Tuesday 27 November 2012

The Work Programme - what we now know

Two quotes from that grisly Emma Harrison interview on Channel 4 News:
1.  (about the leaked A4e figures) "They're wrong."
They were right.
2.  "The Work Programme is the most successful programme we've ever run."
It isn't. 
The one thing that's missing from the data released so far is the comparative figures for the providers, at least in a form that means something.  So we don't yet know how A4e compares with the others.
Everything else is out there.  The dead weight figure for the first year was 5%, the number expected to get jobs without the WP or any other intervention.  So the target of 5.5% was very low.  The actual figure achieved is 3.5%.  There were 200,000 breaks in claiming, which the ERSA (the providers' trade body) wants to spin as 200k jobs.  Mark Hoban on the Daily Politics claimed that one in four have found work.  Iain Duncan Smith says that more than 50% have come off benefits.  Yeah, right.
The best summary, surprisingly, comes from the Daily Mail.  What a pity they spoil it by referring to people "returning to claim handouts".  Hoban intends to write to the worst-performing providers telling them to produce an action plan.  A far cry from the original promise to "sack" them.
There's a fair bit more talk to come today, much of it trying to prove that black is white.

7 comments:

  1. According to the Guardian, Ingeus managed 3.3% in the North East whilst A4E managed 2.8% in the South of England:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/27/work-programme-long-term-jobs

    The media are doing well. Most of them have been able to separate the spin from the facts.

    Channel 4 News have gone quiet, which leads me to wonder whether their Social Affairs team are getting ready for a major splurge on Channel 4 News this evening?

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  2. It is possible to get the results by provider from the DWP website, but it is a bit fiddly.

    You can get the job outcomes per provider & contract here under the heading "Work Programme - validated job outcome figures"

    http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/index.php?page=wp

    But you have to use the "DWP Tabulation tool" to generate your own list of the attachment figures by provider here (and you need to divide one by the other and times by 100 to get yr %, obv)

    http://83.244.183.180/WorkProg/tabtool.html


    The Guardian have done it for you here. All the results are grim. A4e are more or less at the average level of failure. Seetec and Prospects do especially bad

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/nov/27/data-work-programme-failures

    cheers
    Solomon

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  3. To add to the above, Some woman from the ERSA on BBC R4 claimed that the WP was the cheapest back to work prog ever.

    Of course it would be, because as, Labour MP Ann Begg pointed out, with a PBR (Payment By Results) system, less clients on the WP finding employment means less money legitimately claimed by the WP providers for getting said clients into employment. So less spent overall. Simple.

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  4. It would be interesting to know just how much of the "200,000 breaks in claiming," and "50% have come off benefits" were down to imposed sanctions....either way it's a desperate bid to make a complete failure sound worthwhile.

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  5. I worker out it cost about £166,000 per job *destroyed*.

    We can save £5 billion by scrapping the scheme.

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  6. Now Historian: You say "The actual figure achieved is 3.5%."
    Actually the 12 month figure which we should be using is nearer 2.5%. Naughty politicians have attempted a spin by comparing 14 months results with a 12 month target! Or maybe a year now consists of 14 months?
    I really must remonstrate with you! I feel it's a bit unecessary to refer to the sainted one as "grisly"!.....Oh I see! It's the interview that's grisly .... my mistake.

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  7. Thse results reflect badly on the worst government Britain has ever had. I'm beginning to understand what "Broken Britain" means. It's really time for a general election.

    ReplyDelete

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