Sir Charlie Mayfield, the former John Lewis chair, has said tackling unemployment linked to long-term illness will unlock economic growth that is “hiding in plain sight”, as more than 250 of the UK’s biggest employers sign up to his Get Britain Working taskforce.
Among the companies that have joined are British Airways, Tesco, Royal Mail, Sainsbury’s, EDF Energy and Currys, alongside several government departments and 10 mayoral authorities including London and Manchester. Official figures put the cost of the issue to the UK at £212bn a year.
“Former John Lewis chair Sir Charlie Mayfield says tackling long-term illness unemployment could unlock 'growth hiding in plain sight'.”
“I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who said: ‘I was signed off work for three months, or six months, and I never had any contact with my employer at all,’” Sir Charlie told the BBC. “That’s not because the employer is a bad person. It’s because we’ve got a situation at the minute where people don’t talk to each other when they really need to.”
The taskforce aims to prevent people dropping out of work due to ill-health and encourage those signed off to return. Companies involved will track sickness absence, return-to-work outcomes and disability participation – a move the government said would make workplace health performance visible for the first time.
However, some employers have previously said that tax rises mean many firms cannot afford to invest, while others have warned against pushing ill people into work.
Sir Charlie’s intervention comes as pressure mounts on Andy Burnham, widely expected to take over as prime minister later this month, to reduce the UK’s welfare bill. According to government figures, total welfare spending in Great Britain is forecast to be 23.6% of total government spending in the 2025-26 financial year.
“Fixing these problems at the fundamental level could make a really big contribution to getting this economy working better – for employers, for employees, for the taxpayer, for all of us,” Sir Charlie said. “This is not a zero-sum game. It’s not a question of employers win and employees lose and vice versa. Everybody can win.”
He suggested Burnham would back the plans. “I can’t see any reason why he wouldn’t because of what Andy has said about good growth. If this isn’t good growth, I’m not sure what is, quite frankly.”
Sir Charlie emphasised that getting people back into work who are currently not working due to ill-health would be a straightforward way of expanding the workforce. “You wouldn’t have had to build a single house, open a new channel of immigration, you wouldn’t have to wait for a cohort of young people to join the workplace. This is basically growth hiding in plain sight.”