Benefit claimants will be made to work 12 hours a week rather than just nine to avoid regular trips to job centre – as it’s revealed nearly 500,000 have stopped claiming jobseekers allowance over last six months
- Benefit claimants will have to work longer to avoid regular trips to job centre
- Therese Coffey suggested they will have to work 12 hours a week, up from nine
- Nearly 500,000 have stopped claiming benefits in last six months
Benefit claimants will soon have to work 12 hours a week rather than nine in order to be released from regular job centre appointments under a crackdown to be announced by Therese Coffey.
Under the current rules, those claiming benefits do not have to continue attending appointments with job advisers once they are employed for the equivalent of nine hours a week.
However, the Work and Pensions Secretary has said that the Government is now set to increase that cut-off point, with reports suggesting that it would be raised to 12 hours.
While nearly 500,000 have been taken off benefits and into work in less than six months, there are 5 million on out-of-work benefits while the number of job vacancies stands at 1.3 million.
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Therese Coffey leaving Downing Street after attending weekly Cabinet meeting in London on June 14, 2022
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the minister added that the threshold could eventually be raised even further, but that would require the employment of more job advisers – also known as work coaches.
Ms Coffey, who also admitted that she had claimed benefits on three occasions before becoming an MP, told the paper: ‘Once you get a job, if you’re working fewer than the equivalent of nine hours a week, we still expect you to be coming in and looking for work.
‘We’re going to be raising that, I hope, very soon. We just want to help people get on into work. So that’s really important.’
She added: ‘The more people that we see in the job centre, dare I say it, the more work coaches we will need. So there’s a decision to be taken. And I believe we can go further than that. But I can’t do that without more people fulfilling the role of the work coach.
File photo dated February 17, 2016 of a Job Centre Plus
‘I think we should just get on with the initial bit. That in itself would bring about 120,000 people (into the work coach system). If we could start and kind of roll that in, then that would be a good stepping point.’
The minister also urged employers to show more ‘flexibility’, including to accommodate people who adjusted their work-life balance during the Covid pandemic.
She cited the example of employers offering 10am to 2pm shifts for people who wish to take their children to and from school, and suggested more people with caring responsibilities could be encouraged to take part in ‘remote working’.
In some parts of the UK, more than one in five people of working age are claiming out-of-work benefits. In Blackpool, the figure is 25.5%, while in Middlesbrough, it is 23% and in Hartlepool 22%.
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