More than half of job centres are decreasing assist for individuals claiming common credit score because of a scarcity of labor coaches, in response to a report from the general public spending watchdog.
The National Audit Office mentioned causes for cutbacks included an absence of funding and challenges in recruiting and retaining workers.
It comes because the variety of claimants being categorised as requiring assist has risen from 2.6 million to three million within the area of a yr.
The authorities mentioned it was redeploying 1,000 work coaches to assist, however a charity campaigning to finish poverty mentioned the scarcity undermined plans introduced within the chancellor’s Spring Statement to get extra disabled individuals into work.
Iain Porter, senior coverage adviser on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, mentioned the federal government’s promise to spice up employment had been used to “justify the biggest cuts to disability benefits in recent memory”.
“The government must urgently explain how it plans to support disabled people into work while these work coach shortages remain,” he mentioned.
Published on Monday, the report mentioned there have been 2,100 fewer work coaches – who can provide recommendation and refer claimants for jobs – employed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in England, Wales and Scotland than it estimated had been wanted.
It mentioned that some 57% of job centres had used flexibilities allowed by the DWP to scale back assist for claimants when caseloads are too excessive between September 2023 and November 2024.
Changes to earnings guidelines meant an additional 400,000 individuals certified for such assist within the yr to October.
The variety of claimants transferring into work every month has additionally fallen over the previous two years.
In the Spring Statement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves mentioned reforms to the “broken” advantages system would save round £4.8bn by the top of the last decade, and £1bn could be invested “to provide guaranteed, personalised employment support to help people back into work”.
The DWP mentioned it was redeploying workers to assist sick and disabled individuals into work, and was modernising job centres with new digital instruments.
A spokesperson mentioned: “Our job centres are full of brilliant work coaches – but they are held back by a system that is too focused on ticking boxes and monitoring benefits instead of genuinely supporting people back into work.
“That is why we’re redeploying 1,000 work coaches to assist ship intensive employment assist to sick and disabled individuals, modernising job centres with new digital instruments, and bettering entry to unlock work coaches’ time as we carry the community along with the National Careers Service.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgm87z0dv3mo