Andy Burnham is right to devolve employment support

One way the government plans to rewire the state is through greater devolution of employment support for people out of work due to ill health and the long-term unemployed. It has already taken important steps in this direction, including some devolution of the ‘Connect to Work’ programmes. But Burnham is right to say his government should take this further – as an IfG report recommended earlier this year.

The number of people out of work due to ill health has grown since the pandemic, with huge costs for the economy, public finances and the individuals themselves. People in this growing group typically face multiple, complex barriers to work – but DWP’s relatively centralised and ‘programmatic’ approach to employment support to date has not matched the scale or shape of the problem. As we have argued, devolving employment support to strategic authorities is an opportunity to address this challenge – and put Burnham’s rewiring of the state ambitions into practice.

Devolution of employment support will enable a more joined-up approach

Under the current system, local areas typically receive pots of funding from different sources with various organisations delivering a range of programmes, all designed at the centre. The result is a patchwork of programmes that are difficult to navigate for both individuals and local areas.

Giving local areas more flexible funding will help them design a system of support that joins up relevant local services and is better tailored to the needs of communities. This can include stronger connections with NHS services, adult skills, the voluntary sector and businesses. It should enable a ‘single front door’ approach that matches support to individuals’ needs, as Greater Manchester’s ‘Live Well’ initiative aims to do. Strategic authorities based around coherent labour market geographies – and hopefully increasingly aligned boundaries for other services, such as NHS Integrated Care Boards – are the right level to do this join-up. 

A major challenge for employment support is engaging people whose health limits their ability to work. Engagement is voluntary, since this group are not typically required to attend regular DWP appointments to receive benefits (unlike jobseekers), and currently only one in 10 do so each year. ⁷ https://learningandwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Employment-support-impact-briefing-note-16-1.pdf  The widespread fear of DWP is likely a barrier to engagement with centralised support. People may be more likely to engage with more tailored and integrated employment support run by the strategic or local authority. 

Devolving employment support for the long-term unemployed will require careful coordination

Devolution of support for the long-term unemployed – currently provided through the nationally commissioned Restart programme – is a new and substantial shift. Many people who are unemployed for six months will face multiple barriers to work, and benefit from more integrated local support. But people who are long-term unemployed have conditionality requirements that will require them to attend regular jobcentre appointments, alongside devolved support – unlike those on incapacity benefits who have no work search requirements. 

Duplication between jobcentres and the Restart programme has been a problem in the past, even when both were being run by DWP. ⁸ https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/34457/documents/189903/default/  Burnham has talked about more local integration of jobcentres but not about devolving them – and the direct role of jobcentres in the centralised benefits system would make this more complicated. This means that effective coordination between DWP and strategic authorities will be crucial.

Burnham wants to give mayors powers to integrate support for young people, including skills for 16-19 year-olds which DfE is currently responsible for. The shape of this will be clearer once the Milburn review concludes in September, but any future system will also require similarly careful coordination to avoid duplication.

Central government must ensure the broader system is set up to make devolution a success

Devolution will not automatically improve outcomes – and central government has an important role in ensuring other key ingredients are in place. Strategic authorities need to prioritise building the skills and capacity to successfully run local employment support. DWP should support this, including through secondments and providing specific support to fill in gaps in commercial and analytical capability. 

Devolution should help us understand better what policies are effective by learning from varied approaches across the country. The soon to be established What Works Centre for local employment support will have an important role to play in gathering this evidence from different regions, but DWP should continue to facilitate establishing and sharing best practice. This should include taking lessons from the economic inactivity trailblazers to inform decisions about devolution of employment support ahead of the next spending review.

Strategic authorities also need sufficient funding certainty and flexibility. This should involve further integration of funding, including more flexibility over the use of ‘Connect to Work’ funding, which has already been devolved to six strategic authorities through the integrated settlement, and the ability to better integrate adult skills and other programmes such as Work Well. 

Finally, ensuring an effective accountability system is in place will help to reward places and politicians making good decisions while preventing bad decisions – or ensuring politicians are held accountable when problems arise. This is a challenge that extends across different devolved areas. The government will need to find the right balance between accountability to central government and local accountability. Where central government accountability mechanisms – like outcomes frameworks – persist, they should still be flexible enough to allow places to make different choices.

Devolution of employment support is a welcome first step towards Burnham’s vision of rewiring the state and delivering public services locally. Doing this well, and setting up the broader environment to help mayors make a success of this new responsibility, should pave the way for further public service devolution in the coming years.