by Don Paskini

The Social Market Foundation, a think tank which helped develop the ideas behind the government’s Work Programme, have just published a report claiming that it is at risk of collapse. Their analysis suggests that:

• The Work Programme will get around one in four adult Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) clients into work,

significantly below the rate needed to meet the DWP’s expectations for minimum performance;

• Providers will fail to meet the minimum performance expected of them by the DWP by around 30,000

jobs over three years;

• Providers will also undershoot what the Government anticipates would have happened if no welfare

to work scheme existed at all, suggesting that the Government’s analysis of this ‘policy-off’ scenario is over-optimistic;

• Based on FND performance levels, over 90% of Work Programme providers will be at risk of having

their contracts terminated by DWP even by year three of the scheme;

• This under-performance means that funding per jobseeker will be significantly less than anticipated,

threatening the financial viability of providers.

In order for the government to save their flagship jobs programme, Social Market Foundation recommend that the government increases the payments to providers, publishes the data about how they are performing, revises the assumptions about how many people will be able to get jobs now that the economy is weaker, and investigates the impact on sub-contractors to make sure that they aren’t forced out of business.

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It is no great surprise that a department led by Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Freud managed to introduce a multi billion pound jobs programme funded on the basis of wishful thinking and over optimistic predictions. It is still pretty extraordinary that the Social Market Foundation is predicting that fewer people will get jobs as a result of the Work Programme than government believes would have done if no welfare to work scheme existed at all, and that within three years the programme will bankrupt more than 90% of all specialist organisations which support people to get jobs, unless the government gives them more money and lets them reduce their targets.

A copy of the full report is available here.