The Department for Work and Pensions will shift its focus from welfare to work under a Labour government, the department’s new minister has said.

In a speech in Barnsley, Liz Kendall said more attention needed to be given to the factors affecting whether people could get work, including health, skills, childcare and transport.

Asked about Labour’s approach to benefits sanctions, the work and pensions secretary said there would continue to be conditions to look for work and consequences for not doing so but she wanted to see a greater focus on upfront support.

Labour has a long-term ambition of reaching 80% employment rate, which would be higher than any of the G7 group of developed nations.

About a quarter of people of working-age in the UK – nearly 11 million people – do not currently have jobs.

Around 9.4 million of these are not classed as “unemployed” but “economically inactive” because they are not actively looking for work or available to start a job.

However, more than 1.7 million say they want a job, with sickness or caring responsibilities the most common reasons they are not looking for one.

While the workforces of other leading economies have recovered since the Covid pandemic, the UK still has more people out of work than in 2019.

Ms Kendall said under the previous Conservative government, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had focused “almost entirely on the benefit system”, turning job centres into “a benefit monitoring service”.

“They paid nowhere near enough attention to the wider issues like health, skills, childcare, transport, that play such a huge role in determining whether you can get work, stay in work, and get on in your work,” she said.

She added: “Under my political leadership, the DWP will shift from being a department for welfare to being a department for work.”

Ms Kendall promised a “major overhaul” of job centres, bringing together Jobcentre Plus and the National Career Service to focus on helping people get into work, rather than managing benefit claims.

In government, the Conservatives had proposed tougher sanctions for people able to work who did not take jobs offered to them, alongside extra careers support

However, Ms Kendall argued the previous government’s “divisive rhetoric about strivers versus scroungers” did nothing to get people back into work, adding that the “vast majority” of those out of work face complex barriers to getting a job.

Conservative shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride said: “Since 2010 our reforms have successfully focused on getting people into work and off welfare with more than four million people in work.

“Rather than just spouting out aspirational targets Labour needs to set out a clear plan for how they are going to get more people into employment and reform welfare.”

Meanwhile, Ms Kendall said local mayors would be given new powers to tackle economic inactivity and develop local growth plans.

“We will give local places the responsibility and resources to design a joined up, health, work and skills offer that’s right for local people,” she said.