“This is why I love jobcentres: because they’re intensely hopeful places.” The employment minister, Alison McGovern, has just spent half an hour perched on the edge of a desk in a drab office block in Hoxton, east London, hearing from a group of job coaches.
“Intensely hopeful” is not the stereotypical view of jobcentres, whose staff have the role of checking up on benefits claims, as well as pointing the way to jobs. Jobcentres have faced repeated criticism, not least by McGovern’s boss, Liz Kendall, who says they are not fit for purpose.
