FactCheck: Is the Work Programme worse than nothing?
The claim
“These figures are the first indication that the Work Programme has had a promising start in what’s been a very difficult labour market.”
Chris Grayling, 9 July 2012
The background
The latest unemployment figures show that the number of people out of work for more than six months has increased by 49,000 to reach 1.41 million.
The government’s answer to the problem of long-term unemployment is the Work Programme, the biggest ever welfare-to-work scheme in UK history.
Under the scheme, private companies are tasked with finding jobs for the unemployed, and are paid by results, with each “prime” provider getting up to £14,000 for everyone who stays in a job for two years.
Since its launch, the Work Programme has bitterly divided opinion, and we’ve FactChecked numerous controversial aspects of this flagship coalition policy before.
But the biggest question at a time of chronic high unemployment has always been: is it working? The government refused to let the prime contractors publish their early performance statistics, and we were forced to rely on leaked documents to get a glimpse of how well some companies were doing.
But today ministers broke the resounding silence with the first eagerly-awaited statistical release about how the earliest entrants have fared.
The analysis
The Department of Work and Pensions publication covers the first cohort of 28,600 unemployed people who joined the Work Programme when it kicked off in June last year.
It says 48 per cent of them had a break in their benefit claim at some point during their time on the programme. Some 24 per cent had a continuous break in benefits claims of 13 weeks. And 14 per cent had a continous break of 26 weeks.
So about a quarter of people who joined the Work Programme a year ago stayed off benefits for at least three months in a row.
Clearly, these numbers could be worse. A significant number of people moved off benefits in the opening months of the Work Programme.
But then we would always expect some people to come off benefits. That’s the nature of the job market. Even if the government did absolutely nothing to help them, a certain percentage of people would find work off their own bat.
The Work Programme can only be said to be “working” – or having any effect at all – if providers are doing better than this “non-intervention” rate.
We know DWP came up with a figure for the non-intervention rate, because it was used to calculate the success rates that the Work Programme providers have signed up to deliver. If the companies don’t achieve results above the baseline rate, they will struggle to make a profit.
There was some reluctance to share this magic number with FactCheck, and indeed we don’t think the department has ever published the non-intervention rate.
But the National Audit Office (NAO) did spill the beans in this report, published earlier this year.
The watchdog said DWP had told them it would have expected 28 per cent of jobseekers to find a job without help from the Work Programme. That’s an average that cuts across various groups of jobseekers of different ages and characteristics over the lifetime of the programme.
So when we learn today that only 24 per cent of the first Work Programmers have come off benefits for at least three months, that puts things in an unflattering perspective.
The government would no doubt respond that we would not be comparing like with like by putting those numbers side-by-side, and that’s perfectly true.
For a start, it’s not as if the 24 per cent mentioned in today’s release have even actually found jobs. They’ve simply stopped claiming benefits, for whatever reason. For many that reason will be failing to sign on, moving abroad or going into education or training.
ONS figures for the last three months show that on average, just under half the long-term unemployed people who came off Jobseeker’s Allowance actually did so because they found work, according to analysis by the Social Market Foundation.
That makes today’s numbers look even more pessimistic – but we should be careful not to jump to conclusions about this data.
It’s only fair to point out that the National Audit Office questioned the government’s methodology in coming up with the non-intervention rate, saying it was based on research done when the economy was in better shape.
So it could be that the benchmark has been set unrealistically high. Although if that’s the case it won’t help the government dodge accusations of failure.
If civil servants messed up when they set the non-intervention rate too high, they will have made it almost impossible for their private sector partners to make a profit, jeopardising the long-term future of the whole project.
Most importantly, the scheme has only been up and running for a year, and Work Programme providers have up to two years to work with jobseekers.
As with any newly launched project of this scale, we would expect performance to increase steadily over time, which is what happened in the case of the Flexible New Deal, Labour’s payment-by-results predecessor.
In fact, today’s data is so limited – by DWP’s own admission, in fairness – that it’s difficult to draw any concrete conclusions. We’re talking about a very early snapshot of a very small group of people, and the outcomes are not directly comparable to the first official performance indicators that will be published in the autumn.
The verdict
So while we’re going to leave Mr Grayling in the middle of the FactCheckometer, we also don’t think there’s enough in this release to back up shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne when he says: “It is a cut and dried case that the Work Programme is sinking under the weight of unacceptably high unemployment.”
Mr Byrne might be in for a field day later this year if the Work Programme providers are doing worse than the government’s own estimate of what would have happened if ministers had just sat on their hands. If that turns out to be the case the Work Programme will begin to look like a multibillion-pound flop.
More neutral commentators like ERSA, the industry body for the welfare-to-work industry, said today’s figures mirrored their own research into early outcomes but added: “This is a very narrow release of data from which the overall success of the Work Programme cannot be judged.”
We’re also reluctant to criticise the government for releasing some information – limited though it is – since we are among the commentators who have been calling for them to come clean.
By Patrick Worrall
There are 32 comments on this post
It would be interesting to see where this 28,600 was based. As there are VAST variations of the job market country wide.
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Oh funny, Tory govt selective with statistics to put them in a positive light and deliberately withholding the crucial statistics on non-intervention outcomes.
This is becoming one of the most dishonest governments in living history. By some margin.
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You should look at the New Deal, Labour’s “answer” to the problem of long term unemployment. Under 20 percent of those going through it got sustained work, most of them not among the longer term unemployed it was supposed to be aimed at. And that was when the economy was in much better shape than now. None of these government sponsored schemes are any good. Just there to show the middle classes that the unemployed are working for their benefits.
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Do we have any idea how many of these people stopped signing on because they were sanctioned?
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Its not more dishonest than the last lot,they are all the same,liebour fib dem CONservative,dont trust any of them and you wont go far wrong.
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i was just about to say that! because people on a seetec work program for 2 years or less will have sanctions put against there benefits if 1/ they refuse to do voluntary work 2 /fail to turn up for the weekly 2hr jobsearch 3/ go sick for any reason and cannot attend the 2hr jobsearch even if a doctors certificate is handed in 4/ if any attendie to seetec comments on anything that may belittle seetec in any way 5/ genuinally found work, no you can see how the benefit figures are worked out, it does not mean these jobseekers have all found work just means there benefit has stopped for one of these reasons shown above,mainly reasons 1 – 4.These work programs belittle the jobless, we find it hard enough to find sustainable paid work, let alone being forced and i realy mean forced to do unpaid voluntary work.They say it is compulsary for any seetec member to undertake voluntary work or they will have a sanction on there benefits , which means 1/ voluntary is not voluntary 2/ you will lose your benefit for a certain amount of weeks if you don’t co-operate and agree.So really they have you by the short and curlies.If you are unemployed and you are unfortunate to attend seetec you have…
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I think you are being way too soft on the Government. These figures represent the absolute best possible spin of the date they could come up with. Even then, it looks as though the Work Programme is performing worse than the Government thought could be achieved without any policy intervention. Grayling’s abuse of statistics continues.
Their ‘ad hoc analysis’ of young people entering employment since the start of the Youth Contract, also published today is even more risible. One page long and containing a single figure i.e. 17,000 young people have entered employment from the Work Programme since the Youth Contract started. Notice this is not 17,000 Youth Contract jobs, just that 17,000 have entered any kind of employment. I would have thought the Youth Contract starts would be less than half of this figure which is pathetic. The Future Jobs Fund was creating around 10,000 paid placements a month.
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Cathy/Patrick,
Let’s assume the pro-programme claims are all true (they aren’t of course, but let’s be charitable), that leaves only 2.6 million to go…….
In short, what a load of useless sophist BS and lies it all is.
As always the CamCleggies are exposed by their own words and actions. Grayling couldn’t even bring himself to say “unemployed” or “on the dole.” Plainly, “very difficult labour market” has moved into the same lexicon as “friendly fire.”
Remember that next time you or so someone close to you is put out of work and is no longer a member of “the middle class.”
(While we’re engaged with words – if there’s a middle class, what and who are the classes on either side? Just asking……..)
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One major supporter/beneficiary of the program here in Glasgow is Response, owned by ‘Sir’ D. Murray. Ask Alex Thomson about him…
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If the deadweight figures are calculated from a random sample within a particular group.
Then the WP (if it was any good) should easily exceed that deadweight figure.
Simply because once on the WP, the group is no longer random ie. the WP advisors can choose which are the most ‘work ready’ and concentrate the most “help” on them.
If what we’ve seen so far is true, then they seem to barely reach even the deadweight figure.
@Kay Fabe They still have to sign-on when sanctioned, some figures here;
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=4371
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After 9 months 24% of this June group have been off benefits for 26 weeks or more.
If this trend continues at the end of 2.5 years, the last possible date people like A4e will get paid for achieving this, this June group will reach 80%.
If only half actually are in work this is still 40% – isn’t this exactly what the NAO said the DWP expected (a good result)? How can you report this as unflattering news?
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Unfortunately past experience of these ‘courses’ is that 24% in 6 months does not translate into 48% in a year. More like 28%. Once people have been on these courses for six months or so the chances of them leaving it with a ‘job outcome’ drop like the proverbial lead balloon.
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If the purpose of the welfare to work programme is to massage the benefit figures the jury is still out. But as an example of integrated thinking it has already failed. The social cost of unemployment, and the large number of people taking jobs for which they are overqualified , continue to rise. Small businesses continue to struggle or fail. Public services are stretched to their limit and voluntary organisations are facing ever increasing need. Surely there must be another way forward which also gives people back their self respect ?How about using the £14,000 to pay part- time wages for up to 2 years to enable individuals to use their abilities to work anywhere in the private, public or voluntary sector . Individuals would be contributing and gainingmexperience to use when more jobs become available and the scheme could help to boost the whole country socially and economically instead of putting more money into multi million pound businesses. We could call it quantitative easing.
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The Baloneous Flexible New Deal was a Payment Up Front contract, not payment by results.
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Maybe why it was so poor at getting those unemployed for over 5 years into work. After all, why put in a lot of effort if you’re going to get paid no matter what happens. What a marvelous system! What good value to the taxpayers!
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The non intervention rate applies to all jobseekers. Yes, maybe 28% would go into work without intervention. The Worl Programme works with people who have been unemployed long term. Some clients have never worked. It isn’t a fair test to use these two numbers for comparison.
@Gopher. The work programme does allow that, however it is a provider’s decision. Having studied the wp and the different providers, most work with all clients and staff are targeted on the regularity of contact as well as the quality of it.
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Then again, what use is a scheme costing millions that cannot get the “hard to help” into work? Surely that’s the point of these schemes, isn’t it? Easier to get those only just made redundant back into work. Those who’ve not worked for 5 years plus are precisely the ones needing the help – but they aren’t getting it, according to the results. It isn’t rocket science … plus don’t forget the fat cats living off these taxpayer funded schemes that mostly don’t lead anywhere. Ask Emma Harrison of A4E, with her huge mansion paid out of the public purse.
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I am 52 and there is a sizable element of age discrimination from employers when I apply for work. The grey attenders on the Work Programme courses probably do better at turning up than the younger ones.
I hope that the Government and the training companies and indeed Channel 4 do more to focus on this problem of age discrimination from employers.
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All the attention is on the under 25s and many of the opportunities are only available to them eg apprenticeships. Yet most of the long term unemployed, who need the most help, are aged 50 plus, a clear sign of age discrimination. The media is as much to blame as are governments. When did they focus on the older unemployed in the last year? Frankly, if you’re long term unemployed and aged over 50, you can forget getting work that pays. Best to find a hobby to occupy your time until you retire at 70!
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Of those WP job outcomes, how many were self employment? True self employment?!
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I was told out right by a work program staff member, (I have it recorded.) That the work program has nothing to do with helping people find work at all; if it did, people would be in work, that it is a bull crap scam and that people really get work through other means. The reason for the work program is to find out if people are working and signing on /claiming benefits and to soon have them only applying through jobs via online via the gov website. when universal credits come in and that’s all. they dont care about getting people into work, because its a drop in the ocean, and if it was important, they wouldn’t have and keep on making decisions that take jobs away. The third party companies are paid to help hmrc to find tax avoiders thats all. In the process, they get paid for it, and finding people work is an added bonus. Its a scam and a cover up. how can they have a work program and take away the work with the other hand??? its a lie. its another census and way of gathering info. But…. one fatal flaw, is that the third party companies are and have been working illegally by passing on peoples details to each other, with no regard to the data protection act 1998. this has…
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The other function is deter people from applying for benefits or from remaining on them. This means that the claimant count is always lower that the true level of unemployment. People who are actually unemployed are deterred from applying for benefits since they will then get things like this useless Work Programme scheme foisted upon them. And people leave the benefits system for the same reason.
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It would have been cheaper and more successful to have left the job seekers to do it for themselves. What a saving that would have made for our cash strapped government!
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I have been signing on since January, having been made redundant as a senior university lecturer. When my JSA advisor said I could voluntarily sign up to see an Employment Consultant I thought, why not? When I signed the form, I was then told that if I didn’t see the Consultant I would lose my benefit. I said ‘I thought this was voluntary’ and was told ‘yes, it’s voluntary until you sign up.’ The next day I got the invitation to see the so-called Employment Consultant, which I’d been told was for ‘professional people like yourself’ – only it’s not – its SEETEC – Seetec do not deal with work in my field – biomedical research – they deal with sales and catering and all they offer is training in ‘how to write a CV’ ‘how to perform at interview’. This is completely useful but hey! The government certainly know how to waste people’s time. Instead of working on research papers, I now have to intend this rubbish – or starve.
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If I might be allowed to comment. I am a Ph.D. graduate and these so-called training scghemes have been this bad since the late 1990s, when they were made compulsory under Blair and then Brown (so don’t just blame the Tories). People, especially professionals, have NO idea of how bad these programs are until they are forced to do them themselves. In fact, there was little in the way of complaints about them until the last year or two, when the middle classes suddenly found that they would have to go on them. In about the year 2000 my local MP tried to drum up some interest in a Parliamentary investigation into the New Deal, with it’s terrible job placement rates, but he told me that at that time there wasn’t any feedback. Suddenly, with Labour now in opposition, there is. Cynical opportunism comes to mind in Labour’s policies as usual.
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Thank you for correcting me! I wasn’t aware that these schemes were started by Blair and Brown. However, please don’t condescend and say that people are only interested now because the middle classes are now unemployed. I worked part time and do not consider myself middle class… it’s just I had a job! Having a job doesn’t mean one is one class or another, it means one is in paid employment. Good luck with your PhD. I hope you find a job you like at the end of it… I struggled for various part time teaching roles for years. Best wishes and kind regards.
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In part I take the point. (I already have the Ph.D.) But the fact is that until very recently, anyone who was a critic of these schemes had a VERY hard time getting heard, let alone being given a fair hearing. I clearly remember that nobody was interested for many years on what was going on in New Deal schemes. Now that there are people from a greater variety of classes getting stuck in the system, there is a lot more open criticism of it, even though I’m told there isn’t much to choose between the “old” and the “new” schemes. So there is a remarkable and recent surge of interest in these schemes. Coincidence or not? I would add, in this government’s defense, that the New Deal involved huge amounts of featherbedding. People like Emma Harrison, who built herself a castle in the country on the back of govt contracts to help run these things, were often getting paid REGARDLESS of the results. I know this for a fact. So there was no incentive for them to innovate, and presumably “competition” was on the basis of price not performance. The one positive thing I will say about the work Programme is that (for the first time) these scheme providers are actually being put…
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Apologies for getting your doctoral status wrong – I realised it too late and couldn’t retract my message.
You are absolutely right and I will look into this further – it is the same with tuition fees and the gov’t policy on not permitting anyone to do a qualification twice eg if you want to do another BA one has to pay overseas fees – an initiative introduced by the Labour Party. Which buggers places like Birkbeck my alma mata. Thanks (genuinely) for this discussion. Will now look up Emma Harrison as I have no idea who she is.
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Emma Harrison was the chief of A4E, a training company that is still very active on the Work Programme but has been heavily criticised for under-performance and there have been cases of fraud involving a few of its units in order to make them look better in getting the unemployed jobs. If you look on Google under Emma Harrison and A4E, you will get the story. At any rate, her company under New Labour received the bulk of contracts to get the unemployed back to work, and very lucrative it was too. A few years ago, thanks to this, she moved into a castle in the country by paying herself somewhere in the region of a £9 million bonus as head of A4E. The figure you will have to check, but the point is that the Tories were rightfully highly critical of the featherbedding involved in New Labour’s schemes, in which A4E was a substantial part. This is why their own equivalent, the Work Programme, is far more rigorous. So now the service providers have to meet minimum standards in order to survive and thrive. The money they get from the state is related, in part, to the length of unemployment of the person on their books. So I have a friend unemployed for over 10 years. Needless…
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Are you suggesting the Tories are doing any better? Because if you take Seetec, that is clearly so not the case… and when I hear stories from friends no company is helping anyone that is unemployed but merely threatening people and giving the same run of the mill ‘how to write a cv’ type of course in order to make money. They don’t actually offer anyone anything whatsoever… So more rigorous? You mean, in terms of being more threatening and stopping folks’s benefits? Cos I don’t see anything positive about what’s on offer.
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I agree that the Work Programme is no better at getting people into work, though the economic context is worse than that facing the New Deal before it. In fact, I have a friend who has been on it for 2 years and he tells me of its failure to get those into work. However, the New Deal was poor as well, but it did not get the same bad publicity. This because, I would argue, general levels of unemployment were lower, so it was less a “political” issue if these schemes failed. Nobody cared how poorly they performed. I was forced on the New Deal several years ago and my friend was on that and is now on this thing, so he’s in a good position to make comparisons. So no, I would say it’s no better. However, because the failures of the Work Programme are out there for all to see, there is the hope that things will get better, since it’s becoming a political embarrassment. Under New Deal, you had to write to the DHSS statistics people in Wales to get the figures, and that’s what I had to do; and there were NO (and I mean no) Parliamentary or media investigations of the running of the New Deal, in which Emma Harrison was an important element. Very frustrating once you saw the…
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