In response to the government’s welfare reforms announcement, Clean Slate launches three new programmes to support unemployed people and jobseekers
Clean Slate Training & Employment has responded to the welfare reforms announcement on 18 of April, 2025 with a range of measures designed to support unemployed people living with health conditions. A briefing webinar coinciding with the release of research data on the cost of living and its impact on low income social renters will take place in April.
The community enterprise announced three new programmes:
- Publication of a new guide to help jobseekers navigate welfare changes and access employment
- An upgraded, ‘money first’ employment support programme, offering integrated money coaching and personalised job preparation available remotely and from drop-in centres
- Extended traineeship programmes for people with lived experience of hardship to join support teams working in communities
The plan will be presented at a forthcoming webinar on 30th April 2025, together with the latest findings from cost-of-living research conducted among social tenants across the UK.
GETTING INTO LISTENING MODE
Clean Slate runs Quids in! money guidance, which offers a one-to-one money coaching service as well as an easy-read, personal finance information service for people on low incomes. In January 2025, Quids in! surveyed its readers and subscribers about the cost of living. They told us:
- 20% of people who are working age considered themselves unable to work faced serious financial difficulties. This was 25% higher than working age people in work, and almost times as many as older people
- 61% of working age people unable to work felt frightened, anxious or depressed; 54% skipped meals; 56% turned off the heating despite being cold; 45% fell behind with bills; Just 7% were ready to make/ earn more
- Of all respondents: Only 14% believed they could afford food if their money decreased; 24% felt on top of bills; 11% regularly set aside money for savings
Clean Slate founder Jeff Mitchell said: “We made a pledge to the communities where we work that we see them, we hear them, and we are them. It is vital their voices are amplified and that their hardship is understood. They are part of us, joining as peer worker trainees but over time populating our staff and management delivering coaching services. They help ensure our materials meet people’s needs and guide us towards the services that respond in real-time to the hard end of policy changes.
“We are pragmatic about government announcements and focus on the solutions we can offer. We’re not about propping up broken policies. We are all about helping people ready for change to sidestep further hardship and get ahead in terms of their finances and their wellbeing.”
REFORMS
Today the government announced plans to ‘get Britain working’. As with Universal Credit, new moves will allow long-term unemployed claimants to return to work without risking welfare payments through a ‘right to try’. They will add conditionality to people who are capable of work but continuing to claim incapacity benefits, through capability reassessments. Personal Independence Payments will be prioritised for those further from the labour market, leaving the rest under increased pressure to find work.
Clean Slate agrees people in poverty should not be locked out of work. Employment is generally good for people, offering stability, financial wellbeing, and the dignity of independence. Increased Universal Credit payments are welcomed because money worries are barriers to work. They limit a jobseekers’ ability to think beyond the next meal or rent payment, rather than advancing their employability. Policy changes always trigger sets of winners and losers, often not seen until after their implementation, so Clean Slate strongly advocates for a review process to negate the worst of the unintended consequences.
STEPS INTO WORK
In April, Clean Slate, through the Quids in! Professional Network, will publish a new guide, Steps Into Work. Like with their Guide to Universal Credit and the more recent Winter Money Matters, it responds to the needs of people on low incomes sometimes triggered by imperfect policy changes. It offers positive, practical steps readers can take. Our money-first approach lays the financial foundations for a pathway out of hardship. Contents for the Steps Into Work guide geared towards people with health conditions include:
- Clearing financial worries and navigating welfare as a route towards independence
- Making work work: How to ensure it pays, help available (eg, Access to Work), employment rights
- Practical preparations for work: ‘Clear Vision’ CVs, passionate personal statements, goal-setting and motivation
MONEY-FIRST EMPLOYMENT SUPPORT
Clean Slate is already piloting employment support programmes that take a money-first approach. Our Quids in! money coaches review participants’ financial resilience and job readiness, and generate personalised action plans to clear barriers to work. They will extend this activity, working with authorities, health commissioners and housing providers. More is available on the impact of these services upon request.
ELE-MENTS OF SUCCESS
They will also extend their ELE-Ments programme, which matches ‘Experts through Lived Experience’ to mentoring and paid work experience. The innovative traineeship programme helps jobseekers demonstrate their employability while training on the job and delivering support to people in hardship from local areas. (More than half of Clean Slate staff and junior management were recruited through ELE-Ments, creating a unique relationship between users and coaches.) Currently offered through their centres in the West of England and East London, Clean Slate aims to scale up the opportunities.
BRIEFINGS AND TRAINING
More than 5,000 frontline workers, managers and policy makers are subscribed to the Quids in! Professional Network. In addition to regular sector briefings relevant to professionals committed to tackling poverty and hardship, they run regular webinars to share insights and learning. On 30th April they will stage an event to review the proposed changes to welfare in the context of their latest cost-of-living research. Quids in! Professional Network will also announce a new training offer for frontline workers engaging people affected by the reforms, focusing on a money-first approach to engagement, practical steps and motivation to change.
Contact [email protected] or call 07548 627303.
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