United Kingdom labour law regulates the relations between workers, employers and trade unions. People at work in the UK benefit from a minimum charter of employment rights, which are found in various Acts, Regulations, common law and equity. This includes the right to a minimum wage of £7.83 for over 25-year-olds under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The Working Time Regulations 1998 give the right to 28 days paid holidays, breaks from work, and attempts to limit excessively long working hours. The Employment Rights Act 1996 gives the right to leave for child care, and the right to request flexible working patterns. The Pensions Act 2008 gives the right to be automatically enrolled in a basic occupational pension, whose funds must be protected according to the Pensions Act 1995.
The New Deal was a workfare programme introduced in the United Kingdom by the first New Labour government in 1998, initially funded by a one-off £5 billion windfall tax on privatised utility companies. The stated purpose was to reduce unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work to the unemployed. Spending on the New Deal was £1.3 billion in 2001.
Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) is an unemployment benefit paid by the Government of the United Kingdom to people who are unemployed and actively seeking work. It is part of the social security benefits system and is intended to cover living expenses while the claimant is out of work.
The Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was a United States federal law passed October 13, 1982, by the United States Department of Labor during the Ronald Reagan administration. The law was the successor to the previous federal job training legislation, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). It was repealed by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 during the administration of President Bill Clinton.
The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 was a United States federal law that was repealed and replaced by the 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Sir Leigh Warren Lewis KCB is a retired senior British civil servant, who served as the Permanent Secretary for the British Department for Work and Pensions from 2006-2011.
REED is an employment agency based in the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1960 by Sir Alec Reed CBE. Reed's son, James Reed is the current CEO and Chairman. REED also offers training, outsourcing and HR consultancy services. The company's website, reed.co.uk, was established in 1995 and doubles as an employment website. In 2014 Alexa ranked reed.co.uk as the UK's largest employment agency website.
A Travel to Work Area or TTWA is a statistical tool used by UK Government agencies and local authorities, especially by the Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentres, to indicate an area where the population would generally commute to a larger town, city or conurbation for the purposes of employment.
RNIB College in Loughborough, England is a college for people with a wide range of disabilities, owned and operated by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is a United Kingdom welfare payment for adults younger than the State Pension age who are having difficulty finding work because of their long-term medical condition or a disability. It is a basic income-replacement benefit paid in lieu of wages. It is currently being phased out and replaced with Universal Credit.
Incapacity Benefit is a British out-of-work social security benefit that was paid to people who were deemed too sick or disabled to work. was introduced in 1995. In 2008, the government began to phase it out, making it unavailable to new claimants.
Dame Lesley Ann Strathie, DCB was a British senior civil servant.
Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA) was a United Kingdom state benefit intended for those below the state pension age who cannot work because of illness or disability. It was replaced by Incapacity Benefit in April 2001, which itself was replaced by Employment and Support Allowance. However, although it is no longer possible to make a claim for SDA, individuals who are already receiving the benefit have continued to do so. The benefit is administered by Jobcentre Plus.
Working Links was an outsourcing subcontractor established in 2000 as a public, private and voluntary company that provided welfare services and help with employability. It was acquired by the investment group Aurelius in June 2016.
R v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2013] UKSC 68 is a UK constitutional law and labour law case that found the conduct of the Department for Work and Pensions "workfare" policy was unlawful. Caitlin Reilly, an unemployed geology graduate, and Jamieson Wilson, an unemployed driver, challenged the Jobcentre policy of making the unemployed work for private companies to get unemployment income. The outcome of the case affects over 3,000 claimants and entails around £130m unpaid benefits.
The Work Programme was a UK government welfare-to-work programme introduced in Great Britain in June 2011. It was the flagship welfare-to-work scheme of the 2010-2015 UK coalition government. Under the Work Programme the task of getting the long-term unemployed into work was outsourced to a range of public sector, private sector and third sector organisations. The scheme replaced a range of schemes which existed under previous New Labour governments including Employment Zones, New Deal, Flexible New Deal and the now abolished Future Jobs Fund scheme which aimed to tackle youth unemployment. Despite being the flagship welfare-to-work scheme of the Conservative-led coalition government, and then the incumbent Conservative government from May 2015, the DWP announced, in November 2015, that it was replacing the Work Programme and Work Choice with a new Work and Health Programme for the longer-term unemployed and those with health conditions. The DWP also announced that it would not be renewing Mandatory Work Activity and Help to Work which included Community Work Placements.
The Flexible Support Fund (FSF) is a fund in the United Kingdom to aid those in receipt of unemployment benefits to gain employment. It is administered by Job Centres and can be used by individual claimants for the cost of travel to interviews, childcare, tools and clothing and uniforms to start work. However, there is no exhaustive list of things that may be funded under the fund. A second part of the Flexible Support Fund allows District Managers to award funding to "partnership organisations" in order to address barriers to work.
The Institute of Employability Professionals (IEP) is the professional association for the employability profession. The organisation was founded in 2011, and works to support the continued professional development (CPD) of front-line employability staff.
