Pathways to Work results avalanche!

Various reports and results on Pathways to Work have emerged in the past few days:

• Updated statistics on starts and outcomes, available on the DWP website here, and also as a spreadsheet at the bottom of this article for easier calculation. The new statistics were released this Tuesday, and cover starts to April 2009 and jobs to January 2009. I'll put together some analysis next week
• A research report on quantitative outcomes for JCP-led Pathways to Work delivery. The headline result is no statistically significant impact on benefit receipts in the 2006 areas, but some impact on the pre-2006 areas. This appears to be due to the pre-2006 areas measuring from initial enquiry, whereas the 2006 areas measured from start of claim. Thus the only effect of Pathways to Work on benefits would be to act as a deterrent to claiming in the first place. Take this claim with a pinch of salt - I'll look into it more closely next week
• A qualitative research report on provider-led Pathways to Work delivery. No major surprises: some good experiences on all sides, but also a feeling of target-driven, under-resourced delivery resulting from overly ambitious provider targets, and issues with the handling of referrals and exiting of customers who lose their IB claims. The report is summarised below

Lessons from early provider-led Pathways to Work delivery

The PL-Pathways report was drawn primarily from a wide range of interviews with Pathways stakeholders. These were conducted in 2008 before ESA had much effect. The conclusions in large part reflect the issues that led to the 'think the unthinkable' Pathways review group earlier this year, but don't capture any of the changes that have been implemented or recommended by the review team.

Roll-out issues

• Confusion about how providers, Jobcentres and DWP contracts staff were meant to work together. This was ascribed to the black box approach, and may have been a short-term issue during implementation. There were also concerns that it limited capturing of good (and bad) practice by DWP staff
• The Condition Management Programme was sometimes set up only after a considerable delay, and was used less than JCP and DWP staff anticipated it would be. This apparently relates to the lack of contractual requirements about how and how much CMP should be used. (This one was a reasonably obvious issue even at the bidding stage - given flat-fee outcome payments and price competition, there's a clear incentive for providers to bid rock bottom prices and take a lip-service approach to supporting the harder to help)
• General confusion over who takes responsibility for customers once they've been referred to PL-Pathways. Specifically, whether providers can signpost customers back into other programmes, or into DEA support. There was also disagreement over the suitability of referrals to PL-Pathways
• JCP staff didn't always know enough about providers, and provider staff didn't get enough information about customers who were referred. This was damaging the effectiveness of handovers and the customer experience of delivery, but there was evidence that the situation was changing
• The referral process was notably screwy, and the report hinted at annoyance that issues identified in a Pathways report from 2006 were still not acted on. The key issue is that people were often referred to Pathways before their medical assessment, then kicked off Pathways midway through the programme when they failed the assessment. It was recommended that Pathways customers should be allowed to complete as this would improve job outcomes overall. There were also issues with referred customers that never heard from their provider
• The first Work Focused Interview, which is carried out by Jobcentre Plus staff, was not even noticed by some customers. Feedback from JCP advisers was that they regarded the first WFI primarily as a means of telling the customer about the forthcoming provider-led WFIs. The authors pointed out that an inadequate or nonexistent first WFI could lead to customers being unaware that they were mandated to attend the subsequent ones, or unconvinced by the entire process
• Lots of people seemed to be grumpy about the sanctions system for non-attenders. Speeding up the entire process and making it clearer were suggested, in addition to scrapping mandating altogether

A fair proportion of the feedback could be roughly described as 'what happens when a very low unit-cost provision hits a varied customer group but only gets paid a flat fee for each person moving into work, and doesn't pay a high proportion on sustainment'. Specifically, there was strong evidence of both creaming and parking, little evidence of effective in-work support, and little evidence of innovative approaches to meeting the needs of harder to help customers (because they were parked).

Some thoughts - what it means for FND

Some of the report's conclusions have strong applicability to FND. FND has a more genuine black box approach than Pathways, but still uses a flat fee payment structure, with contracts awarded through competition on price and outcomes. With these still in place we can expect to see:

• Creaming - providing focused support to move job ready people into employment as quickly as possible
• Parking - providing minimal support to harder to help groups
• A focus on low-cost interventions, and limited personalisation of support

The confusion over referrals and roles is not guaranteed to repeat, as FND has a relatively clear structure and a limited number of interface points between provider and JCP, and PRaP should resolve some of the paperwork and process difficulties. The lack of in-work support is also unlikely to be replicated in FND, as payment is on sustained job entry for a longer time period.

Main conclusion not included in the report? Information and reports need to be released a bit sooner if the public debate is to have any congruence with what's going on behind the scenes. It's arguable that the 'people who matter' have been involved for a while through the Pathways to Work review project that was set up around the beginning of 2009.

Attachments reproduced under Crown copyright

Update 5/11 - I've uploaded a modified version of the Pathways results spreadsheet, with the external links removed. A few people has been having difficulty accessing it using Excel 2003. If you couldn't get it working, have another bash now.