Seminar report: skills and welfare reform

June 2011

There are currently five million people of working age living on benefit. Three million have been unemployed for over a year. Of those, two million have been unemployed by for over five years. Half of all new claimants have made a claim for unemployment benefits in the previous six months.

With welfare reform high on the political agenda, the National Skills Forum and Associate Parliamentary Skills Group hosted a seminar, chaired by Lord Boswell, to explore the skills dimensions of the Government’s programme of reform and identify what more can be done to ensure training and employment-support services provided to job-seekers are high-quality and value for money.

Speakers at the seminar included:

• Adam Sharples, Director General (Employment), Department for Work and Pensions
• Lord Knight of Weymouth, Opposition Spokesperson for Work and Pensions; former Cabinet Minister.
• Dr Jo Casebourne, Director of Research, Centre for Social and Economic Inclusion

A seminar report, which we are publishing today, provides an account of discussion at the seminar, which was attended by parliamentarians, academics and business representatives.

The report considers the following issues:

• features of effective skills development provision
• implementing skills conditionality: lessons from abroad
• Government's withdrawal of training entitlements for those on inactive benefits
• delivery of public services: the need for joined-up government

Read the seminar report