The National Employment Panel is composed of top business executives along with public sector and community leaders. We provide independent advice on welfare reform and labour market issues to Ministers in the Treasury, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Education and Skills.

The Panel is widely recognised as source of fresh ideas on employment and skills issues. We are interested in what works – in understanding what will help more unemployed people not only to get the right jobs, but to keep them and advance on their chosen career path. We are committed to innovation and excellence. We believe that welfare-to-work programmes must be designed and delivered to high standards if they are to prepare people to compete successfully in a competitive, knowledge-based economy.

The Panel concentrates its work in four key areas:

• engaging employers as a key customer in programmes that are designed to move people from welfare into work;
• helping to ensure that jobless people have the skills they need to meet business demand and to succeed in a competitive market;
• increasing the employability and life chances of disadvantaged people facing serious barriers to work;
• improving policies and challenging operational performance of the welfare-to-work system.

The Panel pursues its agenda in three ways. We influence public policy through 'action research' and reports which draw on our extensive networks of employers, policy-makers, academics and practioners. We design and test innovative approaches to improving employment and retention services for individuals and employers. And, through our ten Employer Coalitions, we engage employers directly in the design and delivery of local employment and training programmes.