Plans to close Jobcentre Plus offices could be reconsidered, the government has revealed.

Employment minister Tony McNulty said on Thursday that it would be a “no-brainer” to look again at the plans to close some of the centres.

The latest unemployment figures, for September showed that 1.82 million were out of work – the highest since 1997, and McNulty said the Department for Work and Pensions had to act.

“The closure plan for JobCentre Plus offices is a no-brainer, we should revisit it,” he said.

His boss, work and pensions secretary James Purnell, has rejected advisers’ calls for welfare-to-work reforms to be delayed.

From next week, lone parents with a child of 12 or over who apply for income support will be put on to Jobseekers' Allowance and expected to look for work or face sanctions - including having their benefits cut by up to 40 per cent.

By 2010, the rule will be extended to lone parents with a youngest child aged seven or over.

One senior government advisor has called for the measures to be delayed for two or three years.

Sir Richard Tilt, chairman of the Social Security Advisory Committee, told the BBC: “Benefit rates are relatively low and if you are going to reduce someone's benefit for a few weeks by 40 per cent you are pushing people much closer to poverty.

“Of course, the child will suffer, but it's not the child that has fallen foul of the system.”

But Purnell said “it would be wrong, at a time when it may be harder for people to find work, to provide them with less help.

“We know that our help works. We know that the help they get from the voluntary sector, from providers and from JobCentre Plus works, it changes people's lives.

“What we require people to do is come in and take up that help and when I talk to people about it they say: why didn't you make me do this earlier because it has changed my life.”