Return Jobcentres to 2004 funding and staffing levels

6.18.38pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 20th Jul 2009

With the Office for National Statistics reporting the largest quarterly fall in the working age employment rate since comparable records began in 1971, Jonathan Chatfield the Lib Dems' parliamentary spokesperson for South East Cambridgeshire is calling for Jobcentre funding and staffing to be brought back to 2004 levels, with extra resources for Ely and Newmarket.

Jonathan Chatfield said:

"The ONS statistics show that the unemployment crisis is far worse than that experienced in previous recessions and that the Government is not bringing Jobcentre resources back to previous levels.

"It says its providing 16,000 extra Jobcentre staff, yet according to the Public and Commercial Services Union between 2004 and 2007 the number of Jobcentre staff were cut by 18,000.

"Moreover Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander has discovered that in just 12 months to April 2008 £40 million was saved from Jobcentre cuts at a time when Vince Cable the Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson was warning of the coming recession.

"The Jobcentre service has become so dire that a British Chamber of Commerce survey of 3,000 employers shows that less than a third - 28% -bother to use Jobcentre Plus to recruit staff.

"The biggest unemployment rises are in manufacturing, farming and in low skilled work and the crisis is therefore hitting the rural parts of South East Cambridgeshire. The true extent of the problem is being masked by the Cambridge effect where employers such as the NHS and the university are keeping overall unemployment figures below average.

"So extra resources need to be targetted at the Jobcentres in Ely and Newmarket.

"To tackle the worst recession faced since the great depression we have to start by reversing the cuts made to the Jobcentres over the past five years. The government's current plans go nowhere near this."