Could DWP be the key to unlocking the growth mission?

One of the first headlines I saw after Friday’s reshuffle came with a familiar and unsurprising tone. Starmer signals plan to slash benefits with tough new welfare chief. It’s probably pretty accurate. The size of the welfare budget is a serious question for any Chancellor, and it’s one that will always be a priority for the Secretary of State.

But I’m not sure the bill is what the caricature suggests. Every time it is mentioned, the same assumptions surface: that it is about idleness, about people who could work but won’t. In truth, it is much more complicated. Large numbers are still poorly after the pandemic (either because of COVID or other difficulties or delays in accessing the healthcare they need, especially that associated with mental health). Young people are struggling to enter the labour market. Carers, students, and the early retired are all folded into the same “economic inactivity” bucket. A welfare system where health-related benefits are more generous than unemployment benefits. And beneath it all, an economy that has been stagnant for years, with R&D investment consistently behind our peers.

The cost of welfare is not a story of moral weakness. It is a story about the condition of the country.

And so the more interesting angle on the reshuffle is not just the arrival of Pat McFadden, but the shape of what he’s being tasked with: a new super-department, forged from DWP and the skills side of DfE, aligned with the government’s number one priority of economic growth.

At the end of last year I wrote about my thoughts on the foundations for mission-led government and if those foundations haven’t been built then there should be concern about whether this reshuffle will be positive for momentum or not. Machinery of government changes should never be carried out lightly, and reshuffles, by their nature, invite uncertainty about whether the priorities of one team carry through to the next. But if missions mean anything at all then it is surely that the work of government is about more than the individuals currently in a post and we won’t be about to experience whiplash with changes in the direction of policy.

McFadden seems to be someone who’s bought into those ideas. He does not start from a blank page and has been one of the chief advocates for mission-led, test-and-learn approaches to government. And so the intent of his new brief is clear: make skills and work the engine for growth, from which all the other missions fly. So now is not the moment to abandon the missions but double down on them (it would be excellent to bring in some of the deep expertise of my former colleagues at the OECD, which is probably an organisation that’s still not being recognised for the value it could offer).

But I think DWP has always been seen by this government as the basis for the growth mission: you can see it in the Get Britain Working white paper, it was evident in the decision to fold the National Careers Service into DWP from DfE, and you couldn’t get more explicit than the departing Secretary of State describing DWP as “the HR department of the growth mission.”

I grant the metaphor is not an easy one. Most of us have known HR at its worst: impersonal, process-driven, existing only for the business. But many of us have also known it at its best: defending fairness, investing in people, making things possible. The truth is that both sides matter. HR exists first for the business but its credibility depends on the fact that without people, the entire enterprise is pointless.

Both roles are essential.

Maybe what follows is over-extending the metaphor too far but I do think there’s some great storytelling potential for leaning into it and imagining what things might look like if we took it seriously and where it might take the conversation about our skills, careers, work and welfare.

HR for the business: UK plc, employers, the economy

The reason that many of us have tainted perspectives on HR is because it can’t serve two masters: it will always have to satisfy the business first. That is ultimately its prime directive, and it fulfils it in a host of ways.

One job, perhaps the primary job, of HR is to make the ambitions of the business possible by ensuring people are in place to deliver them. For the UK, the same is true. If the government is serious about its ideas for achieving change then it needs to answer the most basic question:  where do we need what, and how do we get the people who will make it happen? That is a function HR fulfils for a business.

That means planning the future of the workforce: anticipating tomorrow’s skills needs, building training routes that can be agile and responsive and not rely on years of lead time. It means spotting the links: how transferable skills in one sector can move people into another; how to build progression pathways that exist in practice, not just on paper. If 1.5 million homes need to be built, do we have the bricklayers and electricians lined up?

HR also runs recruitment. And in a good company it is always working to improve it. That means going beyond a jobs board. It means sourcing candidates, defining and publicising pay benchmarks, helping employers to run good, inclusive, processes, making the recruitment process itself something that works rather than deters.

That of course feeds into the nuts-and-bolts of hiring. In a business, HR smooths the path from “we need a person” to “they’re at their desk.” In between are the right to work checks, payroll, pensions. Government can’t take all that away, but it could do far more to take the sting out of it. Imagine if the offer of Find a Job for employers wasn’t just to list a vacancy but to smooth that path: application tracking of reference-verified candidates, right-to-work checks already complete at the moment a job offer is accepted, qualifications surfaced through the GOV.UK Wallet, seamless hooks into all the HMRC processes to organise payroll and pensions. Given that the increase in employer NICS has made it more expensive to hire someone, the least government could do is design away the pain of the process. If every sole trader looking to expand with their first hire could do that as easily and securely as possible, what might that do for growth?

Then there is the question of scale. In a multi-national or franchise, headquarters sets standards while local offices interpret them in context. This is another helpful lens for DWP. The national picture matters, but it is a composite of highly local realities, and highly devolved realities too (when it comes to skills and careers though not welfare). Nevertheless, the outgoing Minister for Employment was right to stress this: the country is not a single labour market but many. It’s absolutely right that the centre needs to be able to understand the national picture but all of that is always in service of local autonomy because it is only local actors, on the ground, who know exactly what’s needed.

And underpinning all of the above is data. The OECD’s data-driven public sector framework says it’s helpful to think about the public value of data in three tenses: the data that helps you forecast and plan for the future; the operational data that allows you to deliver services; and the evaluation data that helps you to learn and then test new ideas. Businesses need to do all three, and so does the state. HR straddles the macro with the micro – because it knows its people individually – who’s on the books, what skills they hold, what development they’ve undertaken. That intelligence is what allows the rest of the business to plan.

We must also be honest: this business-first role has a hard edge. It can mean managing redundancies, enforcing unpopular policies, and making decisions where the needs of the organisation outweigh the desires of the individual. And that remains consistent with the DWP’s role in managing the conditionality of people’s benefits and access to welfare.

A people team for the people: employees, jobseekers, and everyone in between

The best HR departments manage to disguise the underlying truth that they exist, first and foremost, for the business. They do this by taking seriously the idea that people are the most valuable asset an organisation has. They act as advocates and coaches, as custodians of fairness, as champions for your potential.

That is what DWP must learn to do if it is to step into its new role. At its most basic level, it already holds the contract between citizen and state: National Insurance in, pensions and benefits out. But it’s too easy for that to feel like bureaucracy – opaque, conditional, and impenetrable. What if it felt like a promise instead? Clear, consistent and above all dignified. I’m fairly sure that it’s more helpful for restoring public trust to treat people like partners in a relationship, not entries in a CRM.

But here the HR metaphor meets its sternest test. An unhappy employee can quit their job; a citizen cannot quit the state. A corporate HR department has influence, but the DWP has statutory power. It can impose conditions and apply sanctions that affect a person’s ability to eat and heat their home. To ignore this coercive power is to render the comparison meaningless. Therefore, if DWP is to be a true “people team,” it cannot simply adopt the language of partnership. It must earn it by transforming the experience of that power. The goal must be to make every interaction feel like a supportive intervention designed for success, not a threat designed to ensure compliance.

That shift begins with the experience itself. Whether you are unemployed, looking to change career, or simply need support at a point of transition, the encounter with DWP should feel like investment: that your ambitions matter, that you are seen and heard, that someone is rooting for you. As someone married to a teacher, I get to see first hand how inspirational the dedication and care is of those who spend their time committed to the growth and development of the people they serve (for the rest of you, then make sure to watch Educating Yorkshire). Let’s do more of that.

Too often, interactions with government feel like back-office transactions: entitlements checked, boxes ticked, conditions satisfied. And the increasing capability of technology to make that seamless and self-service will only increase the distance people feel from their government. A true people team would coach and mentor. It would be a partner in achieving your ambition, helping you to see the next step and encouraging you to take it. This isn’t just about getting you into work and then moving on; it’s about building a lifelong service, personalised to the segment of you.

From that flows a richer idea of contribution. In most organisations, HR is the bit that champions volunteering, community links, the Children in Need raffle. At national scale we need the same imagination. Carers, volunteers, mentors, those giving their energy to strengthen their communities: their work may not appear on a payslip, but it is every bit as foundational. The label “economically inactive” gets applied so vaguely that it demeans many people who are in fact sustaining society. A people team worthy of the name would not tolerate that distortion.

That change of attitude then shapes the functions. A good employer doesn’t leave new starters to fend for themselves; they orient them, welcome them, and show them the ropes. Why should it be different when you are a young person leaving school, a migrant arriving in the UK, a veteran adjusting to civilian life, or a parent returning after years away? How can DWP play its part in helping onboard people so that disorientation turns into dignity?

It means preparing for change. HR does not just pick up the pieces after redundancies. It has the foresight to understand how to handle redeployment before the point of crisis. DWP already moves to support people when businesses fail but the response of government can seem a bit passive and reactive and almost in denial about the causal effect of other policies (undoubtedly a holdover from the pretence that Brexit hasn’t wrecked numerous parts of our economy) or denial about the scale of coming change. The HR department of the country has to be brutally frank in spotting decline in industries so that it can proactively support people into growth sectors and cushion the shock of economic change with foresight and support.

And that’s all well and good when it comes to employment or training but HR departments also know that wellbeing is infrastructure. Nobody thrives at work if they are struggling outside it. Housing insecurity, poor health, and caring responsibilities are not distractions from employment. They are the ground on which employability rests. To champion wellbeing is not an indulgence, it is strategy. If HR is the custodian of conditions for success, then at a national scale, that means linking housing, health, and caring support directly into employment services to give people the best chance of finding, securing, and enjoying their perfect job

Finally, despite current trends to attack and deny it, diversity, equality and inclusion are non-negotiable. Everyone with any sense knows the drag created by exclusion and unfairness. For a country, the stakes are higher. Structural barriers mean talent is lost far too early: disabled applicants who can’t access interviews, returners to work who stay stuck on the sidelines, over-qualified but under-recognised migrants stuck in the limbo of asylum. Tackling those barriers head-on is not a compliance exercise. It, too, is fundamental to growth.

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Of course, this vision of a national ‘people team’ is not a simple switch that can be flicked. It faces three immense hurdles.

The first is financial: a proactive, coaching-led service requires significant, long-term investment in people and technology, a difficult case to make when the political narrative is relentlessly focused on cutting the welfare bill.

The second is political: it requires the courage to abandon the familiar “tough on welfare” rhetoric that is often seen as a vote-winner, and to persuade a sceptical public of the benefits of this supportive model.

The final hurdle is bureaucratic: transforming the culture of a vast, process-driven institution like DWP (whose operational responsibility is for the critical national infrastructure of our public employment service) is a monumental task of reform.

These are not reasons to abandon the ambition. They are reasons to be clear-eyed about the scale of the task. The journey from a department of compliance to a champion of potential is a marathon, not a sprint, but having eyes on the prize is the essential first step.

The invitation – colleagues, not claimants

The easy temptation is to keep talking about DWP and welfare in the language of constraint: cutting the bill, tightening the rules, and proving toughness.  But we have tried that for decades, and our rhetoric only grows darker. You do not dispel darkness with more darkness. You do it by introducing light.

And the light, in this case, is a change of posture. For too long, government has struggled with the language of relationship: are the people who walk through DWP’s doors citizens, claimants, users, customers? Each of those terms reduces the person to a role in a transaction. But if DWP is to be the HR department of the growth mission, then perhaps the right word is a simple one: colleagues.

That also means breaking with another habit — the one that talks about people as “resources.” Anyone who has sat in a meeting about “resource planning” knows the awkwardness of hearing human lives and talents reduced to the same terminology as office space or laptops. If the growth mission is to succeed, DWP cannot fall into the same trap. People are not resources. They are contributors and collaborators.

And that is the real shift in departmental purpose. Not simply to manage entitlements, or to enforce rules, but to treat those who depend on DWP as partners in the shared mission of growth. Will people walk away from their encounters with the department feeling like they’ve been begging for scraps, or like partners in a bigger story whose contribution is valued and recognised and whose dignity is the priority?

​​Hold on to that test and the blueprint begins to make sense. DWP must be HR for the business of the economy. It must also be the people team for its colleagues; for us all. Both roles are essential. Neither works without the other.

If the new Secretary of State can carry that twin vision, if he can step into the role of Chief People Officer for the nation, then his new department will not only manage welfare. It will champion potential, invest in trust, and maybe, just maybe, let people sing about the goodness of the state.