Jobcentre Plus and National Careers Service: Merger

Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Lord Harris of Haringey

Thursday 10th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I said in opening that the outsourced part of the current service, which is merging into the DWP, costs £40 million. As I explained, the final cost of that will depend on two things. We are in the middle of the process, where the staff who work for the various contractors at the moment are going through the TUPE process to work out whether they come over to us. The final cost will depend on how many of them do. It will also ultimately depend on how we choose to shape that service; we are not simply going to replicate what is there now. At the moment, for example, some careers advisers spend a lot of time helping customers to build up a CV. We have lots of tools available now which can do the CV building for you, so we really want people to use those skills to work more directly with people to find out what they need and what their aspirations and skills are, and to develop them. There should be savings in some aspects of efficiencies, but the aim in the end is a better service. What we need now is to get people into work, whatever their challenges are. This is part of that enterprise and we are going to do it.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has made very clear his desire that more and more services should be focused regionally, on mayoral areas and so on, and in particular that the educational offer should be linked clearly to what is needed in those areas. To what extent are the DWP, jobcentres and all of this area working together with mayoral authorities to ensure that the opportunities made available to people are entirely geared into local and regional priorities?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

That is a really important question. We have already been working very closely with them. For example, at a simple level, we reshaped Jobcentre Plus boundaries to align with mayoral authority boundaries. We are also working very closely with local authority and mayoral authority partners and with local community groups. In the end, labour markets are intrinsically local or regional and we need to find ways of making sure the service reflects that. We will carry on doing that. In broader terms, there will be a White Paper in the autumn on broader devolution, which will include our areas, and more information will come out then.