Elected mayors and local leaders should be put at the heart of employment support as part of a radical shake-up of Whitehall's ‘ineffective' employment initiatives, a leading think-tank has urged.

IPPR North claimed dwindling budgets behind the Government's Work Programme, which will be replaced by a revamped Work and Health Programme next year, meant Whitehall was wasting public money and failing to deliver ‘innovative and hollistic' change.