Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride have unveiled their Back to Work Plan – a package of employment-focused support that aims to help people stay healthy, get off benefits and move into work – as part of the Autumn Statement.

Building on the £7bn employment package from Spring Budget the Chancellor is using his Autumn Statement to outline a new Back to Work Plan, which is intended to expand the employment support and treatment available and reform the ways that people with disabilities or health conditions interact with the state.

The government is boosting four key programmes – NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support, Restart and Universal Support – to benefit up to 1.1 million people over the next five years and help those with mental or physical health conditions stay in or find work.

The new WorkWell service, as announced at the Spring Budget and delivered by the Departments for Work and Pensions and Health and Social Care, is also being formally launched and aims to support almost 60,000 long-term sick or disabled people to start, stay and succeed in work once rolled out in approximately 15 areas across England.

Ministers are also planning to trial reforms to the fit note process to make it easier and quicker for people to get specialised work and health support, with improved triaging and signposting. Since the pandemic the number of people inactive in the UK due to long-term sickness or disability has risen by almost half a million to a record high of 2.6 million, with mental health, musculoskeletal conditions and heart disease being some of the main causes.

Stricter benefit sanctions will also be enforced by the Department for Work and Pensions for people who are able to work but refuse to engage with their Jobcentre or take on work offered to them. Benefit claimants who continue to refuse to engage with the Jobcentre will face having their claim closed. The latest published data shows that there were 300,000 people who had been unemployed for over a year in the three months to July.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said:

“We’re serious about growing our economy and that means we must address the rise in people who aren’t looking for work – especially because we know so many of them want to and with almost a million vacancies in the jobs market the opportunities are there. These changes mean there’s help and support for everyone – but for those who refuse it, there are consequences too. Anyone choosing to coast on the hard work of taxpayers will lose their benefits.”

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Mel Stride, said:

“We are rolling out the next generation of welfare reforms to help more people start, stay and succeed in work. We know the positive impact work can have, not just on our finances, but our health and wellbeing too. So, we are expanding the voluntary support for people with health conditions and disabilities, including our flagship Universal Support programme. But our message is clear: if you are fit, if you refuse to work, if you are taking taxpayers for a ride – we will take your benefits away.”

Commenting on the announcements, Vicki Nash, Associate Director for Policy and Campaigns at Mind, said:

“Poverty and mental health problems form a vicious cycle that need to be tackled by every part of government working together. [These] announcements look like they have come from departments working on different planets. We welcome the UK government making real investment into empowering more people with mental health problems to find work in a way that supports them to get better. And with close to two million people on waiting lists for mental health treatment, investing in talking therapies is the right move.

“The increase in the use of sanctions is deeply worrying though – evidence has repeatedly shown they don’t work and make people’s mental health worse. Changes to sick notes will also make it tougher to be signed off from work and could mean people don’t get the time they need to recover. The investment announced shows that the government knows the answer to tackling the number of people struggling with their mental health is to increase, not decrease support. Yet the support being offered doesn’t match the scale of the need and is undermined by a raft of other changes announced.”

The plans announced set out how the government will tackle long-term unemployment by supporting Universal Credit claimants to find work while strengthening work search requirements for job seekers through all stages of their Universal Credit claim. As a result of these reforms, no claimant should reach 18 months of unemployment in receipt of their full benefits if they have not taken every reasonable step to comply with Jobcentre support.

The plans to tackle long-term unemployment include:

• Testing Additional Jobcentre Support in England and Scotland – testing how intensive support can help claimants into work who remain unemployed or on low earnings after seven weeks into their Universal Credit claim.
• Extending and expanding the Restart scheme in England and Wales for two years – expanding tailored, intensive support to people who have been on Universal Credit for more than six months rather than nine, helping them to tackle barriers to entering employment through coaching, CV and interview skills, and training. The scheme will be extended for two years until June 2026.
• Introducing a claimant review point – Universal Credit claimants who are still unemployed after the 12-month Restart programme will take part in a claimant review point: a new process whereby a work coach will decide what further work search conditions or employment pathways would best support a claimant into work. If a claimant refuses to accept these new conditions without good reason, their Universal Credit claim will be closed.
• Rolling out mandatory work placement trials – through the claimant review point, claimants who have not yet moved into work by the end of Restart will be required to accept a job or to undertake time-limited work experience or other intensive activity to improve their employability prospects. Failure to do so at this stage will lead to a claimant’s Universal Credit claim being closed.
• Stricter sanctions for people who should be looking for work but aren’t – including targeting disengaged claimants by closing the claims of individuals on an open-ended sanction for over six months and solely eligible for the Universal Credit standard allowance, ending their access to additional benefits such as free prescriptions and legal aid; rooting out fraud and error using the government’s Targeted Case Review to review the Universal Credit claims of disengaged claimants on an open-ended sanction for over eight weeks, ensuring they receive the right entitlement; digital tools to track claimants’ attendance at job fairs and interviews.

Plans set out also include expanding key health and employment programmes, to benefit over half a million people over the next five years and help those with mental health conditions stay in or find work:

• NHS Talking Therapies – increasing the number of people benefitting from courses of mental health treatment by an additional 384,000 people over the next five years and increasing the number of sessions available. NHS Talking Therapies provides evidence-based psychological therapies including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), for treatment of mild and moderate mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety disorders.
• Individual Placement and Support (IPS) – aiming to help an additional 100,000 people with severe mental illness to find and keep jobs over the next five years. IPS is an employment support programme integrated in community mental health services. IPS employment specialists: work with people accessing the service to find them employment that matches their aims, interests and skills, and offer continued support once they are in post; integrate with the mental health team to support the individual with any issues that affect their work and recovery; build relationships with employers to negotiate job opportunities.
• Universal Support in England and Wales – matching 100,000 people per year with existing vacancies and supporting them in their new role, an increase on the 50,000 people outlined at Spring Budget, also helping people with disabilities and from vulnerable groups. Participants will access up to 12 months of personalised ‘place and train’ support. The individual will be supported by a dedicated keyworker who will help the participant find and keep a job, with up to £4,000 of funding available to provide each participant with training, help to manage health conditions or help for employers to make necessary accommodations to the person’s needs.
• WorkWell – The service announced at Spring Budget 2023 is being formally launched to Integrated Care Systems across England and will help support people at risk of falling into long-term unemployment due to sickness or disability, through integrated work and health support. Integrated Care Systems across England will be supported to develop a localised work and health strategy, and then services will be provided in approximately 15 pilot areas.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Victoria Atkins, said:

“We know that tailored work and health support initiatives can help break down the kinds of barriers that can make finding and staying in a job more difficult for those with mental health conditions. Backing them with further investment means they’re more widely available, enables personalised help and will get thousands back to work by overcoming any issues that may be preventing them from fulfilling their career potential.”

Kate Shoesmith, Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Deputy Chief Executive, said:

“The announcements will help the Restart scheme keep making a real difference to people’s work and life chances. It contributes to efforts to overcome our labour and skills shortages and to further growing our economy. Bringing public and private employment services together is vital to get people into work and not look back. Our own award-winning Restart scheme, which sees recruiters work with employability services provider Maximus, has helped place 1700 long-term unemployed people into work since 2021.”