Improving Opportunities: How to support social housing tenants into sustainable employmentReport to the APPG on Housing and Social Mobilityand customised work, to further and highereducation, through partnerships operating at a locallabour market scale, as an attempt to balance thetrade-off between scale economies sought by DWPcommissioning with the local strengths of housingproviders and education outlets. Allied to this, weneed to promote and support greater partnershipworking between housing and other organisations.For example, local housing associations can beanchors in the community working with, for example,further education colleges, employers and otherscould then help provide access to the job market.3. Link social housing investmentto employmentEncourage funding bodies like Homes England andlocal authorities and also the Regulator of socialhousing to encourage and incentivise (e.g. as acondition of funding or regulatory performancemetrics) public funding of affordable/social housing,including existing stock investments, to demonstratelocal labour market connections throughprocurement, supply chains, apprenticeships, etc.This might also be directly linked to green jobsand investment in emerging residential retrofitindustries. This might also include embracingmore active labour market strategies such as JobsPlus as well as greater statutory support for theprecariously working, the low paid and thosestarting work. This recommendation will applyto central government, housing agencies, localgovernment, housing providers, employmentprogramme delivery agencies and DWP.4. Tailored, joined up, one-to-one supportbased on what the client actually wants.Greater use of tailored, joined up one-to-onesupport which focuses not only on employmentopportunities, but also finding out what theindividual wants and how to actually get them intoa job and to give them confidence in their jobs,i.e. a greater focus on in one-to-one support andtailored training for them The labour market is acomplex multi-faceted system and policies needto match that complexity by providing integratedsupport across the entire employment andtraining journey. This recommendation will applyto central government, employment and supportproviders, LEPs, local authorities and third sector.5. Wider issues need to be addressed:affordable childcare; digital access,affordable and accessible publictransport; temporary financial supportfor people as they transition into workAffordable transport with a renewed focus onroutes and timetables that enable work is essential;the availability and affordability of childcare isalso essential. There is also at strong case toprovide some temporary time limited additionalfinancial support at the start of entering the labourmarket to cover those extra costs and to coverthe initial transition period into employment. Thisrecommendation will apply to DWP and otherrelevant agencies, central and local government.7
8Executive Summary