Burnham closes in on hundreds of millions to tackle worklessness
Andy Burnham is closing in on a devolution deal with Rachel Reeves that could unlock hundreds of millions of pounds to help tackle worklessness in the North.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester has been in talks with the Treasury and other government departments about expanding the region's £631m pot of flexible funding ahead of the Chancellor's spending review on June 11.
Mr Burnham is pressing ministers for more control of traditional back-to-work schemes, as well as wider support to help people deal with other issues that prevent them from returning to work, such as debt, health and relationships.
The Labour mayor has long called for job centres in Manchester to be absorbed into the city's planned network of 'Live Well centres', currently focused on issues such as health and housing, as part of a strategy to get thousands of people back into work.
It is understood the Mayor is calling for powers to pool funding currently allocated to employment schemes into a more flexible pot that will allow him to focus on preventing people from falling into a life on benefits.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Burnham called for a 'more bottom-up localised approach rather than a top-down tick-box system' that he warned 'often doesn't move people towards work'.
Mr Burnham said: 'The reason a lot of people don't move into work is not that they just can't access the right training, it's because they may have very significant worries about debt, or housing, or issues in their relationship.
'You've got to go first to dealing with some of those issues before you can, if you like, put people on a path towards work.'
The proposal, to be revealed in June, could even see the Mayor take responsibility for flagship employment programmes such as the Restart scheme, which helps benefit claimants who are long-term unemployed to find work.
Restart is the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) contracted employment support programme and is funded until 2026. It is run in Greater Manchester by a private sector firm called Ingeus.
Details of the proposed deal come after the Chancellor handed Mr Burnham a so-called integrated settlement in the Budget, which is essentially one pot of funding that the mayor can choose to allocate as he sees fit.
Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, has also given Greater Manchester more control over employment schemes since the start of this year.
It is understood that Alan Milburn, former health secretary and Labour adviser, has been helping to broker the talks, which at one point officials hoped could lead to a broader devolution deal with Oliver Coppard, the South Yorkshire mayor.
However, those talks have now fallen away, with Mr Burnham racing to secure a new funding settlement ahead of Ms Reeves's three-year spending review in June.
Mr Burnham is seeking extra cash as figures show that inactivity among working-age adults is higher in the North than the UK average. The North also has far higher school absence rates.
Mr Burnham called for a 'very different approach' to tackle worklessness instead of 'funding employment support through large corporate entities that often don't get to the heart of what people want'.
He said: 'You build up through local community and voluntary organisations, provide that whole-person approach, working with the work coaches at the DWP.
'It's about a bottom-up approach that's whole-system and whole-person, compared to the, I would say, the top-down, DWP approach that demonstrably hasn't worked over the years.'
Ms Reeves is reviewing government departments' spending plans for the next three years, which will be confirmed at her June spending review.
Labour is also facing a backbench rebellion over welfare cuts, with dozens of MPs warning the prime minister that his plans to slash the welfare bill by £5bn a year were 'impossible to support' without a 'change in direction'.
The Treasury declined to comment.
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