“We welcome the report’s key recommendation that the Government needs a long-term plan for responding to the changing world of work - and ensuring existing inequalities in the labour market are not exacerbated as a result of technology.
“Boosting investment in lifelong learning should be central to this plan, as well as revitalising our vocational education and training system to enable people to upskill or retrain at different stages of their working lives.
“Reforming the Apprenticeship Levy into a more flexible training levy is a key policy change if the system is to be more responsive to employers’ skills requirements. This will also enable businesses to work more effectively with further education providers to support adult skills development.
On bringing forward the Employment Bill
“We agree there needs to be greater clarity over employment status and rights and this should be a priority for Government. Just as important is improving how employment rights are enforced, particularly for those in low paid and insecure employment, so it is also crucial that the new single market enforcement body receives sufficient resources to do its job when it is established. There’s a need to significantly boost the number of inspectors and increase the number of proactive inspections of workplaces if the new body is to be more effective than existing enforcement mechanisms.”
On improving employment opportunities for disabled people
“The committee is right to call out the need to improve opportunities for disabled people through Kickstart and Restart. There also needs to be much more engagement with employers around the existing voluntary disability data reporting framework, to encourage more organisations to improve practice over how they recruit, manage and develop disabled people. For example, more employers should be ensuring that line managers are aware of their responsibilities around making reasonable adjustments; these are often perfectly achievable, such as providing flexibility over working patterns, and can make a big difference.”
