- "For JSA claimants aged 18 to 24, providers averaged 31.9% into sustained work in year two of the scheme against contracted levels of 33%
- for JSA claimants aged 25 or over, providers averaged 27.3% into sustained work in year two against contracted levels of 27.5%. This is a big improvement from year one, when no provider reached their contracted level of 5.5% for either group."
So it hasn't hit its target.
The actual stats are here. I haven't had a chance to look at them properly yet, so examine them for yourselves. Let's hope the media do a proper job on them.
5.3 percent of ESA customers got work - the target was 16.5 per cent. I note only 18 of the 40 hit or ecxeeded the targets.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the figures are anything to celebrate. As the figures show, over 70% of people over 25 did NOT gain sustainable employment and, for those under 25, the figure for people who did NOT gain sustainable employment is slightly less than 70% So, what I want to ask the Government is why are millions of pounds of public money continuing to be thrown away on the Work Programme when it leads to the great majority of participants still being out of work?
ReplyDeleteThe figures are misleading at best. They cover the period June 2011 to March 2013, a full two years. Also note that a single Job Outcome payment will attract a number of additional Sustained Outcome payments depending on how long a claimant remains in work.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the total WP attachments (1,160,800) against the number of Job Outcome payments (131,920), we see a "success" rate of just 11.36% - Pretty poor result, and little surprise that the providers are bleating about insufficient funding.
... i seem to remeber that 5.5% was the "do nothing" figure. so, over 2 years, you'd expect at least 11.0%.
DeleteBBC Radio 2 News report "132 thousand found work in March" which should be "in the first 22 months to March 2012".
DeleteI have Zoe Williams to thank for drawing my attention to this quote in the Economist from Daniel Knowles:
Delete"Over the last few months, as welfare cuts have started, questionable numbers have floated out of Iain Duncan Smith’s office into the public debate like raw sewage."
The BBC news article suggests the real success rate is more like 13% measuring by job outcomes, I don't know what these 31.9% and 27.3% figures are generated from, but whatever they are they're not based on long term work outcomes, they could include anything that is some kind of work as the DWP defines it.
ReplyDeleteSo having spent some time analyzing these figures in the office, I am fairly confident in making the following assumptions:
ReplyDeleteThe 30+% percent figure appears to represent ‘Job Starts’ not ‘Job Outcomes’, having spoken to some colleagues at Ingeus ‘Job Starts’ include work placements. So all those people put on 4 week placements with the likes of Pound Land are massively skewing that figure.
Far more interesting are the figures between 10-14% for claimants achieving ‘Job Outcomes’, these figures are taken from a very select group, claimants starting the programme in the last 12 months.
This is interesting as it eliminates anyone that is long term unemployed, as anyone that was 2years+ unemployed would have started the programme immediately (2 years ago), so the long term unemployed have finished the programme and are now being shipped back to the job centre as of June 2013. This massively benefits the work programme as it now only has to serve people reaching the 9month barrier, these people are obviously far more likely to find work and have far more recent experience than their previous cohort – hence the more favourable 10-14% outcome rate.
So what we can conclude is that the long-term unemployed have been through the system already, they achieved the famous 2.5-5.5% success rates. The long-term unemployed have been failed and are now being dumped out of the system. The shorter term unemployed, those hitting 6-9months (depending on their age group) are the same people that have been entering the system in the last 12months, and as such are the ‘lower hanging fruit’ and are creating the current 10-14% results. The 30% figures are pure crap and are essentially meaningless as they can include just about anything!
Thanks for that analysis. If you're right, the figures are dismal. But I fear it's a bit too subtle for the media.
DeleteCheap (but not at all cheerful) and "ineffective" is the verdict of the Financial Times:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2013/06/the-work-programme-cheap-and-ineffective/
"The problem is that it’s cheap and it isn’t working. "
"But when companies don’t hit their targets, they don’t get paid as much, whatever the context in which they are working. So we have a negative spiral: companies don’t perform, so they don’t get paid, so they put less money into finding work for the next batch of people, so they don’t find them jobs, so they don’t get paid, and so on."
Kind of sums up the inherent failing of PBR really. Some of us have been saying this for years but the government can't see it for blind prejudice.
Of the new more intense JCP regime they comment:
"This of course costs money, so it is interesting that rather than spend that money ploughing more resources into the Work Programme, George Osborne decided instead to give it to job centres and let them get on with doing what they do best."
Interesting that this was Osborne's decision and not IDS's.
So the providers' pleas for more dosh seems to have fallen on deaf ears and whatever cash is available is to be used to provide intensive "support" (aka bullying. harassment, punishment)by the JCP.
I wonder how many of these figures actually got their jobs because of being on the WP and how many would have got their jobs anyway.
ReplyDeleteOn the A4E Website their press release is glowing, but in the footnotes they do mention that the figures include Job starts and exclude certain parts of the WP.
DeleteGood to hear that folks are not buying Tory/DWP (now the same thing) spin and intrepreting the figures OBJECTIVELY. I have been on the WP now 18 months and although the advisors have been helpful I don't feel it has improved my chances of finding work. The real problem is a lack of work, something the gov't has done absolutely zero to address, prefering instead to blame the unemployed.
ReplyDeleteOnly in the world of govt contracts whether it be back to work schemes, IT contracts or security can companies be rewarded for failure!
ReplyDeleteMP's who have second, third or fourth jobs on top of being a politician insist that such extra work keeps them in touch with the 'real world'. In which world does excusing constant failure become acceptable?
Yep, the figures are appalling. And yes, no doubt Cameron, Clegg, Smith and Hoban will spin, twist and bluster to make them look good. However, if the W2W sector had to make money like many others, i.e. producing useful products or providing a vital service, there'd be heads rolling at the such poor performances. Or at the very least, questions as to why such a sector exists in the first place!
Interesting news report just heard on BBC R4. The DWP is hailing the WP a success (no surprise there) as "132,000 people had found work for 3-6 months".
ReplyDeleteSee how the criteria for success has been slackened. Originally the success was to be judged on how many found work for 6 months or more. Now it seems a mere 3 months is acceptable! What happens next year - will one month - six week be seen as a mark of long term success?
I suspect the statement may have been for 3 or 6 months - the former being the job outcome trigger point for JSA Early Access, the latter for everyone else. That's always been the definition, so probably not any sharp practice there.
DeleteAs for performance more broadly, I've been otherwise engaged today so haven't managed to pay sufficient attention to the detail, but someone asked me today whether the results mean it's working. My response was that if one defines success as including meeting contractual targe, 40 providers have in effect been collectively asked to meet 120 targets, have met or exceded 36 of them, have in many cases got fairly close to others and have missed around 40 by a country mile, then it's not really successful. Crude analysis that fails to reflect that some individual providers are doing reasonably well with JSA claimants, but like DWP, I'm happy to pick and choose my indicators.
The most one can say is that the approach, funding level and payment model appear to be sufficient to perform reasonably well for relatively 'easy' customers (for want of a better word) and more so in areas where the job market is reasonably buoyant, which is more or less what most people were saying before the WP was introduced.
Interesting variations between providers though - the good ones are around twice as good as the bad. Without looking at the variables a bit more it's difficult to consider what other factors are in play, but a quick looks suggests that NCG are not only the lowest performer overall (for JSA25+), but are also outperformed by their competitor in both CPAs they're delivering in, so maybe more to it than simply delivering in the wrong part of the country.
I encountered a former member of staff from the WP yesterday,one of the decent ones(?),we discussed the WP results and he laughed about them,sometimes the simple ideas are the best? like we devised a plan to get as many clients on apprenticeships as possible,it looks good on paper and counts as a job outcome..."It was the easiest sale we ever made" ???? The employer(Charities) were paid £2275 over 26 weeks,we topped this up £3.00 pw the apprentice was paid £90 pw,cost to us or the "Employer" £3 pw,after 6 Months claim the outcome payment
ReplyDeletereplace the apprentice with another one and repeat again
Private companies were a one or two go shot,but charities were already getting MWA(free labour) the best sales point was it saved their reputation as they now paid a wage(actually the DWP did)and youth unemployment falls,the apprentices did not complain as they earned more money and did not have to sign on....If they did complain the would be subject to sanctions,either way they were either earning for us or off the books.
Well that may explain to a degree what happens within the WP.
It certainly helps to explain the jsa < 25 figs.
DeleteSo at the end of 6 months the "apprentice" loses the job and is replaced by the next item of "stock". The redundant "apprentice" is then recycled back to the Job Centre and the merry go round continues.
hence the real figure is much closer to the 10-14% which is actually in all the statistical break downs. These 30%+ figures are a complete nonsense.
Delete