I thank the Scottish Government for bringing forward the debate. I do not wish to rehearse all the Smith commission statements on the subject, but it is worth repeating that the commission stated that the Scottish Parliament would
“have ... powers over support for unemployed people through the employment programmes currently contracted by DWP ... through the Work Programme and Work Choice ... on expiry of the current commercial arrangements. The Scottish Parliament”
would
“have the power to decide how it operates these core employment support services.”
Some would say that that was a vow. However, in the last few months of the previous UK Parliament, UK ministers took the conscious decision to extend those programmes to 2017, despite that vow.
As the cabinet secretary will know—because she was there—in March she and the social justice secretary, Alex Neil, met David Mundell to discuss the issue. In their statement following the meeting, they rightly called for the devolution of powers to build a more effective, targeted and fairer employability system at the earliest opportunity, which would allow us to continue to build a focused and sustainable economic growth programme. It is disappointing that, despite that request, no action was taken before the dissolution of the UK Parliament and no cost assessment of existing services was arrived at.
To allow Scotland to deliver effective employment support, we need all job creation and employment alignment powers in Scotland. It makes sense for all those powers to be aligned, controlled and prioritised by this Parliament in line with the economic strategy.
The work programme is, frankly, a dodo; it is not alive to employability or the economic strategy that I mentioned, and its life extension is meaningless and, some might say, mischievous. The UK Government did not even consider the Cambridge Policy Consultants review that looked at the resource implications for employability provision across Scotland.
We have set out the economic strategy and the vision for Scotland. There are four key areas of Scotland’s economic strategy—investment, innovation, inclusive growth and internationalisation—and each has a key role in improving the Scottish labour market and, therefore, the economy.
Investment in people, and young people in particular, is key. Actions include the implementation of the Wood report’s recommendations by providing 30,000 new modern apprenticeships across Scotland by 2020.
On innovation, there is the establishment of a fair work convention to draw on best practice and facilitate a joint approach with partners.
On inclusive growth, the Scottish Government will continue to lead by example by advancing greater merit-based gender equality and ensuring that all staff covered by Scottish Government pay policy receive the living wage, which is rapidly becoming the liveable wage. The expansion of childcare hours from 475 to 600 per year will help those with young children to participate in the labour market. Intervention on that is critical.
On internationalisation, the globalscot network of more than 600 business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives across 51 countries with a connection to Scotland provides Scotland with invaluable insights and advice when doing business in particular markets and sectors.
All those initiatives have their origins and plans in Scotland. Supporting that are the employability strategy entitled “Action for Jobs—Supporting Young Scots into Work: Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy“, which is giving young people the chance to channel their talent, enthusiasm and energy, and the opportunities for all programme and so on, which indicate that to be successful we should have responsibility for all such programmes.
It is not just the Scottish Government that supports the full devolution of the work programme. The SCVO responded to the UK Government’s decision to extend work programme contracts by saying:
“We are utterly appalled by the UK Government’s move to extend its Work Programme contracts when it was agreed by the Smith Commission that it would transfer to the Scottish Parliament as soon as current contracts expired.”
It continued by saying that
“it’s impossible to justify why such a broken and failing system would ever be continued.”
While the work programme is expected to come with a hefty price tag of £3 billion to £5 billion, community jobs Scotland—which is delivered by the SCVO in partnership with the Scottish Government—has to date helped nearly 5,000 people into jobs at a cost of just £35 million. The SCVO also said:
“All the evidence tells us that the Work Programme simply does not work. In fact, only ... 18% of people in the scheme actually get a job. We’re completely dismayed by this delay in ridding Scotland of this exploitative, punitive and under-performing programme.”
We could go on like that about all the things that we have to do.
Fundamentally, as in any business, organisation or association, alignment of an employability support service to the end objective of economic growth, as we have in Scotland, is paramount. The strategic direction of having one strategy that embraces Scottish agencies and programmes under the Scottish employability forum is the only way to allow us to grow our economy so that we create sustainable jobs and, above all, tackle the curse of inequality.
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