Integrating with other initiatives

It will be essential that these new partnerships work constructively with Local Strategic Partnerships operating at local authority level. Whilst sub-regional working offers an efficient scale at which to manage overall delivery, it is also essential to design and develop specific services that meet more localised needs. Similarly, provision through Local Strategic Partnerships should complement core employment and skills programmes, with alignment where appropriate through the new sub-regional partnerships.

These partnerships will need to engage with the Regional Development Agency to ensure consideration of the fit of work in the sub-region with the strategy for the region. In areas with strong sub-regional partnerships, and reflecting the focus on labour market areas for influencing delivery, we will consider how the role of Regional Skills Partnerships will need to evolve.

We would expect the City Strategy Pathfinders to evolve into an integral part of emerging local and sub-regional governance arrangements.

Making our delivery systems work more closely together

Passing responsibility down to a more local level has created new opportunities to make government services work more closely together. Good providers and leading partnerships are making the linkages already and central government is keen to support them:

  • in areas with the best track records of working together, we are beginning to bring together the commissioning of core employment and skills services, such as flexible New Deal and Train to Gain;
  • the Government is also looking at more innovative ways to bring together an even wider range of providers and local partners, including health, childcare and youth services, to support those with the most entrenched issues; and
  • we are testing new ways of embedding closer working within the incentives of the system, so this is something that happens automatically throughout the country.

The measures set out here represent only the start of the process of building truly responsive services for individuals and employers. There is a real opportunity to provide more complete services and avoid any duplication: half of providers delivering employment programmes for DWP in England are also offering training or other services through the LSC. We will continue to work constructively with all local areas and partners to make our services work more closely together.

Bringing together core employment and skills services for jobseekers

DWP and DIUS have already begun bringing together core elements of the employment and skills systems. Devolving responsibility opens up opportunities to go further, with exciting developments occurring in many of our major urban areas.

  • Manchester. In Manchester DWP and DIUS will work with the new MAA to enhance the services provided to around 30,000 longer term jobseekers, offering deeper support to overcome skills and other barriers that people face. This will involve innovative co-commissioning bringing together LSC, DWP's flexible New Deal and local authority resources, including discretionary funding. Additional provision to enhance Jobcentre Plus support will start to be commissioned from September 2008, with customers accessing provision from April 2009. As part of this, DWP will involve local partners in the commissioning and performance management of the flexible New Deal contract and in the process of developing a competitive market of providers.
  • West Midlands. In the West Midlands, we will build on the existing City Strategy Pathfinder and the forthcoming Integrated Employment and Skills trials to develop a co-commissioning approach. This will bring LSC funding, including Train to Gain, together with the flexible New Deal, and link employment and skills with wider services, such as health. Approximately 75,000 customers who remain unemployed for more than six months will be able to benefit progressively from enhanced and tailored provision at all stages of the flexible New Deal, starting from April 2009. This initiative will have at its core a focus on the effective delivery of mainstream provision, and the partners will mutually develop contract specifications that focus all services on the shared outcome of sustained employment and progression.
  • London. In London there are nearly 1.5 million people who are not working - they are economically inactive or unemployed. This represents 29 per cent of the working age population in London. The Government is working with the employer-led London Skills and Employment Board to tackle the challenge. The Board is publishing its strategy shortly, to set out a clear vision and ambition for integrated, customer-focused skills and employment services to deliver significantly improved skills and employment outcomes for Londoners and London employers. The London Board has helped build a strong commitment between the LSC, London Development Agency (LDA) and DWP to utilise resources more effectively through co-commissioning skills and employment services. LSC and the LDA have begun work on a joint commissioning plan to be published in the autumn of 2008. The changes will mean many more Londoners will be able to access the capital's significant employment opportunities, including those offered by major projects such as Crossrail.

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