8th August 2026
The new government's plan to devolve employment support could transform the way people out of work are helped but Scotland has already been experimenting with a more local approach. Could Burnham's English reforms eventually put pressure on Scotland to go further?
There is an interesting development taking place almost unnoticed beneath the much bigger political stories.
The UK government is proposing to move responsibility for employment support closer to local communities in England.
The Institute for Government has welcomed the direction of travel, arguing that Andy Burnham is right to devolve employment support and that local strategic authorities are better placed to tailor help to their populations.
The idea is simple.
Instead of central government designing a collection of programmes in Whitehall and expecting local organisations to deliver them, give local areas greater freedom to design a system around their own labour markets and the people who need help.
It sounds like a new idea.
But Scotland has already been doing something rather similar.
What Burnham is proposing
The Institute for Government argues that the existing English system is too fragmented.
Different pots of money fund different programmes.
Different organisations deliver different services.
People can find themselves having to navigate several separate systems.
The proposed alternative is a more integrated local system.
A person with health problems might need help from employment services, the NHS, skills providers, housing services and voluntary organisations.
Why make that person navigate five different systems?
Instead, local government could provide something closer to a "single front door".
The Institute for Government points to Greater Manchester's Live Well initiative as an example of this approach.
The ambition is to connect employment support with health, adult skills, voluntary organisations and employers.
And that is where Scotland gets interesting
Scotland already has No One Left Behind.
Introduced in 2019, it was deliberately designed to move away from a collection of separate employability programmes towards a more flexible and person-centred system.
Scottish Government policy says the approach should be flexible, easier to navigate, better integrated with other services and focused on sustainable and fair work.
It is delivered through Scottish and local government rather than being simply a central government programme.
And it is not a small experiment.
Between April 2019 and December 2025, 104,595 people had started receiving support through No One Left Behind.
Around one-third — 32,952 people — had entered employment.
There were also substantial numbers progressing into education, training and qualifications.
There is a particularly important difference
The Scottish model is not simply about getting somebody into any job as quickly as possible.
It recognises that some people face several barriers at once.
These can include:
health problems;
disability;
childcare responsibilities;
caring responsibilities;
transport difficulties;
homelessness;
limited work experience;
and other disadvantages.
The latest Scottish figures show just how complicated the problem can be.
Around half of recent No One Left Behind participants reported at least one long-term health condition.
Disabled participants have lower employment outcomes than non-disabled participants and generally take longer to enter work.
That makes the connection with Burnham's reforms particularly interesting.
England is moving towards Scotland's territory
The Institute for Government's argument is that people who are out of work because of ill health often have multiple and complicated barriers.
A centralised employment programme may not be able to respond effectively to those differences.
Local authorities, it argues, are closer to the people and services involved.
That sounds remarkably similar to the philosophy behind No One Left Behind.
But there is an important difference.
Burnham's proposals are being developed within England's existing DWP benefits system.
Jobcentres remain part of the national benefits and conditionality system.
The Institute for Government therefore warns that devolving employment support without properly coordinating it with Jobcentres could simply create another layer of bureaucracy.
Scotland faces a different constitutional arrangement because employment support has already been partly devolved, while major elements of the benefits system remain reserved to Westminster.
Scotland doesn't control everything
This is an important distinction.
Scotland can design and fund its own devolved employability programmes.
But it does not control the entire welfare system.
Universal Credit, for example, remains a UK-wide benefit.
That means Scotland can offer additional employment support but cannot simply redesign the whole system around it.
This creates a complicated division of responsibility.
The Scottish Government can help somebody overcome barriers to employment.
But the UK Government controls many of the benefits and welfare rules affecting that person.
The same individual can therefore encounter two different systems.
Burnham's experiment could expose the weakness
This could become particularly interesting if the English reforms produce better results.
Suppose Greater Manchester, Liverpool, West Yorkshire or another strategic authority can demonstrate that a locally integrated employment system gets more people into sustainable work.
The question would inevitably become:
Why can't everyone have this?
That could put pressure on both Westminster and Holyrood.
England could begin asking for more local control.
Scotland could be asked why, having already developed No One Left Behind, it has not gone even further.
There is also a lesson for rural Scotland
This is where the argument becomes particularly relevant to places such as Caithness.
Local labour markets are not all the same.
What works in central Glasgow is unlikely to work in Wick.
What works in Manchester may not work in Caithness.
A major city has large numbers of employers within a relatively small area.
Caithness has a much smaller population spread over a large geographical area.
Transport is more difficult.
Specialist jobs are fewer.
Health services can be more distant.
Employers can struggle to recruit particular skills.
And a person without a car can face an additional barrier to employment.
A truly local employment system should be capable of recognising those differences.
The transport problem is easy to overlook
Imagine someone in Caithness who is unemployed and wants to return to work.
The barrier may not simply be a lack of jobs.
It could be:
"There is a job, but I cannot reliably get there."
That is an employment problem.
Or:
"I need training, but it is 50 miles away."
Another employment problem.
Or:
"I need a health appointment before I can return to work, but the relevant service is in Inverness."
Again, an employment problem.
This is why the idea of connecting employment support with health, transport, skills and local employers is potentially so important for rural Scotland.
But devolution is not automatically a solution
The Institute for Government makes an important warning.
Giving local authorities more responsibility doesn't automatically produce better results.
Local organisations need:
money;
skilled staff;
good data;
commercial expertise;
analytical capacity;
clear responsibilities;
and enough certainty about future funding to plan properly.
Otherwise Westminster can simply transfer responsibility without transferring enough resources.
That isn't really devolution.
It is delegation.
Scotland's own results are mixed — but revealing
The Scottish statistics should not be interpreted as proof that No One Left Behind has solved the employment problem.
About one-third of participants entering employment is significant, but it also means that many do not immediately enter work.
And the Scottish Government itself emphasises that success should not be measured only by whether somebody gets a job.
Progress can include gaining qualifications, moving into training, improving confidence and overcoming barriers.
That makes comparisons with English programmes complicated.
Nevertheless, Scotland has built considerable experience in trying to provide more personalised employment support.
Could Burnham change Scotland indirectly?
Possibly.
There are at least three ways this could happen.
1. England could become a competitor
If English mayors demonstrate that greater local control produces better results, Scotland may face pressure to improve its own model.
2. Westminster could change the UK-wide approach
If the Burnham reforms prove successful, future UK governments could consider devolving even more employment and welfare-related responsibilities.
That could reopen the debate about what should be controlled from London and what should be controlled in Scotland.
3. Scotland could decide to go further
The Scottish Government could argue that its existing No One Left Behind approach demonstrates the benefits of localised employment support.
It could then seek greater control over related areas such as benefits, health and skills.
That would move the argument from employment support towards the much bigger question of who should control welfare policy.
And there is a fascinating political irony
Andy Burnham is now trying to "rewire" the English state by moving power away from Whitehall.
Scotland has spent much of the devolution era arguing for precisely that principle.
But Scotland now faces an interesting situation.
It has more employment-support powers than England's local authorities currently possess.
Yet England's new reforms could potentially produce much stronger local integration.
So Scotland could end up watching England and thinking:
"We've already been doing this."
Only to discover that England may eventually do it on a larger scale.
The real test will be outcomes
Ultimately, none of this should be judged by how attractive the political language sounds.
The test should be:
Do more people get into sustainable employment?
Do people with health conditions receive better support?
Do employers find it easier to recruit?
Do fewer people become trapped outside the labour market?
Does the system cost taxpayers less in the long term?
And perhaps most importantly:
Does the system make sense to the person actually trying to use it?
If the answer to those questions is yes, then the argument for localising employment support becomes much stronger.
Could Scotland learn from England?
It may sound strange, but this could eventually become a two-way experiment.
Scotland has already developed No One Left Behind.
England is now moving towards a much more ambitious system of localised employment support.
Greater Manchester is experimenting with integrating employment, health and other services through its Live Well approach.
If the experiments work, politicians across Britain will have something valuable that is currently in short supply:
evidence about what actually works.
And that could be more important than the constitutional arguments.
Because whether the system is run from Westminster, Holyrood, Manchester or Highland Council, the person looking for work ultimately wants the same thing.
Someone to understand their circumstances, remove the barriers and help them find a job they can actually keep.
That may sound obvious.
But perhaps the most revolutionary part of Andy Burnham's proposal is the suggestion that the government should stop designing employment support around the system — and start designing it around the person.
And Scotland may discover that, despite having started down that road several years earlier, it still has a considerable distance to travel.
Read the Institute for Government article published on 7 August 2026 at
Andy Burnham is right to devolve employment support