The group said localisation of the Work and Health Programme, which will replace the government’s Work Programme in 2018, would address the problems in the existing scheme.
Under the plans for the WHP, the government has granted flexibility to run WHP to a small number of local areas, as part of its devolution drive. These are a commitment to co-commissioning the scheme with Greater Manchester and London authorities, and co-design WHP with combined authorities of the Sheffield city region, Tees Valley, Liverpool and the West Midlands.
However, the LGA said Whitehall should “go further and faster and have full confidence in local government expertise and devolve WHP to all parts of the country.”
Nationally-run programmes such as the WHP cannot provide the full range of support such as health services, skills training and jobs advice to deal with the needs of claimants, according to Mark Hawthorne, the chair of the LGA's people and places board.
The government should recognise that employment support alone was not the answer to help those furthest from the jobs market, he stated.
"Together with the government, we consulted councils on how the WHP should work. The clear message was that to be successful it will need to integrate local services, job centres must be required to work with councils and local partners so the right people are supported, and the right locally based contractors are used.
"Councils are committed to ensure no-one is left behind, but they simply cannot afford to pick up the local costs of long-term unemployment.”
Hawthorne said the government would spend £10.5bn this year on 20 different national employment and skills schemes. However, he said, Whitehall could “no longer afford to spend billions on separate national programmes when there are better, more local solutions that can coordinate all local partners in a way which can most appropriately help those most in need of support.”
The outgoing Work Programme cost £600m annually according to the LGA, and enabled only one in five of the most disadvantaged jobseekers on Jobseekers Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance to find a job after two years.
Council leaders fear that too few jobseekers will be supported under the new WHP or will receive insufficient support. This is because the new programme will only receive one fifth of the funding of its predecessor.
