Local Government Improvement and Development worked closely with experts in the worklessness field in England, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and Communities and Local Government to develop a series of ‘How to’ guides.  The guides are aimed to help practitioners who have a role in tackling worklessness and meeting local employment outcomes.

These guides contain practical advice, tips for action and support, and offer practical support for tackling worklessness

Developing a Strategy to Tackle Worklessness

Tackling worklessness involves delivering a wide range of services to address individual barriers to employment and to meet the needs of employers.  It requires effective partnership working across a range of public, private and third sector agencies.  However, the breadth of this partnership too often is typified by competing priorities and targets and in the fragmentation of services.  Both duplications and gaps in provision arise as a result.

Strategies to tackle worklessness need to examine how provision can be better integrated to meet the needs of both people and employers.  The focus for individuals needs to be on creating a seamless customer journey into sustainable employment.  For employers there is a need to both improve the interface with welfare to work provision and ensure that their workforce requirements are reflected in the training and skills opportunities, and in-work support services, that are offered.

This guide is focussed on developing a strategy to address worklessness, links also need to be made with strategies to generate demand for jobs, including Regional Employment Strategies and Spatial Strategies, and this guide should therefore be read alongside the diagnostic tool recently developed by IDeA which focuses on the wider economic development agenda.

Developing a Strategy to tackle worklessness