Job Centre Closure Rethink
Plans to close JobCentre Plus offices could be reconsidered, a minister has said.Employment minister Tony McNulty said on Thursday that it would be a “no-brainer” to look again at the plans to close some of the centres.
The latest unemployment figures, for September showed that 1.82 million were out of work – the highest since 1997, and McNulty said the Department for Work and Pensions had to act.
“The closure plan for JobCentre Plus offices is a no-brainer, we should revisit it,” he said.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling later said: "It feels like the government is making policy on the hoof.
"Many of the JobCentres under threat have already been closed and can't just be reopened.
"All of this underlines the fact that the government has no real strategy for dealing with unemployment even though there have been warnings for months now that it was going to rise."
Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokeswoman Jenny Willott said: "The government is finally accepting that it is crazy to carry on closing JobCentres when 1,500 people are losing their job every day.
"More than 40 JobCentres were closed last year, while the backlog in outstanding jobseekers allowance applications has more than doubled.
"The government must do more than review the JobCentre closure programme. They must stop it altogether and recruit more staff so newly unemployed people get the support they need, when they need it."
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