For the average person facing deprivation and inequality due to the simple fact of their being born in the ‘wrong' part of a community, the fallout can reach further than even the span of their own lives.

 

At Wirral Council we are well aware of the impact that agencies can have by acting incoherently. One example, although not directly linked to this area, was a target we set to encourage women with young families back into the workplace. At the same time, our local health partners were trying to raise breastfeeding rates among the same target groups - two strategies with noble intentions, at crossed purposes.

 

The local authority has for many years sought to address this issue by targeting services at individuals who fulfil particular criteria, such as benefit claimants. In 2001 the borough was a pathfinder area for Jobcentre Plus. It 2004 it became the first borough nationally to set, and achieve, a worklessness reduction target as part of the Local Public Service Agreements. 

 

Despite success in reducing health-related worklessness in the borough at a rate that is more than double the national average, the problem persists. Wirral still has levels of worklessness exceeding the regional and national average, with persistent spatial concentrations and significant levels attributable to health-related worklessness.

 

Wirral is trailblazing a new way of working through a pilot project in Birkenhead, a constituency with some of the highest rates of worklessness in the country.

 

Within Birkenhead itself, the project will focus on neighbourhoods that have some of the highest rates of worklessness nationally and will link to our newly established Neighbourhood Working model, which aims to devolve decision-making to communities. 

 

The pilot project will listen to and work closely with residents to explore how best to integrate services and create a bespoke package of support which will reduce health-related worklessness and, importantly, lessen the burden on the public sector. 

 

Traditionally, a single agency would help one person or family with one problem. However, it is now widely accepted that to tackle the root causes of deprivation, and to bring whole communities up to acceptable levels of health and employment, public bodies cannot succeed independently. 

 

We have established a core development group with representatives of the local NHS Trust, Department of Work and Pensions, the Voluntary and Community Sector, Housing associations and businesses.

 

By bringing all public sector agencies together with a single goal, we hope to achieve a more focussed approach, to get those people who are able and wish to gain employment into the labour market. 

 

During the project, we have welcomed the opportunity to work with the Public Service Transformation Network. 

 

This has given us an opportunity to learn lessons from other places, including the Community Budget pilots, who are similarly focused on tackling worklessness. Using their experience we have been able to fine tune our business plan and clarify the scope and scale of the project. 

 

We have also benefitted from the Cost Benefit Analysis model developed by New Economy Manchester which has helped us identify the fiscal, economic, and social benefits and how these will be shared between partners. 

 

The Network has also allowed us to connect with other local places that are embarking on similar worklessness projects. This has created an open forum to debate issues, and these connections have the potential to be a source of ongoing support and shared learning and experience.

 

Local circumstances and approaches to the problem may differ in detail, but Wirral and the other places we have been working with ultimately have the same aim: to support people into work in order to reduce the cost to the public sector and society and, more importantly, end the damaging effects worklessness has on individuals, their families, their communities and even future generations.