This is the message which Patrick Grattan, Chief Executive of TAEN, The Age and Employment Network, gave to this morning’s Work & Pensions Select Committee evidence session on the Government’s employment strategy.

He said the Government was not doing enough or setting itself a robust-enough target or timeframe and that it was relying on the population trends and macro-economic stability to deliver its 80% employment rate aspiration. It needed to be a clearly defined and firm target with a clearly understood delivery date.

He told the Committee: “We are not asking for special (employment) programmes based on people’s age but that all programmes are measured and monitored for how they work for people of all ages.” And asked that the same approach be adopted across a broad range of programmes, including skills training, career advice and occupational health."

Notes:
1. The Government’s 80% aspirational employment rate requires 1 million more people aged 50+, 300,000 more Lone Parents and 1 million people off Incapacity Benefits into work by some now undetermined date in the future. 

2. TAEN’s submission to the Work & Pensions Select Committee inquiry into the Government’s employment strategy contains a number of recommendations. These include:

• The 80% employment rate ‘aspiration’ should be clearly defined, be made a target and given a challenging timeframe.

• There should be a more ambitious Public Sector Agreement (PSA) target for DWP on the over-50s element of the 80% target.

• The performance of all major employment programmes should be measured and reported publicly to verify that they work equally well for all age groups, including the over-50s. They do not at present. Corrective action is needed to ensure that they do.

• The performance of all DfES adult education strategy and each major programme should be measured and reported publicly to verify that they work equally well for all-age groups, including the over-50s.

• The wide regional variations in employment rates of older workers indicate that employment programmes and targets should feature more strongly in Regional Employment and Skills Strategies. The over-50s should be an identifiable element of all the Cities Strategy partnerships.

• The evidence about the relevance of National Default Retirement Age of 65 must be rigorously assessed as we move towards a decision in 2011 on its future.

• The new DWP/DH ‘Health, Work and Wellbeing’ agenda must be seen to address the 50+ workforce because the extension of working life requires action on well adapted work places, occupational health and the reduction of ill health as a reason for early retirement.

• Engagement with employers, employer bodies and the recruitment industry must focus on quality of work and opportunities in all sectors of the workforce, not just aggregate volume of mainly low quality jobs.