Jobcentre Plus: Delivering
the Government’s New
Strategy
Jobcentre Plus support
• Greater focus on diagnosing customers’ individual needs
• More flexibility and responsibility for Jobcentre advisers
• Increased autonomy for local managers
• Raised expectations of customer commitment to finding
work
• Extending range of digital services
• Clear focus on getting customers off benefits and into
jobs
• Option for advisers to mandate suitable customers to
Mandatory Work Activity
Get Britain Working measures
A menu of flexible support options to encourage:
• more sharing of skills and experience through Work Clubs
• volunteering as a way of developing work skills through Work
Together
• self-employment as a route off benefits through the New Enterprise
Allowance and via Enterprise Clubs offering community based and locally
led support for unemployed people
• greater insight into the world of work through Work Experience
• pre-employment training and work placements through sector-based
work academies
• Partnership between voluntary sector, colleges, employers and
Government
Work Clubs
• Work Clubs provide unemployed people with a place to
meet and exchange skills, share experiences, find
opportunities, make contacts and get support to help
them in their return to work.
• The Government has been supporting the development
of local Work Clubs since October 2010. More than 500
Work Clubs are now being run within local communities
by charities, voluntary organisations and businesses,
amongst others.
Work Together
Claimants who are interested in volunteering are
given further information by Jobcentre Plus
advisers and signposted to:
• local organisations that have agreed to support
unemployed people
• on-line support, such as Do-it
• specific opportunities in their communities
New Enterprise Allowance
• Participants will get access to a volunteer business
mentor who will provide guidance and support as they
develop their business plan and through the early months
of trading. Once a claimant can demonstrate they have a
viable business proposition with the potential for growth
in the future, they will be able to access financial support.
This will consist of:
• a weekly allowance worth £1,274 over 26 weeks, paid at
£65 a week for the first 13 weeks and £33 a week for a
further 13 weeks, and
• the facility to access a loan of up to £1,000 to help with
start-up costs, subject to status.
Work Experience
• offers eligible 18 to 24 year old unemployed
people between two and eight weeks work
experience
• provides young unemployed people with a new
potential route onto an Apprenticeship.
• is targeted at claimants who are harder to help,
particularly those who want to work but find their
lack of experience a barrier to employment, for
example, people seeking a job for the first time
Support for young unemployed
 Early access to the Work Programme for 18 year olds
who claimed JSA when aged 16-17
 Work Experience available to 16-17 year old JSA
claimants
 Increased adviser support for 16-17 year olds on JSA
 Signposting advice available to 16-17 year olds who are
Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)
 Work Clubs extended to 16-24 year olds
 Additional funding available to help 16-17 year olds
develop job seeking skills
Youth Contract
• a Work Experience or sector based work academy
place for every unemployed 18-24 year old who wants
one (after they have been on JSA for 3 months) before
they enter the Work Programme.
• extra Jobcentre Plus support for all 18-24 year olds
• wage incentives to make it easier for employers to
take on young people
• additional funding to support the growth of 16-24 year
old apprenticeships
• a new programme for persistently NEET 16 and 17
year olds to get them learning, on an apprenticeship or
in a job with training.
• expand the current MWA programme.
Skills Conditionality
• Customers identified with a skills need which is the main
barrier preventing them from moving into work, are
mandated to provision to address those needs.
• Increases achievement of relevant units on the
Qualifications and Credit Framework
• Increases the number of claimants with the skills that
recruiting employers require
• Customers who have a less clear skills need or unclear
job goals are mandated to Next Step for a face-to-face
interview for an in-depth skills assessment
Flexible Support Fund
• opportunity to supplement existing, or develop new, partnership activities
that will help us support our customers progress into work.
• we want to work together with partners across Kent to improve the job
prospects for local people
• focus on developing creative and innovative solutions to help unemployed
people move into work
• open to ideas that complement existing Jobcentre Plus services to
unemployed people before they join the Work Programme
• keen to receive applications that support the wider Get Britain Working
measures
Flexible Support Fund – particularly
disadvantaged
• young people who are not in education, employment or
training
• young care leavers
• delivery in our most deprived wards and in rural areas
• issues faced by ex-armed forces personnel, ex-offenders
or people with a history of drug or alcohol abuse
• people with caring responsibilities
• refugees or members of established communities where
English is not their first language to be able to effectively
seek wider work options
Work Programme
• Work Programme is available nation-wide
• Local provision designed & delivered by providers
• Radical change to payment by results and performance
measures
• helps people with a wide variety of needs
• Forms a coherent package complementing Jobcentre
Plus support and Get Britain Working measures
Work Programme eligibility - JSA
Customer Group
Time of Referral
Basis for referral
Jobseekers Allowance
(JSA) customers aged 25+
From 12 months
Mandatory
JSA customers aged 18-24
From 9 months
Mandatory
JSA either NEET, Repeat
claimant or ex-Incapacity
Benefit
From 3 months
Mandatory
JSA customers who are
seriously disadvantaged by
one or more factors
From 3 months
Voluntary
JSA former prisoners
Immediately on release
from prison
Mandatory
Work Programme eligibility - other benefit groups
Customer Group
Time of Referral
Basis for referral
'New ESA (income related)
claimants (including
claimants awarded ESA
following IB reassessment)
placed in the Work Related
Activity Group with a
prognosis of 3 or 6 months'
Following WCA outcome
Mandatory (voluntary if a
Lone Parent with a child
under 5 or Full Time
Carer)' under the 'Basis for
Referral
All other Employment and
Support Allowance (ESA)
claimants
At any time following initial
WCA outcome
Voluntary
Pension Credit claimants
From 12 months after
claim or from day 1 if have
a health condition
Voluntary
Income Support claimants
At any time (England only)
Voluntary
Incapacity Benefit
claimants
At any time (England only)
Voluntary
The Work Programme
• The Work Programme is for those people who are at risk
of long-term unemployment.
• Once referred, claimants remain on the Work Programme
for two years or until the provider has claimed all
available payments for the time the individual spends in
employment. This gives providers time to invest in
addressing claimants’ long term challenges.
• Work Programme providers have complete flexibility to
innovate and to design support that addresses the needs
of the individual and the local labour market, rather than
having to follow one size fits all processes dictated by
Whitehall.
Working in partnership to support local
people
Ailsa Whitmarsh
Partnership Manager for Maidstone and Malling
Ailsa.Whitmarsh@jobcentreplus.gsi.gov.uk
Tel: 01622 702758
Mob: 07775 031246