UK outlines first steps in new plan to get more people back into work

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s government said on Tuesday it plans to increase access to mental health support and to reform job centres as part of its push to get more people back into the workforce.

Mental health support will target geographic areas with high rates of labour market inactivity and job centres will focus more on providing career advice than on policing the benefits system, a government statement said.

Details of the government’s plan were due to be published last on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has set a target of getting Britain’s employment rate up to 80% – from just under 75% now – as part of a plan to accelerate economic growth.

Britain is the only major economy where the inactivity rate remains above its pre-COVID-19 levels, largely driven by a significant rise in the number of people out of work due to long-term ill health.

However, problems with compiling official jobs market data might mean the problem is overstated, economists have said.

The government will announce at a later date how it plans to change the health and disability welfare system to encourage more people to seek or remain in work.

Long waiting times for mental health treatment or for use of the stretched National Health Service are part of the problem, the government said.

“This government inherited a country that simply isn’t working. But today we’ve set out a plan to fix this,” Starmer – whose Labour Party won July’s parliamentary elections – said in a statement.

Peter Cheese, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, welcomed the focus on reforming how job centres work, saying fewer than one in 10 employers currently see them as an effective way to recruit.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by William Schomberg)