Kendall pledges to ‘overhaul’ Government relationship with employers

A Cabinet minister has pledged to “overhaul” the Government’s relationship with employers with reforms to Jobcentres to “better meet” the needs of businesses.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall described her department as the “HR department” for ministers’ growth missions as she unveiled plans for better Whitehall support for businesses using the jobs service.

Friday’s announcement will see employers who want to use Jobcentres to fill vacancies being offered an account manager with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to provide recruitment support.

The DWP has also committed to summits in the next three months with businesses across sectors it believes to be important to growth, such as construction and social care.

These sectors will also see a boost in the number of training programmes available at Jobcentres.

Speaking to the PA news agency on a visit to a B&M store, Ms Kendall said her department is “going to overhaul our relationship with employers”.

According to the DWP, the retail chain has found almost 3,000 employees through Jobcentres.

Asked why she thought employers had not used the Jobcentre network, the minister said: “Some employers think that they have to tell their story too many times to lots of different Jobcentres, that Jobcentres don’t do enough to understand their particular needs as an individual employer.

“So that’s what we are trying to change.

“Our job is to serve employers so that we can get more people off benefits into work; that’s better for them, it helps the economy grow and it’s better for the taxpayer too.”

In a separate statement released by the department on Friday, Ms Kendall described the DWP as the “HR department for the Government’s growth mission” and said its job is to “work with businesses to meet their recruitment needs”.

Earlier in January a review headed by former John Lewis boss Sir Charlie Mayfield into how businesses and Government can work together to get the disabled and long-term sick into jobs was officially launched.

Ms Kendall is due to set out sweeping reforms to sickness and disability benefits in the spring, and has said that more people need to move off welfare and into jobs.

Speaking to PA on Thursday, she blamed Conservative administrations for failing to get on top of welfare spending, and said: “We’re going to get the benefits bill on a more sustainable course – and it has to be, we cannot accept these costs of failure, failure for individuals, failure for businesses and failure for the economy.

“But the way to do this is to get more people into work through the reforms that we’re putting in place in our Jobcentres and through reform of the benefit system.

“And we’ll be bringing forward our Green Paper on reforming sickness and disability benefits in the spring.”