Greater Manchester mayor calls for overhaul of job centers, suggests new 'Live Well Centres'
Andy Burnham wants to rename Job Centres to get more people working — but he doesn't think the change will work 'on its own'.
The mayor believes Job Centres are an 'outlier' in Greater Manchester, claiming they run a 'tick box system' which doesn't match jobseekers with the right role.
Instead, Mr Burnham has argued he should control the 'employment support budget', worth £6bn nationally, in order to fund voluntary organisations like Salford's Loaves and Fishes, so they give out-of-work residents 'whole person support' in one building called a 'Live Well Centre'.
"I would like Job Centres Plus to be renamed Live Well Centres. In the main it would say to the public you are going to be helped here," Mr Burnham told an MPs' inquiry into reforming Job Centres on Tuesday (April 1).
"I just think there's a huge opportunity that the Department for Work and Pensions estate is not, in my view, sufficiently integrated into everything else that Greater Manchester is doing.
"It can feel like an outlier in our communities when it needs to be part of the fabric, part of the place where lives are changed in a really positive way.
"And it isn't seen like that at this moment in time. I don't see why it can't be seen like that, but it does point to some fairly fundamental changes."
The mayor added a simple 'rebranding' exercise would not work to get more people in work 'on its own', and a 'paradigm shift' is required.
He added: "It would have to come with the feel of the place being in the community and voluntary sector.
"That money would secure them up and create more volunteering opportunities for people on their journey back to work.
"The atmosphere that would create in Live Well Centre which was crowded out with the voluntary sector. The feel would really make a difference."
Coincidentally, his appearance before the DWP select committee, which met in Manchester town hall, came on the first day of Greater Manchester's 'integrated settlement'.
The settlement with the government gives the mayor more financial freedom.
Previously, GMCA cash came from roughly 150 different sources, each with conditions attached. As of April 1, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) will get a lump sum and can move money around within it.
Leaders can move up to 10pc of its £630M integrated settlement between six 'pillars', and can spend the 'local growth and place' pillar however they like.
While the £630M fund is flexible, it's only a small portion of the GMCA's entire £3B budget, so Mr Burnham does not have free reign to spend as he pleases.
The LDRS understands it's this pot of flexible funding which could be used to support the Live Well programme, paving the way for a big shake-up to how jobseekers are supported in Greater Manchester.
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