UK: Pathways to Work Commission Report July 2024

Kendall launches blueprint for fundamental reform to change the DWP from a ‘Department of Welfare to a Department for Work’

• Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will use landmark first speech to set out the Government’s plans to reverse dire labour market inheritance and drive up Britain’s employment
• Major new reforms will be at heart of Government’s ambition to reach an 80% employment rate, with a white paper on getting Britain working again
• Kendall set to empower local leaders to tackle economic inactivity, alongside a new Labour Market Advisory Board to help drive change and get Britain working again.

At the launch of the “Pathways to Work” report in Barnsley Ms Kendall will lay the path for a new Government white paper to get Britain working. This is central to delivering the Government’s first mission – to kickstart economic growth; making everyone, not just a few, better off.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...epartment-of-welfare-to-a-department-for-work

Pathways to Work Commission Report

In July 1984 there were 3.2 million people across our country out of work – almost 12% of the adult population. In the years that followed unemployment became a fact of life, a symptom of the UK’s economic malaise. Forty years on the numbers registered as unemployed have fallen to 1.5 million – a rate of 4.4% – as of July 2024. Today, it is not labour surpluses but skill shortages that employers worry about. Worse still, labour supply is the biggest barrier to raising the UK’s sluggish rate of economic growth. Our labour market recovery following the Covid pandemic has been worse than every other major G7 country. For all the much hyped talk of a future where jobs are eaten by advances in technology, right now we simply don’t have the workers with the right skills to expand our economy.

https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/media/opbpxxkz/bmbc-pathways-to-work-commission-report.pdf

 

This is the new Government's primary policy statement on Employment and it includes a lot on illhealth and disiability and return to work from illness. It needs to be read carefully and while the report launch saw some lurid headlines in certain news outlets, e.g: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politic...ed-to-seek-work-says-labour-adviser-p8rzr73zl the W&P Secretary did not endorse alarmist statements about long term sick being forced to seek work.

There certainly needs to be rapid engagement with the Government and the many new Government side MPs by ME/CFS advocates on why ME/CFS needs to be addressed with great caution under this policy, but as written it should not be taken as an immediate threat to the position of people with ME/CFS who cannot work. There shouldn't be any delay in making the engagement based on waiting for a new APPG, which may be many months away. It is perhaps a good subject for PwME with which to make first contact with their MPs over, at this stage measured tones probably the most useful rather than an all out raising of alarm.