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Expert identifies risks in Government work programme

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Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:53:00 GMT

Research Professor Dan Finn A host of risks, as well as innovations, are inherent in the government’s new Work Programme designed to help the unemployed into work, according to Professor Dan Finn, an international expert in welfare to work strategies.

Yesterday the National Audit Office (NAO) criticised the new Work Programme, saying it was launched too quickly without proper trials making it vulnerable to over-payments and puts an untenable onus on private providers rather than on government for easing unemployment.

Professor Finn, whose research helped inform the NAO report, agrees and has been asked, as part of a panel of witnesses, to give preliminary evidence to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee in February.

Professor Finn, of the University of Portsmouth, has expertise in the role private providers play in delivering welfare to work programmes in the UK, Australia, the US and the Netherlands.

The new Work Programme, launched in June, replaces previous ‘welfare to work’ schemes and aims to reduce the number of people claiming unemployment benefits. The new model will pay private providers who help welfare beneficiaries find work by results, including paying them more for finding jobs for the ‘harder-to-help’ claimants.

Professor of Social Inclusion in the School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies, Dan Finn, said the new programme was innovative and had achieved some significant success in launching rapidly, but that the government was optimistic to assume it would help significantly more people into work.

Professor Finn said: “Contracting out of employment services poses challenges to accountability, there is much scope for blame-shifting and the responsibility for poor performance is less obvious.

“The accountability of the programme is also more limited than that of public sector organisations because much of the work carried out by private providers is commercially sensitive or confidential. The government will have only limited insight into the ‘black box’ of front line delivery.”

Professor Finn said welfare programmes were in a state of continual flux in many countries as governments tried to minimise risks and costs and ensure more people who could work were working.

He cited three key problems with any contracted out welfare programme which continue to apply:

  • Creaming – where organisations paid to help people find employment concentrate their efforts on the most motivated or skilled in order to earn higher payments;
  • Parking – where organisations ‘park’ the most difficult to find jobs for;
  • Gaming – where organisations exploit weaknesses in the programme design so they might look like they are delivering on promises but they are not actually improving employment outcomes.

For those on the Work Programme, finding employment while being shepherded by a mix of private providers and the state is complicated, especially for the disadvantaged, according to Professor Finn. Risks include ‘failure to attend’, incorrect assessments and the imposition of sanctions. Such risks are likely to be increased under the Work Programme because the unemployed will have to work with a complicated mix of sub-contractors while also continuing to sign on for benefits, compounding the risks of mixed messages, poor service delivery and possibly unfair treatment.

“Comparative evidence confirms the importance of ensuring robust systems are in place to respond to complaints of unfair treatment and poor service delivery,” Professor Finn said. “In Australia minimum service guarantees are used, and as in the US, providers are held to account if users experience poor service delivery. 

“But in the UK, the Work Programme approach seems opaque with individual providers having their own standards, which may vary, and freedom in how they communicate their disputes and resolutions procedures. There does not seem to be any mechanism for collating complaints between contractors, Jobcentre Plus and the Department of Work and Pensions.

“Contracting out employment services poses challenges to political accountability. Ministers remain politically responsible for the outcomes and the effective use of public funds, though in practice, they will have little control over the actions of Work Programme contractors.”