Job centres need reform to help small businesses, survey finds

Britain’s job centres are in urgent need of reform, a survey has found.

According to the survey, carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), one in three small businesses found Jobcentre Plus ineffective.

The respondents called for Jobcentre Plus to move from being “an organisation that appears focused on processing benefits applications to one that supports work”.

The FSB said: “With unemployment set to rise to three million by the end of the year, it is clear that urgent action is needed.”

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The organisation said it was concerned that the lion’s share of funding from Jobcentre Plus is going to big businesses and multinationals, despite 57% of small businesses having said that they need to employ new staff, the Guardian reported.

John Wright, national chairman of the FSB, said that his members felt let down by a service that appears to offer them “precious little”.