Routes out of hardship

Every day, food banks in the Trussell community support people facing complex barriers to work. Disabled people and single parents are disproportionally represented at food banks. High numbers of young people aged 18 to 24, as well as people with caring responsibilities, are also forced to turn to food banks as they cannot afford the essentials.

In the year this report is published, the UK government is delivering far-reaching reforms to employment support as part of its plan to ‘Get Britain Working’, including an overhaul of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Jobcentre Plus offer as well as various pilots exploring approaches to delivering support. The UK government’s focus on the employment support system offers a vital opportunity to reshape services and policies to be more responsive, person-centred, and effective, and to better protect people from hunger and hardship.

Through this research we worked alongside lived experience experts and food banks to understand what effective employment support looks like, how support can be designed to prevent people with complex barriers to work facing hardship, and how changes to the conditionality regime in our social security system could drive positive engagement with employment support.

We put forward five policy recommendations to UK government to improve employment support and conditionality requirements:

1. Invest in the training and capacity of Jobcentre and wider employment support delivery staff.
2. Boost engagement by delivering employment support alongside wider services in trusted community settings.
3. Move away from the ‘any job’ approach to help people to progress into sustainable and rewarding work that reflects their skills, circumstances, and aspirations.
4. Redesign mandatory requirements to foster trust and adult to adult relationships and only use sanctions as a last resort.
5. Ensure the social security system provides adequate levels of financial support.