Growing Places: a good job close to home

£10.5 billion of funding for employment and skills is still commissioned nationally, across 20 different schemes. To equip our country’s workforce for the future, the Government must trust councils to deliver a one stop service for employment and skills rooted in local areas.


We're calling on the Government to:

  • improve outcomes for those furthest from employment by giving commissioning responsibility for ‘welfare to work schemes’ to councils or combined authorities
  • free up JobCentres to deliver better results for jobseekers by radically increasing their ability to co-locate and integrate with other services
  • measure JCP performance by progression into sustained employment, in the same way contracted out employment the Work and Health Programme is
  • ensure Flexible Support Fund spend is agreed by councils and JCP so it meets employer and claimant need and delivers capacity where required
  • give young people the best support into work by modernising the Youth Obligation to bring services for young people into one place, learning from Suffolk’s MyGo model.
  • put in place a system built around people by devolving power and the associated £10.5 billion national employment and skills funding to groups of councils and combined authorities who can locally commission all services through a single, integrated service
  • help people find jobs now and in the future by developing a locally coherent mainstream skills system with council influence over all funding – 16-to-18 year olds, further education, adult education budget, apprenticeship levy contributions and learner loans
  • create a coherent apprenticeship offer by giving groups of councils and combined authorities responsibility to commission apprenticeship provision that incorporates their economic development, purchasing and employer roles
  • free employers to support a wider range of training across their workforces by considering reforming the Apprenticeship Levy into a Skills Levy to give employers the freedom they need to recoup the levy
  • help people of all ages progress in the world of work by giving groups of councils and combined authorities the power and funding to coordinate an all-age, locally commissioned and coordinated careers advice and guidance service
  • ensure changes to the skills system, including new T-Levels, Institutes of Technology, apprenticeships and adult education budget (AEB) reforms and the completed Area Based Reviews are coordinated and work for local people and businesses.

Download the full publication Growing places: building local public services for the future to learn more.