03 March 2006
Experts this week cast doubt on the ability of the Jobcentre Plus service to deliver ministers' welfare reform proposals.
Key contributors to the consultation on the reform green paper, launched by Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton in January, have told Public Finance that the performance of Jobcentre Plus could hinder plans to get millions of lone parents and older and incapacitated people off benefits and into work.
The government wants to achieve an 80% UK employment rate as part of its anti-poverty and improved productivity plan. But former benefits minister Chris Pond, chief executive of the charity One Parent Families, led a group that was sceptical of Hutton's confidence that Jobcentre Plus would deliver crucial changes.
Speaking at a conference on February 28, Pond said he had 'growing concerns' about Jobcentre Plus because of 'its current funding [restraints] and capacity'.
Kate Green, the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, also outlined her fears over a 'potentially excessive reliance' on the 'overstretched' executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions.
Green told PF: 'Our concerns are threefold. We worry about JCP's operational stability, its current finances and who can take up the slack in areas where JCP can't deliver reforms.'
Speaking at the conference, hosted by the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, Margaret Hodge, minister for work, said that asking the private and voluntary sectors 'to innovate to find new service delivery methods' was one method of easing the pressure on JCP.
But she dismissed fears over the agency's ability to deal with new requirements.
JCP was set up in 2002 to provide improved job-seeking and benefit payment services, following the merger of the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service.
Yet the organisation is already subject to radical change, including plans to shed thousands of jobs as part of the government's £40bn efficiency drive. It has already cut 13,000 posts, and is facing tight funding constraints.
The DWP found just an additional £500m from its current budget to fund the green paper welfare proposals until 2008.
PFmar2006
