lead by example,’ she said.
Examples of how this social contract could work are highlighted in the report. They include housing charity Giroscope, based in Hull, which renovates empty homes with the help of volunteers. This provides work experience and training to people who are struggling to find jobs and, through volunteering, allows them to prove themselves as reliable prospective tenants.
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing – a tenant and employee-led mutual housing provider – works with local residents to identify the main needs and opportunities within each neighbourhood. Tenants then help devise the action plan for development and monitor how well they are implemented.
Report author Julian Dobson said similar schemes could be expanded if the government did more to ‘consider the context of real people’s lives’.
He added: ‘It is not only material assets that people need to escape poverty, but also social assets such as family, friends and neighbours, human assets such as practical skills, and public assets such as local services, infrastructure and community organisations.’
