Work and Health Programme

The Work and Health Programme is an employment support programme which was launched in North West England and Wales in November 2017. The programme will roll out across the rest of England during early 2018. It will provide specialised employment support for people with disabilities and long-term unemployed people.

The Programme provides support to help people find and keep a job. It is available, on a voluntary basis, to those with health conditions or disabilities, and to various groups of vulnerable people.

It will also provide support to those who have been unemployed for over two years, and it will be compulsory for this group.

The Work and Health Programme will replace the Work Programme and Work Choice schemes.

Funding

Funding for the Work and Health Programme will be at least £130 million a year by 2019/20. This includes funding to be devolved to Scotland.

The Programme will be smaller and more focused than the Work Programme and Work Choice, for which combined expenditure was £540.8 million in 2015/16 (£416.4 million Work Programme, £124.4 million Work Choice).

Service Providers

It will be run by five service providers across six regions in England and Wales. The successful providers were:

• Shaw Trust (Central England and Home Counties)
• Reed in Partnership (North East)
• Ingeus (North West)
• Pluss (Southern)
• Remploy (Wales)

Devolution

London and Greater Manchester have been given funding under devolution deals and will select their own providers.

In Manchester the programme will be called the Working Well and will launch at the end of January 2018. InWork GM have been appointed to deliver the programme.

The Work and Health Programme will launch in London in Spring 2018. The programme will operate on a “sub-regional basis with groups of boroughs working together through strategic partnerships”. There will be four such partnerships:

• Shaw Trust (West London)
• Ingeus (Central London)
• Maximus (East London)
• Reed in Partnership (South London)

Funding for employment programmes in Scotland has also been devolved.

Work, Health and Disability White Paper

The Government published its White Paper, Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability in November 2017. The White Paper sets out the Government’s strategy for reform over the next ten years with the intention of increasing the number of people in work by a million by 2027.