2 July 2009

Rt Hon Jim Knight MP

Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform

National Health Service Jobs – Tackling Unemployment in London

Hilton Metropole Hotel, Edgware Road

Thursday 2 July 2009

[Check against delivery]

Good morning.

Thank you for attending this morning’s event and I would like to thank Janice Lall and her team from Jobcentre Plus for all their hard work in making today possible.

Jobcentre Plus and NHS employees share a sense of public service, that is why we do what we do.

But their similarities go beyond a simple duty and reliance on public funding. Both of us are big national organisations whose real strength is in being able to respond at a local level – for Jobcentre Plus that means understanding and reacting to the jobs market – for the NHS it’s obviously about meeting health needs, both locally and in many cases nationally.

The NHS and Jobcentre Plus already work well together in many ways, but I am here today to ask what more we can do to help each other.

Jobcentre Plus has started looking beyond the traditional ‘work first’ approach at a more holistic service which helps break down barriers to work.

In one sense this means helping people identify and manage health conditions, including mental health conditions. That's why we recently announced a package of measures to improve the way we support people with mental health conditions. This will ensure that every JCP district has a designated mental health coordinator who will build practical links between health and employment services at local level and provide information, advice and guidance to Jobcentre Plus advisers.

In parallel, we are piloting placing Jobcentre Plus staff in GPs surgeries.

Similarly, I know the NHS is also taking a more holistic approach, with community outreach work to improve public health and through tackling issues like obesity or smoking to prevent more serious health problems, like heart disease or cancer.

This joined up thinking will continue – we have to work smarter together – working in silos where there is a clear separation between education, work, and health is, I hope, a thing of the past.

Today, Government is dealing with some of the toughest economic conditions this country, indeed the world, has faced.

And in these times of great adversity we should not pull back from these partnerships, we should not retreat into our silos because we in the public services all serve the public better if we serve together.

Ensuring we survive the terrible effects of the recession is the single best argument for improving this partnership.

I had an interesting meeting earlier this week on the effects of recession and unemployment on health, particularly mental health.

I think the health benefits of being in work are now generally accepted. It’s not rocket science, help us to get your communities working and it will improve the health of the people that you are serving.

We have already proved that and proved Local Employment Partnerships work.

This whole idea comes from an innovative agreement between the Strategic Health Authority in Birmingham and Solihull and Jobcentre Plus.

It’s the best kind of national vision because it started with good local practice.

In the West Midlands Jobcentre Plus has helped the health authority fill around 350 vacancies.

In my own constituency down in Dorset every part of the NHS has signed up to a Local Employment Partnership – and 39 people have found jobs since these partnerships were agreed just a few months ago.

Now the NHS is the largest single employer in Europe. Nationally it has 1.2 million staff; of those around 75,000 jobs are what you’ll know as level seven and below jobs, those non-specialist jobs that typically have a salary of £35,000 or less – essentially the jobs we think you could advertise with Jobcentre Plus.

Here in London, the NHS employs 200,000 people – that’s roughly 16,000 jobs and potential vacancies at level seven or below.

Around 10 per cent of all new vacancies in London are NHS jobs – in April that meant 350 jobs per week.

The NHS has huge power both as an employer and as a contractor and I would like you to think not only about the vacancies you hold but using your influence when procuring work to encourage others to use Jobcentre Plus’s services.

The way for you to get the best service out of Jobcentre Plus is through a Local Employment Partnership.

LEPs are a completely professional approach to recruitment. They combine tailored pre-employment training, developed with employers, with a coaching and filtering service so you get the very best candidates for the job – but with no obligation to hire someone if you feel that they’re not suitable for you.

And Jobcentre Plus doesn’t just place people and then let you get on with it – through these partnerships you can also find out about in-work training, for all staff.

For me, skills is a really important part of this picture. Before taking on responsibility for Jobcentre Plus as the new Minister for Employment, I was Schools Minister for three years with particular responsibility for the 14 to 19 age group.

I firmly believe education should have a very practical use, and developed diploma qualifications which will give young people the skills and work experience they need to get a job, across seventeen different sectors of work, including Society, Health and Development, designed to be the first step on a path to working in health care.

I’m not just talking about helping people get the skills they need to get a job, and not just skills training in schools and colleges but also helping people to keep improving their skills, and get promotions.

One of my key priorities in this new job is to bring together the different strands offered by the government into a single coherent package for employers, and the NHS as such a major employer will obviously benefit from that.

We want to work with you, we can help you access a really rich pool of talent, and we think we have a good business argument for why you should work with us.

So, use today, ask me and the rest of the panel questions, make contact with your counterparts in Jobcentre Plus and help us to help you find and keep good quality staff.

Thank you.