Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the impact of her Department's policies to help people under 25 get into work on levels of youth unemployment in the most recent period for which data is available.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department launched the Plan for Jobs as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes DWP’s Youth Offer and the Kickstart Scheme which are targeted at supporting young people aged under 25 to find employment.
The DWP Youth Offer provides intensive Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 on Universal Credit and in the Intensive Work Search group. It includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches for young people with complex needs and additional barriers, and over 150 Youth Hubs across England, Scotland, and Wales.
Since the Kickstart Scheme’s launch in September 2020 over 163,000 Kickstart jobs have been started by young people. We know that young people have been hardest hit by the economic impact of the pandemic and are delighted that employers up and down the country have made over 235,000 jobs available for them to apply to. The final Kickstart job starts took place on 31st March 2022 and the last jobs will come to an end on 30th September 2022.
The Department has a range of evaluation activities in train to assess the impact these policies on young people, in particular in relation to the department’s evaluation of the Plan for Jobs, including the DWP Youth Offer and the Kickstart Scheme.
Official Labour Market Statistics are produced by the ONS. The latest data (Feb-April ’22) shows that 455,000 young people are unemployed, this is a decrease of 7,000 on the previous quarter and a decrease of 59,000 compared to pre-pandemic levels (Dec-Feb ’20).
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to Answer of 17 June to Question 15255, how long the audit will take.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The 2021-22 ARA will be published on the 7 July. This year’s reported expenditure will include a breakdown of our Employment programmes expenditure.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer received on 17 June to Question 15254, how long the audit will take.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The 2021-22 ARA will be published on the 7 July. This year’s reported expenditure will include a breakdown of our Employment programmes expenditure.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many jobs that were created by the Kickstart Scheme were lost when the scheme ended.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions will be monitoring and evaluating the Kickstart scheme throughout and after its implementation and will continue to evaluate the longer-term outcomes for Kickstart participants after they have completed their six-month jobs. This will include an estimate of the young people that remained employed (either with their Kickstart employer or moving into a job with a different employer), as well as the number of young people no longer in employment upon leaving a Kickstart role.
The evaluation will include surveys to capture the views and experiences of Kickstart participants and of employers and gateway organisations. The fieldwork for the commissioned evaluation will continue until at least 2023.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what was the total number of work placements provided by the Kickstart Scheme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 5 June 2022, over 163,000 Kickstart jobs had been started by young people. The last Kickstart jobs were started by young people on 31 March 2022.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 23 May 2022 to Question 4563 on Kickstart Scheme: Finance, what total amount of Kickstart Scheme funding from her Department was handed back to the Treasury at the end of the financial year 2020-21.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In the financial year 2020-21, DWP obtained £25m ring-fenced funding for the Kickstart Scheme. None of the £25m was subsequently returned to HM Treasury.
DWP’s 2021-22 financial accounts are currently being audited, so we are unable to provide this information.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 23 May 2022 to Question 4563 on Kickstart Scheme: Finance, how much and what proportion of Kickstart Scheme funding from the her Department was handed back at the end of the financial year 2021-22.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In the financial year 2020-21, DWP obtained £25m ring-fenced funding for the Kickstart Scheme. None of the £25m was subsequently returned to HM Treasury.
DWP’s 2021-22 financial accounts are currently being audited, so we are unable to provide this information.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, why the Kickstart Scheme ended in January 2022.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Kickstart has seen over 163,000 jobs started by young people since it launched in September 2020 and the number of people on payrolls is now above pre-pandemic levels for every age group. The Scheme was a temporary response to protect young people from the risk of the scarring effects of long-term unemployment caused by the pandemic.
Kickstart was designed to deliver value for money in uncertainty and successfully responded to huge variations in the labour market and delivery context, including major Covid-19 restrictions, the closure of the Covid Job Retention Scheme and the extension of the scheme for an additional three months. The ongoing economic recovery, with 1.3 million vacancies available in the labour market, now means there is plenty of opportunity for young people to find unsubsidised work.
Kickstart closed to applications from employers and gateways on 17 December 2021 with the final job starts taking place on 31 March 2022. The last Kickstart jobs will come to an end on 30 September 2022.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled, New jobs mission to get 500,000 into work, dated 27 January 2022, what targets her Department has put in place for the Way to work campaign; in what way she is measuring the performance of that campaign; what the evidential basis was for proceeding with the design of that campaign; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the honourable member to the answer given to PQ4709 for the number of movements into work during the Way to Work campaign as of 15 May.
On the 26 January 2022, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions launched ‘Way to Work’, a campaign across Great Britain to help 500,000 people into employment by the end of June 2022.
We are building on the infrastructure established through our Kickstart Scheme to work more closely with employers, to bring them into Jobcentres and move claimants into work more quickly. We are providing more time for new claimants with their Work Coach and delivering a renewed focus on moving claimants into work through more rigorously applying agreements made in claimant commitments. We are also using data to ensure that we are flexible and adaptable in our delivery. This means that we are collecting data that is relevant, effective and that allows us to monitor performance in a timely way so as to assess what is working.
Our ambition for 500,000 movements into work was developed in recognition of the 1.2 million vacancies in the wider economy (now 1.3 million vacancies), as well as the 1.6 million people searching for work within the Universal Credit caseload. It was based on historical performance in previous years over the same period covered by the Way to Work campaign (February to June) and included modelling based on enhanced delivery once Way to Work improvements have been applied.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to protect and increase employment levels in (a) Greater London and (b) the London Borough of Bexley.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is committed to supporting everyone who has been affected by the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on the economy and the labour market. Throughout the pandemic the UK Government has provided historic levels of support to the economy – a total of over £370 billion. This includes key DWP programmes as part of the Plan for Jobs, such as Restart and Kickstart alongside other measures to boost work searches, skills, and apprenticeships. Our support was in addition to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough) and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme. We have also launched Way to Work - a concerted drive across the UK to help half a million currently out of work people into jobs by the end of June 2022.
DWP offers significant support to unemployed people across London to access employment opportunities through our network of jobcentres. Our Work Coaches provide support on finding a job, help with retraining or skills advice, CV, job applications and access to the new vacancies, as well as signposting to our Jobhelp website.
We are working closely with GLA and London Councils on their No Wrong Door and Good Work for Londoners ambitions – to provide a joined-up approach to work and skills including Skills Bootcamps and Youth Hubs to connect with young people within the community.
The jobcentre team within the Bexley constituency are responding to the needs of the local labour market and work with employers such as Premier Inn, Morrisons, Tesco, Wetherspoons and many more to help them fulfil their recruitment needs. Local employers are attending jobcentres on a regular basis to conduct recruitment activities and interviews.
Sector based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) enable the team to support local employers and provide jobseekers with the skills and experience needed to get a start in a particular employment sector. Recent examples of SWAPs delivered in the area include, ‘Preparing to Work in the Food Industry’ in collaboration with London South East Colleges and Ferndale Foods, and the ‘Preparing to Work in Construction’ SWAP with O'Halloran and O'Brien Ltd.