Under sweeping reforms announced this week by the new Labour administration, Jobcentres and government careers services will be combined, with tech playing an essential role in the newly unified offering

Ministers have pledged that major technological transformation of the work of the Department for Work and Pensions will enable citizens to have a “jobcentre in their pocket”.

Appearing in parliament this week, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said that a newly published white paper was dedicated to “bringing forward the biggest reforms to employment support in a generation and turning a department of welfare into a genuine department for work”.

The policy document sets out three major changes, including the establishment of a “youth guarantee” intended to ensure that all young people are either in work or employment, alongside efforts to “address the growing and unsustainable problem of people being out of work due to poor health”, Kendall said.

The third significant reform will be to “create a new jobs and careers service, overhauling Jobcentres from a one-size-fits-all service that overwhelmingly focuses on administering benefits into a genuine public employment service providing personalised help and support”. 

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This revamp will involve combining Jobcentres’ offer across England with the citizen support provided by the National Careers Service. This plan will be tested via a “pathfinder” project in early 2025.

Going forward, technology – including digital platforms, data, and artificial intelligence – will play a key role in supporting the newly unified services.

Kendall said: “For too many people, walking into a Jobcentre feels like going back in time to the ’80s or ’90s, so we will trial a radically improved digital offer using the latest technologies and AI to provide up-to-date information on jobs, skills and other support, and to free up work coach time. We will also test video and phone support—because in the 2020s, rather than go into the jobcentre only every week or fortnight, people can have a jobcentre in their pocket.”

The government added that a programme of “testing and digital design” will be undertaken “to understand how best to bring DWP services online and make them easier to access to deliver tailored support, including CV advice and job adverts”.

The reimagining of Jobcentre provision will be supported by an initial tranche of £55m in funding. As the plans are rolled out in the coming years, government will “work closely with mayors and local leaders to ensure that our new jobs and careers service is rooted in local communities and properly joined up with local help and support, [and] will also work closely with employers to develop the service, because only one in six businesses has ever used a Jobcentre to recruit, and that must change”, Kendall said.