Specialist Disability Employment Programme
Submitted by JBaker on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 4:49pm
I attended DWP's briefing event yesterday regarding the Specialist Disability Employment Programme opportunity. In response to a question from the floor, DWP stated that Remploy will not be bidding as Prime Contractor. The implication seemed to be that the bidding round is not open to them. Does anyone know what this is all about? Is this due to poor performance? And does this mean that Remploy are going to lose a large proportion of their business once current Workstep contracts come to an end?
Daniel, I also attended that meeting, and apparently W2W claimants can (i think) go and attend a placement outside of the package area that the providers contract covers, is that correct?
Also what about the other DWP JCP W2W contracts, can claimants on for instance the FND1 future contracts attend a placement that is not in the same area as their Prime providers package covers?
Yes, we were all mystified as to what the situation with Remploy is?
I'll see if I can get an answer out of Remploy on this. It does all sound rather strange, given that Remploy's aim is presumably to move into more mainstream disability support contracts.
An aside: I missed the remaining briefing events after the ESF one - I've heard the basic content so many times I could probably present it myself. However, the questions from the floor are always interesting and revealing. Let me know if any other interesting stuff came up in any of them!
CROSS BORDER REFERRALS FOR ALL?
Can all claimants attend a course run by a subcontractor in a different package area, or is it only a neighbouring area? Because it seems as though claimants as discussed athe latest Specialist Disability Employment Programme can.
Daniel could you please clarify this be kindly asking the DWP to provide the relevent info.
Thanking you in advance.
Remploy have clarified their position
Daniel,
DWP have said that the performance of WORKSTEP and Work Preparation providers is poor overall, however they're not prepared to release performance data by provider. Is there anyway we can get hold of this information? SDEP bidders who want to deliver a step-change in performance will have a difficult time making partnership decisions without it...?
I bumped into some WorkStep performance figures a while back, but they were too incomplete to publish. Potential primes are going to have to do some fairly solid maths and some detailed checking of performance claims, and even then will have to take a fair bit of subcontractor performance claims on trust.