REFORMS to the welfare system will help get more people back into work and regain ‘dignity’ according to leaders who unveiled a scheme to get Britain working at a special event in the town centre last week.
The £125m-backed ‘inactivity trailblazers’ scheme aims to help areas with the highest levels of economic inactivity as part of the wider ‘Plan for Change’.
Backed by £18m, South Yorkshire plans a dedicated new service working with employers to hire those with health conditions, and a new ‘triage’ system to make it quicker and easier to connect people to employment, health, and skills support.
This work will include preventing people falling out of work completely due to ill health through an NHS programme, working with people with conditions ranging from cardiovascular disease to diabetes.
The scheme was launched in Barnsley last Thursday, having been shaped by the town’s own Pathways to Work Commission.
It’s hoped that in the first year, South Yorkshire will work with over 7,800 people and aim to help up to 3,000 people into jobs or to stay in jobs.
But it comes on the back of major welfare reforms, including tightening eligibility for Personal Independence Payment, and replacing the Universal Credit Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) with a new UC health element.
Research has revealed the proportion of residents in each of the three Barnsley constituencies on disability benefits - and two of them are well above the national average.
Stephanie Peacock’s Barnsley South constituency has 15.9 per cent of its working age population claiming PIP or LCWRA, while in Dan Jarvis’ Barnsley North it stands at 14.4 per cent.
In Penistone and Stocksbridge, led by Marie Tidball, that figure stands at 9.4 per cent - the equivalent to the national average.
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard said last week that reforming the system is important in getting people back into work.
He said: “It’s why reform is so important.
“It’s why tailoring systems like the one we have in Barnsley to help people is so fundamentally important.
“We know that most people want to work.
“We found that seven out of ten people we spoke to want to work.
“They absolutely want the dignity that work brings, they want the pay cheque that work brings.
“They want the social life and purpose.
“Actually giving people that opportunity by reforming the systems that frankly haven’t been working in places like Barnsley is important.
“We can now bring those systems together which will genuinely help people.”
Alison McGovern, Minister of State for Employment, gave an impassioned speech at last week’s event and spoke about how schemes like the one made in Barnsley will help people feel more fulfilled than if they were on benefits.
She added: “The previous Tory government spent a huge amount of money redesigning the benefit system, saying that would move people back into work.
“It made it much worse.
“We have to learn a lesson from that.
“We do need to make sure our welfare state is affordable so that it’s there for all of us when we need it.
“It’s not enough to just have well-functioning social security.
“You’ve got to make sure that the jobs are there, and you’ve got to make sure that people have help to get into those jobs.”
