
By Lynsey Sweeney FIEP, Managing Director of Communities That Work
Welcome to the 13th edition of the IEP Journal.
It’s a privilege to guest-edit this edition as we enter a new year in which the policy landscape in social housing and employment support services has changed almost entirely from a year ago.
DWP published the ‘Get Britain Working’ white paper in late November. We welcome much of what we see in it, and the ‘devolution by default’ mantra from England’s Devolution white paper (announced in December) perhaps jointly set the tone for the future of this parliament concerning housing, employment and government.
Get Britain Working builds in part upon the findings of the Commission on the future of employment support, whose ‘Working for the Future’ paper was launched by the IES soon after the general election. Some IEP colleagues will know Tony Wilson, the lead author of that report and a Fellow of the IEP himself, no less! The Social Housing sector – led by Communities that Work – was well represented at the Commission’s evidence stages and supported a range of interventions to bring housing, health and employment services together better and more locally. We also ensured that local people’s and tenants’ employment support experiences were fed into this work.
Get Britain Working focuses on refreshed Job and Career support for all, job and training guarantees for young people and localised ‘Get Britain Working’ plans at the trailblazer stage. There is a lot to celebrate in the foundations of the policy, and the housing and employment sectors can work together to build from these.
Local delivery of services works for social housing. Though not without challenges of scale and commissioning, local neighbourhoods make sense to the social housing sector, and we are experienced in supporting working-age adults through a lifetime of engagement with people, families, and whole communities.
The challenge and the opportunity are for social housing and the employment-related services sectors to work together more collaboratively and for the long term; supporting neighbourhoods experiencing multiple deprivation, poverty, and high economic inactivity rates. Commissioning can drive behaviour, and I see a changing, devolving commissioning landscape that adds local nuance, demands close attention to local communities, and operates best through strong, established local connections.
Social housing is at the heart of many local communities, and our new JobsPlus pilots are a chance to test and learn from a new type of neighbourhood support. The sites are summarised in this edition, and we hear from the leads in two JobsPlus sites in the Journal too. Social housing can flex its premises and resources muscle to best fit local needs, and I’m proud to highlight a new report from Unity Housing and CaCHE in this edition that profiles a range of employment support and business start-up advice that has helped support over 150 new business and 700 new jobs in the local neighbourhood.
Communities that Work hopes to bring social housing’s community investment and employment services to the fore with the support of the IEP. We look forward to the IEP Summit this year, where we hope to see housing more deeply represented and build upon great work already done here through IEP links with Clarion Futures.
The new year is a chance for reflection, resolution, and renewed action in terms of how we work, who we work with, and what we aim to achieve together. I hope this edition #13 of the IEP Journal is a lucky one, which brings opportunities to connect our sectors and sets a positive direction of travel to link housing, employment and government together.