ERSA says big change needed to "achieve more with less"

Amanda McIntyre, Director of the trade body the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA), writes for Indus Delta this week arguing that a new Ministerial Team at DWP needs to be "brave enough to make significant change". The challenge is to achieve more and better outcomes for the country's 8.1 million economically inactive population. She says that a new contracting model is needed to make outcome based commissioning work.

Amanda writes:

“While the new DWP Ministerial Team meeting in Caxton House after 6th May will surely feel the responsibility on their shoulders of reducing the economic inactivity of 8.1 million people, we hope that they will also be brave enough to make significant change.

“Their leadership will be crucial to the lives of individuals and families who need intensive support to move into lasting employment. Their decisions and agreements with Treasury colleagues will determine whether we really do manage to ‘achieve more with less’. The market conditions they create will determine how well the UK welfare-to-work sector fulfils its potential to be the international leader in the provision of outcome-based public services.

“New ministers will be able to harness the commitments to partnership working that are articulated in the DWP Commissioning Strategy and Supplier Charter, as well as those in the Shared Promise on Customer Care, developed by ERSA. These commitments need to provide a rock solid foundation for the next phase of welfare reform. Political will to break new ground is equally necessary.

“Despite pressure on public funds, there is an overwhelming case for investing at a level that will make a difference to those furthest from the labour market. ERSA encourages value for money to be defined as the optimum economic and social return on investment, taking into account factors such as: benefit payment savings, reduced call on public services; the economic contribution of someone in work; and social gains such as community resilience and reduced child poverty.

“The imperative to ‘do more with less’ should spur a ‘lean revolution’. We are keen to work with DWP to find techniques that manage down risks without inadvertently drawing resources away from the front line. More significantly still, pressure on public finances must bring about the break-through that has eluded the UK for so long: joined up government.

“Outcome-based commissioning requires a new contracting model, which we are still in the early stages of developing. Payment mechanisms and partnering techniques need to hold providers to account for their performance, but also recognise the responsibilities of Government. The model needs to advance in the way risks are shared and managed between Government, its prime contractors and whole supply chains. ERSA will be encouraging new Ministers to join in the task, because ‘cracking’ this model will be the catalyst for innovation in public service delivery across the UK and internationally.”