“Just devolve to us how we do it. We know the organisations here and the ones who will succeed.”
The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has called for a radical overhaul of the benefits system, with greater devolution at a local level to help support those on welfare access support as well as help to get back into work.
Burnham, as Mayor of Greater Manchester, has championed devolution and used it to deliver radical change in Manchester, including the creation of an independent, round-the-clock bus network.
He has now called for the rolling out of a ‘Live Well’ service on a city-wide scale. He wants Manchester to be at the forefront of a more holistic approach to dealing with benefits, which would help build pathways for people to find jobs through community outreach.
Burnham said: “Devolution in Manchester has helped fix some broken things in the past. Now we want to do the same with the benefits system. It is currently seen as trying to trip people up and punish them, rather than helping them. Quite often it makes people feel worse about themselves.”
“We are now saying to government, let’s turn that perception around. We need a service that provides broad support for people to help them into work. There’s real hope that we can pioneer a new, and much more positive approach to benefits.”
Burnham also told the Today Programme on Radio 4 that by ‘routing the money through local community and voluntary sector, that money is circulated within the local community’.
Asked about why he wanted to devolve the benefits system further, given it could lead to greater fragmentation and lead to a different level of quality depending on where people live, Burnham said: “Well we will take responsibility for that as a Greater Manchester Combined Authority, I will be held to account on how many people we end up getting into work. We’re happy to be held to account because we’ve succeeded in getting more people into work.
“Just devolve to us how we do it. We know the organisations here and the ones who will succeed. Circulating that budget within local communities means that they can create more opportunities, including voluntary positions.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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