£10m Programme to Support People in York and North Yorkshire into Work

The Government wants to get more people into work and cut Britain’s welfare bill, and it has set its sights on York and North Yorkshire to trial its plans.

Local efforts have been praised by Employment Minister Alison McGovern who has visited the region to mark the launch of a £10m programme to support people in York and North Yorkshire into work.

The York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Inactivity Trailblazer programme seeks to work with employers and others to get people the support they need to get a job.

The Labour minister told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) it would put an end to people who wanted to work being left on the scrapheap.

But the proposals, which come alongside cuts to disability benefits which aim to save £5bn by 2030, have sparked a backlash.

York Central Labour MP Rachael Maskell said the benefit cuts were draconian while local disability rights campaigner Flick Williams said the Inactivity Trailblazer risked making vulnerable people poorer.

The Inactivity Trailblazer, which is part of the wider Get Britain Working programme, aims to tackle long-term joblessness in York and North Yorkshire.

A combined authority report stated the leading cause of long-term unemployment is illness, while one in eight young people are not in work, education or training nationally Government figures show.

The report claims that in York and North Yorkshire, economic inactivity due to long-term sickness rose by 72.2 per cent from 2019 to last year.

Disability rights activist Flick Williams said the approach failed to account for employers’ reluctance to adjust workplaces and risked driving people into destitution.

She added the reason disabled people and their carers were out of work was because it was harder for them to get and to keep a job.

Ms Williams told a combined authority meeting on Friday, March 7 which discussed the Inactivity Trailblazer: 

“In which part of the process were disabled people asked: what are the barriers to you getting or staying in work?

“If you had you may have learned about barriers to work such as inaccessible, unreliable, irregular transport, lack of accessible housing, barriers to obtaining mobility aids, social care support and timely healthcare, including for mental health or diagnosis of neurodivergence.

“Where are all the employers willing to employ us, ready to make reasonable adjustments, offer the flexibility to employees to manage our impairment issues, health appointments or caring responsibilities?

“Almost every disabled person in work that I know reports regular friction with their employer over the provision of reasonable adjustments.

“If the forthcoming Spring Statement does in fact cut benefit entitlement, you will not starve us into work you will simply impoverish us further, with the resulting health and care crises that will be a financial cost elsewhere in the system.”

York and North Yorkshire Mayor David Skaith told LDRS he hoped the Inactivity Trialblazer would help fill skill shortages in local industries.

Mr Skaith said: 

“What this extra funding does is help people who’ve been out of work for a long time to get back into work and support rather than them dropping out.

“The challenge as ever in York and North Yorkshire is a geographic make up.

“Young people in particular have had a tough time, nationally one in eight of them aren’t in work, education or training.

“For some employers it’s about how their workplaces are set up but we’re also having conversions about the types of skills they require.

“We want to make sure we’re creating our own workforce with the right skills.

“Part of this is also about encouraging professionals who’ve left a trade like bricklaying say to come into college and train 20 to 30 more bricklayers.”