Viscount Younger of Leckie

Bringing together the National Careers Service with Jobcentre Plus in England and the creation of a new Jobs and Careers Service will form a key part of our plans to transform our employment support, as we set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper.

We will deliver this transformation using a test and learn approach, allowing us to gather evidence based on small-scale tests, iterate the service design, and scale up interventions that meet success criteria. Through this approach, lessons from our small-scale tests will be taken into consideration as part of our plans to bring the two services together.

At the Autumn Budget, the government announced £55m to take forward the first steps of building, testing and trialling the new service in 2025/26. Departmental budgets for the next Spending Review period will be outlined by the Chancellor in due course.

As a start to our commitment to better integrate employment support and careers advice in England, we have launched a data sharing agreement between the Department for Education (DfE) and DWP. This will encourage ‘join-up’ of our services and promote a more streamlined process for our customers ahead of the new service. We will continue to work closely with the DfE as we develop the new service, including careers advisers, who will be able to share their experiences, views and ideas around how we deliver careers services in the future.

The National Careers Service provides free, up to date, impartial careers information and advice for citizens aged 13+, plus in-depth careers guidance from 19+, and can help people make informed decisions on learning, training, and work at all stages in their career.

As we set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are reforming Jobcentre Plus, and in England bringing it together with the National Careers Service, to help get more people into work and help them get on at work, including through greater focus on skills and careers. We are starting a test and learn approach to develop the new service, ensuring that we develop a service that is locally tailored and embedded, designed to meet the different needs of local labour markets, local people and local employers.

As a start to our commitment to better integrate employment support and careers advice in England, we have launched a data sharing agreement between the Department for Education (DfE) and DWP. This will encourage ‘join-up’ of our services and promote a more streamlined process for our customers ahead of the new service. We will continue to work closely with the DfE to develop the new service, including career advisers, who will be able to share their experiences, views and ideas around how we deliver careers services in the future.

As part of the £240m Get Britain Working SR package, the department will deliver eight inactivity trailblazers and three of these will be health and growth accelerators. The accelerators represent a shift by the NHS towards prevention and commitment to a role in addressing economic inactivity, including exploring the role of the fit note in this system.

The Government has no current plans to reform the fit note (Statement of Fitness for Work) in terms of the content of the form or the healthcare professionals who are legally allowed to issue them.

£240 million was announced in the Autumn budget to help us deliver and build on labour market reforms to Get Britain Working. Measures in the White Paper will include:

• £45m for Youth Guarantee Trailblazers so that all young people in England, aged 18-21, can access quality training and education opportunities or help to find work.

• £55m for the development of the new public employment and careers service, which will be open to everyone, transforming our ability to support people into and on at work.

• £125m for Trailblazers to tackle economic inactivity through increased engagement and tailored approaches in England and Wales.

• And £15m to support local areas in England to go further, developing their own Get Britain Working Plans.

We are working with trailblazers to create their local plans and we are developing an evaluation strategy to measure impacts, including savings to ensure we make the most effective interventions to Get Britain working.

The Government inherited a £22 billion black hole in the nation’s finances, which has required necessary choices around spending priorities. Despite this backdrop, we were determined to identify the funding required to support additional places for NHS Talking Therapies and individual placement and support schemes.

The Get Britain Working White Paper confirms the Government’s commitment to expand access to both services, to help thousands of people with common or severe mental illness to find and keep employment

The Government inherited a £22 billion black hole in the nation’s finances, which has required necessary choices around spending priorities. Despite this backdrop, we were determined to identify the funding required to support additional places for NHS Talking Therapies and individual placement and support schemes.

The Get Britain Working White Paper confirms the Government’s commitment to expand access to both services, to help thousands of people with common or severe mental illness to find and keep employment

The Government inherited a £22 billion black hole in the nation’s finances, which has required necessary choices around spending priorities. Despite this backdrop, we were determined to identify the funding required to support additional places for NHS Talking Therapies and individual placement and support schemes.

The Get Britain Working White Paper confirms the Government’s commitment to expand access to both services, to help thousands of people with common or severe mental illness to find and keep employment

The Government inherited a £22 billion black hole in the nation’s finances, which has required necessary choices around spending priorities. Despite this backdrop, we were determined to identify the funding required to support additional places for NHS Talking Therapies and individual placement and support schemes.

The Get Britain Working White Paper confirms the Government’s commitment to expand access to both services, to help thousands of people with common or severe mental illness to find and keep employment