WELFARE will become a postcode lottery under government plans to decentralise jobcentres, Britain’s biggest Civil Service union has warned.

PCS union’s national president Martin Cavanagh said he expects Labour will link the universal credit benefits system in to cash-strapped councils tomorrow.

He issued the warning after Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) secretary Liz Kendall said jobcentres were no longer “fit for purpose.”

Mr Cavanagh told the Morning Star that PCS was having regular meetings with shadow DWP ministers when Labour was in opposition which stopped as soon as Liz Kendall became shadow DWP secretary last September.

In those meetings her now-junior minister for employment Alison McGovern MP floated the idea of working more closely with local authorities, he said, adding: “I think that is all part of that plan to decentralise the benefits system.”

Following Ms Kendall’s latest comments, Mr Cavanagh said PCS expected government will announce such measures when it unveils reforms aimed at reducing the welfare bill by £3 billion over five years tomorrow.

He said: “We sought an assurance that it would not happen. We were given that assurance — but just at the same time, they stopped meeting us. It’s part of a much bigger picture, all of this.

“They were using the words ‘working closer with local authorities.’ The worry for us is what they mean by that.”

Mr Cavanagh said PCS had urged Labour not to decentralise social security as this would introduce a postcode lottery of varying standards across the country as local authorities continue to face swingeing budget cuts.

He said the union recognised that there were, in theory, some advantages to decentralisation due to councils’ links with the local labour market.

But on the issue of in-work poverty — where lowly paid workers are forced to claim universal credit — he was firm: “We don’t believe they can decentralise any element of this,” he said.

Mr Cavanagh said it was very disappointing to see Ms Kendall giving “Thatcherite” and “short-termist” welfare soundbites to the press while ignoring the union’s written pleas to discuss welfare reforms with her since Labour got into power.  

He said: “We believe they should be sticking to their electoral pledge which is: ‘Make work pay.’

“That’s the only way to reduce the benefits bill: to provide good, meaningful work and invest in the infrastructure of the country.”

He said thousands of public-sector jobs could be created doing so, wheras sanctioning claimants will only “incentivise them into crime” or the low-paid work offered by cost-cutting employers. 

Disabled People Against Cuts founder Linda Burnip said: ”There is nothing logical in starving people and leaving them destitute if your aim is to get them into work.

“There is no evidence that sanctions work unless your real intentions are to kill off claimants — which the previous government and the DWP have been quite successful at doing.”

The Labour government has said it will stick to a commitment under the former Tory administration to reduce the welfare bill by £3 billion over five years.

Under the previous government, welfare eligibility would have been tightened so about 400,000 more people signed off long-term would be assessed as needing to prepare for work by 2028-29 to deliver the savings.

Yesterday Ms Kendall announced that young people will lose their benefits if they refuse to take up work and training opportunities.

She said claimants have a responsibility to engage with skills or employment programmes and will face sanctions if they decline to do so as part of reforms to be set out tomorrow.

The Work & Pensions Secretary said the government would “transform” opportunities with a “youth guarantee” as part of the reforms, but youngsters would in turn be required to take them up.

Ms Kendall said she believed “many millions” of disabled people and those with long-term health problems want to work, and “we need to break down the barriers to that happening.”

Ms Kendall, who will set out a package of measures in a White Paper tomorrow, suggested some people have “self-diagnosed” mental health problems but added that there is a “genuine problem” with mental illness in Britain.

Her words came after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer used a Mail on Sunday op-ed to promise a crackdown on “criminals” who “game the system.”