London Employment Action Plan

To help achieve these aims, in August 2010 we published our London Employment Action Plan 'Increasing Employment in London: A plan for growth.

Challenge for London

London is a key driver of the UK and has created almost 400,000 additional jobs over the last ten years. Despite this, many Londoners are still missing out on the capital's economic success, with one in three Londoners of working age out of work and one in five Londoners lacking basic literacy and numeracy.

The challenge of London is largely due to the city's demographics, with more people from groups disadvantage in the labour market, a high incidence of multiple disadvantage, inadequate support and incentives and a higher cost of living along with greater competition for jobs.

Aiming high

We want all Londoners to gain from the capital's prosperity, and our aim for 2014 is to improve London's skills and employment gap in relation to the rest of the UK to just two percentage points. At the moment, we are falling short, and need a further 240,000 helped into work to close this gap.

Improving employment and skills in London

London's labour market is extremely complex and the public employment and skill system governed by a galaxy of agencies. Improvements have been made in recent years through the LSEB stategy, a focus on supporting people to find and stay in work for a full 12 months through the London Development Agency (LDA); and a clear evidence base through the London Skills and Employment Observatory.Yet there is clearly still much further to go.

London’s Employment Action Plan

There are five key areas in which the London Employment Action Plan will help Londoners access better training and employment opportunities:

• Welfare reform
  Extending back-to-work support to all those out of work, including claimants of Incapacity Benefit and Income Support, as pioneered by the LDA. This should now be funded by  the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) using future benefit savings (the DEL-AME switch).
• Making work pay
  People should be better off in work than on benefits and rewarded for career progression. Simplification and security must be key principles of reform.
• Joined-up targets and a demand-led system
  Public sector support should have a clear focus on achieving 12 month sustained employment and career progression and services designed to be responsive to individuals and businesses.
• Simplification of the system
  A clear drive to simplification and streamlined engagement with employers and individuals, including shaping a demand led skills system and DWP’s investment in London. This would see a stronger role for the Mayor on skills and employment in London.
• Public sector leadership
  Better utilising jobs and skills created by public procurement, building on the commitment by the GLA group and the London boroughs to deliver 5,000 Apprenticeships by 2012.