With 2.8 million people in the UK economically inactive due to long-term sickness, the government has published a White Paper to get people back to work by improving their health and employability.
The White Paper, Get Britain Working, sets out a new approach backed by £240 million investment.
The root causes of people not working will be addressed with a joined-up system of help and support.
Long-term sickness is causing a serious economic drag for the UK, driving a rising benefits bill and leading to recruitment issues for companies.
Lack of training is also having an impact, with nine million adults lacking the basic skills they need to get on and one in eight young people not in education.
In the report, the ministers presenting it – Chancellor Rachel Reeves, secretary of state for work and pensions, Liz Kendall, Bridget Phillipson, secretary of state for education and Wes Streeting, secretary of state for health and social care said: "Behind these statistics are human stories played out time and again across the country. Young people with mental health problems, waiting for treatment or lacking the basic qualifications they need to get a job and kick-start their career. People in their 50s and 60s struggle with chronic pain, such as bad joints, with women often caring for elderly relatives, who have huge experience to offer employers but far too few opportunities. The school-leaver let down because employment support is not designed to help them seize today’s opportunities."
The goal is an 80 per cent employment rate – which translates as attracting an additional two million people into the workforce – and Get Britain Working says radical reform is needed to achieve this goal.
The government says it wants everyone to have the opportunity of secure, rewarding and fulfilling work and that a big part of this involves getting people more healthy.
Labour’s Kim Leadbeater produced a groundbreaking report called Healthier Britain looking at how all government departments could function in a joined-up way to deliver the benefits of physical activity across all portfolios, however, these ideas have not yet made the transition from proposal to policy and so this work remains on the shelf,”
Driving this will be a new independent review of the role of UK employers in promoting healthy and inclusive workplaces that will aim to prevent people becoming unwell at work and promote good, healthy workplaces, while also undertaking early intervention for sickness absences.
The workplace wellness review will run until Q2 2025 and involve engagement with employers, employees, trade unions, health experts, disabled people and those with health conditions. It will complement the government’s recently announced 'Make Work Pay' reforms, which will tackle job insecurity and expand flexible working.
There will also be a Green Paper published in spring 2025.
Tackling waiting lists for medical treatment is also on the agenda.
"This is not only a mission for the whole government, it also needs genuine partnership with and between, the new jobs and careers service, Mayors and councils, trade unions, private, voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, the NHS, employers and schools, colleges and universities," says the white paper. "This is how, together, we can build a healthier, wealthier nation - driving up employment and opportunity, skills and productivity – while driving down the benefits bill."
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