Now it's out, does it match the hype? Will it be enough to stop the Conservatives from time-limiting benefits Wisconsin-style? Is it what you wanted it to be? Don't hold back now...

The proposals laid out in the Green Paper have been communicated piecemeal over the past few months, and represent no great surprise.

Main proposals
Benefits-related proposals include:

• Simplifying the current out-of-work benefits to just JSA and ESA. All under-50 IB claimants will be transferred and reassessed under the new regime between 2010 and 2013
• Drug treatment or cutting of benefits for addicts
• More Access to Work funding to help people with disabilities
  

After some prompting, the DWP have finally published the NDDP results from earlier this year here (rtf format).

Not by me, I hasten to add! BBC News is carrying the story here, and is highlighting the supposed wholesale lifting of Conservative policies. Proposals include:

• Paying welfare to work providers using the savings made in benefit payments (i.e. relaxing the DEL / AME rules that have prevented this, as predicted by Freud and virtually everyone else at the recent W2W conference)

As the summary on the DWP site isn't terribly helpful, we've extracted the key points for moving people into work from this report. The report itself covers the entire employment process, but did not cover Pathways to Work areas and thus has a limited amount to say about it.

The following points seemed the most interesting for welfare to work providers:

• Mental health-related IB claimants typically wanted to be in employment and understood the benefits that could derive from work

We've published the Pathways to Work, NDDP, ESF and fND PQQ results prior to their official announcement on the DWP website. However, the DWP are apparently a bit grumpy about this - their view is that it jumps the gun and that subcontractors and staff in companies will assume results that may still change. Conversely, most providers and subcontractors I speak to say they prefer to find out what's going on as soon as possible.

What do you think? Should we publish future results or not?

Around the time of the flexible New Deal launch, rumours circulated throughout the industry of financial problems at A4e. Hot on the heels of the collapse of Instant Muscle and Carter & Carter, this didn't seem entirely implausible.

Although A4e is still very much there, the rumours weren't openly discussed or denied. After talking with a few people at the welfare-to-work conference, I spoke with a director at A4e this week to confirm some details. He gave a convincing explanation which included:

****OFFICIAL RESULTS WILL BE POSTED LATER THIS WEEK. THIS POSTING WILL BE REMOVED AT THAT POINT TO AVOID CONFUSION****

Final update before then - Pinnacle apparently have 5 PQQ passes, which is coincidentally the number of senior managers they snaffled from Working Links a few months back.

All preferred bidders have now secured their contracts. All of the announced winners matched the preferred bidders in the story published here in April.

Reports on sessions from the W2W conference last week will be placed online shortly. Additionally, the New Deal provider performance analysis has been updated.