ERSA reaction to the publication of the first official data about the Work Programme
The Employment Related Services Association (ERSA), the trade body for the welfare to work industry, today (21 February) welcomed the publication by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of the first official statistics relating to the Work Programme.
In response to the news that referral figures for the first five months of the Work Programme were significantly higher than those previously predicted, Kirsty McHugh, ERSA’s Chief Executive said:
“The much higher than expected number of referrals has presented a significant challenge to welfare to work providers and it is a credit to the industry that it has been able to accommodate these so flexibly.”
The figures reveal that the composition of referrals is different to that which was anticipated, with a lower number of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) jobseekers coming onto the Programme. On this point, Kirsty McHugh continued:
“The low level of ESA referrals has a number of implications: first for provider cashflow, as ESA customers attract a higher payment level from government; secondly for voluntary and community sector providers of the Work Programme, as the sector disproportionately services these customers; and third and most importantly for customers themselves, as low referrals mean that they will not be accessing the specialist support to find and sustain employment to which they are entitled.
“ERSA is therefore calling on the Government to take action to increase the flow of ESA jobseekers so that they can benefit from the tailored employment support our members provide.”
Official statistics relating to the number of job outcomes will by published by DWP later this year. However, indicative data supplied to ERSA from some of the largest prime contractors of the Work Programme, indicates that between 18% and 23% of customers who were referred to the Work Programme in June 2011 have already started employment, meaning that one in five customers who have been on the programme for at least six months have already found a job.
Comments
Can someone please get real about what is going on with the Work Programme. The draw down of attachment fees was always going to be high a) because clients are desperate to find a job ie. MOST PEOPLE DO WANT a JOB and b) because its the single piece of funding - the attachment fee - that the Primes can get without having to do anything other than make a phone call and see a client once !!
Kirsty's McHugh's remarks are frankly misleading & downright disingeneous:
she has said: “The much higher than expected number of referrals has presented a significant challenge to welfare to work providers and it is a credit to the industry that it has been able to accommodate these so flexibly. The low level of ESA referrals has a number of implications: first for provider cashflow, as ESA customers attract a higher payment level from government; secondly for voluntary and community sector providers of the Work Programme, as the sector disproportionately services these customers; and third and most importantly for customers themselves, as low referrals mean that they will not be accessing the specialist support to find and sustain employment to which they are entitled.”
On point 1 - Everyone knew that there would be a higher inflow of clients in the first couple of months because all other programmes had ended months previously so the successful ERSA members who bid should have been well prepared & in any case the figures released show that the boom in referrals barely lasted more than a month ! So that's not an Acceptable Excuse !!
On Point 2 - the remarks about ESA candidates are a complete fallacy. If ESA referrals are down and JSA clients are up then it should have been much easier for the Primes to get these 'lower need'/closer to job market candidates into employment. This has not happened ! If we take her at her word, Kirsty McHugh appears to be suggesting that ERSA members do not want to get JSA clients into work because they are worthless in monetary value terms. Is she saying that ERSA members are identifying jobs and holding them for more valuable pay off cients ??? Sounds like it !
Point 3. Lets review Kirsty McHugh's remark about ESA clients and voluntary sector delivery bodies ...... Aren't you really just saying Kirsty that you always intended to give the voluntary sector the sh.t end of the Work Programme stick ie. the people with the absolute least chance of a job are the ones your members would pass on..... And that instead of handing over some of the excess JSA clients to the vol sector.....many ERSA members have chosen instead to keep things inhouse, to sit in their WP bunkers and let people find their own jobs with precious little help or resources spent on them whilst ERSA members hold onto the majority of the £126 million attachment fees paid out already ??? Do advise if this analysis is wrong ? Todays Guardian & the recent Mail revelations re. A4e would tend to suggest this is precisely what is going.
ERSA members do not need DWP permission to tell us just what share of the £126 million of Attachment fees they have kept for themselves or passed on to the voluntary and community sector orgs working on the frontline.
In her role as CEO of ERSA cannot Kirsty provide us with indicative figures for A4e and perhaps Ingeus - the two biggest providers of WP services in the UK ! Andrew Dunford is Chair of A4e and ERSA is he not ?
Point 4. Can someone please explain to me just exactly what Kirsty's last point is about. One minute she is complaining about too many referrals...next minute she is saying that too many low referrals in a certain category means that those customers are losing out ??
Why is that ? Surely small classrooms are better than bigger ones; the funding is paid out per head and the average number of overall WP clients is as has been reported not significantly higher than orginally expected by most 'experts' in the field.
So please Kirsty McHugh and friends in wealthy Ingeus Deloitte, A4e and other places - explain to us why its come to this? The Work Programme was after all deliberately set up to be counter-cyclical was it not ?
And YOU ARE CLAIMING Kirsty McHugh that if you had more ESA clients further from the workplace then you'd get them a job !!! So how come this far you've still only managed to get 1 in 5 principally JSA clients - the easiest client grouping - into any sort of a job ?
Is your job Payment by Results Kirsty McHugh.....or is it payment by appearances to talk around the results and abject behaviours & performances of ERSA members ?
A lot of us out in the real world are beginning to think Kirsty & others really need to get off their ERSA and take a fresh look at whats really happening !!!!
Let's start a real discussion about the Work Programme because the soup we're being fed just now is not fit for purpose or public consumption !!