Work Programme - creaming and parking rife

Tue, 19/02/2013 - 14:41 -- nick

The Work Programme has some significant performance issues, with only 3.5% of those who go through it finding sustained work compared to a minimum government target of 5%, and now research has cast doubt on the quality of support it provides and its effect on both clients and providers.

The Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) has been conducting interviews with both Prime contractors - the big, usually private-sector companies who lead each contract - and sub-contractors, who receive referrals from Primes and are supposed to provide in-depth support and specialist services to unemployed people.

TSRC has found that 'creaming' - working only with those who have few barriers and are easy to get in to work - and 'parking' - providing little or no support to those deemed hard to help - are rife:

"The study notes that ‘gaming’ – including creaming off those who are closest to the labour market, and ‘parking’ those who are hardest to help – is endemic within the programme."

The government has set a system which provides more funding for those with disabilities and health problems as well as others, but the study "found no evidence as yet that these differential payments had incentivised providers to work with harder to help customers - in part because the categories did not correspond to the groups they perceived to be hardest to help."

The Work Programme uses a payment by results system which means the lack of sustained jobs found by providers has fed through to less money being available throughout the scheme, entrenching the parking and creaming pattern as each provider needs money to flow more quickly to pay for overheads.

James Rees, part of the TSRC team that conducted the research, said ‘Despite positive government attempts to introduce payment incentives for harder to help groups, it appears that those who are furthest from the labour market or require specialist provision are not being catered for by the Work Programme in practice. It seems that reduced funding, coupled with a more competitive and commercial environment, may be undermining the success of the Programme. Interventions for many clients may be costly – but they may pay off in the long run.’

The TSRC study mirrors the findings of a BBC survey into Work Programme contractors by Panorama, reported by UnemployedNet, which found that 40% of those listed by the government as Work Programme providers say that they are not part of it, while another 40% had not had a single person referred for support.

Many providers believed that Prime contractors were compensating for their lack of performance-related payments by not referring clients for specialist support as this required funding.

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