Jobseeker’s Allowance (Supervised Jobsearch Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2014

Lord Bates Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Bates]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Supervised Jobsearch Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2014.

Relevant document: 2nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, 2nd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations were debated in the other place on 30 June 2014, and I am satisfied that they are fully compatible with our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.

With the labour market growing stronger and increasing numbers of companies able to hire workers, everybody who is able to should be able to share in this recovery by being supported to find, and stay in, work. Over the last four years, the Government have extensively altered the landscape of our employment support services, both in Jobcentre Plus and throughout contracted employment provision.

With the introduction of universal credit and the claimant commitment, there has been a cultural change in the expectations of claimants and a conscious shift towards full-time work search. It is right that we expect claimants to do all they reasonably can to find work, and this can be a full-time activity. At the same time, we are committed to doing what is best to support harder-to-help claimants to prepare for and find work. The Work Programme has been able to transform the lives of those furthest from the labour market. Performance is continually improving, and more than a quarter of jobseeker’s allowance claimants with sufficient time on the programme have spent at least three or six months in employment.

As part of our continuing commitment to supporting people off benefits and into work, the department is committed to continue testing what works best to assist jobseekers who are the hardest to help. This is why the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced the supervised jobsearch pilots in October 2013. These pilot schemes will test what works and what does not. We will ask providers to deliver the pilots in five areas across England from autumn 2014 until spring 2015 and will be testing how best to deliver extra support to those claimants who need it. The aim of the pilots is to explore the impact on claimants of daily attendance, supervision and support for job searching. In terms of outcomes, we will look at how different interventions affect jobseeker motivation and confidence, as well as measuring the impact on claimants leaving benefits and moving into employment.

Participants will be referred to a supervised jobsearch for 13 weeks. We expect participants to move off the scheme within this period as they find work, but it is important to consider that these are claimants for whom finding work may take significantly longer than for others, and 13 weeks will give providers a reasonable amount of time to work with them to ensure that the support is effective. This approach will have a positive impact on moving claimants closer to, or into, employment. It will also give us the opportunity to add to our evidence base of what works for those who are among the most difficult to help.

Currently, claimants not yet referred to the Work Programme receive the Jobcentre Plus offer: a flexible and tailored menu of support led by work coaches who can, among other interventions, refer claimants to outside training and provision to address barriers. Claimants at risk of becoming long-term unemployed are supported by contracted providers through the Work Programme. These providers provide support to claimants, making use of local provision and services, and using a “black box” approach, with payment by results for getting people into sustained employment.

We always knew that some people would be returning from the Work Programme. Those who have participated in it and remain on benefits afterwards then receive a period of more intensive support from Jobcentre Plus. Since June 2013, claimants have been referred to the mandatory intervention regime, where advisers have more time to spend with claimants with complex needs. From April 2014, we have rolled out the help-to-work package, which added two other elements of support, on top of the mandatory intervention regime, for Work Programme returners. These were daily work search reviews, which take place over a period of up to three months, and community work placements, where claimants undertake work of community benefit for up to six months. These additional measures have given the clear message that we will not write anyone off and will continue to provide increasingly intensive support the longer that someone is out of the labour market.

The supervised jobsearch pilots will complement these measures we have taken in the current journey by maintaining momentum and motivation at a critical point in the claim. Pre-Work Programme claimants will be referred when they are three months away from a two-year mandatory referral to the Work Programme. This will apply to post-Work Programme claimants following six months of intensive support.

These regulations will allow the department to select and refer certain suitable claimants to participate in the pilots. Claimants will then attend the pilots for 35 hours each week for a 13-week period. Claimants will have to attend for fewer than 35 hours per week if they have any restrictions agreed in their claimant commitment. During this time, they will receive expert support and supervision from providers. This might include help with jobsearch, job goals, covering letters, job application skills and interview techniques. However, the exact provision will vary depending on the claimant’s needs and the individual provider running each pilot scheme.

We already expect claimants to do everything they reasonably can each week to give themselves the best prospects of securing employment. This covers not just work search but a whole range of activity to improve employability. The pilots are in line with this but, of course, if an individual cannot work full time—for example, because of agreed caring responsibilities—then we would expect them to participate in supervised jobsearch only on a part-time basis. Those selected for these pilots will at all times have access to facilities and staff to encourage and guide them along their journey.

None of the claimants eligible for these pilots will be new to the benefits system and will have spent the months prior to referral having their jobsearch monitored and skills levels gauged by Jobcentre Plus work coaches before reaching the point of being considered suitable for this extra support. Everyone goes into a new activity with different skill levels and learning styles, and looking for work is no different. Some individuals will have just emerged from jobs feeling confident in what they need to do and having contacts in the right places. Others may need more comprehensive help, support and guidance in order to seek out opportunities and prepare to present themselves again to prospective employers. This is what we are looking to provide through the supervised jobsearch pilots.

In order to inform the design of the pilots, we ran a supervised jobsearch test bed in Wolverhampton Jobcentre from December 2013 to February 2014. The test bed explored some aspects to inform these pilots, including confirmation that Jobcentre Plus is able to support this system. As a result of what we learnt from Wolverhampton, we have incorporated several elements into the pilots’ design, including: induction sessions to set clear expectations and assess individuals’ abilities; basic IT training; integrating group sessions and one-on-one support to retain claimants’ concentration and engagement; and supporting participants to focus on tailored, quality job applications.

It is right to expect people who are able to work to do all they can to find a job. This Government are committed to supporting people in this ambition. We know that our programme of support works well for most people. Two-thirds of people leave jobseeker’s allowance within the first 12 months, which is the most common work programme referral point. The claimant count has fallen for 19 consecutive months. We know there was support for the very long-term unemployed trailblazer, which ran from November 2011 to July 2012, but for those who reach long-term unemployment and are among the hardest to help, increasing the intensity of support improves their chances of moving into work. We know that jobseekers see the switch to the claimant commitment, with its focus on full-time job search, as something that will genuinely increase their chances of finding employment, while at the same time taking into account their personal circumstances. These pilots will test what can be achieved if we bring this knowledge of what works—tailored support, intensity and full-time activity—together in a way that is sensitive to individual needs.

I conclude by saying that we believe these pilots have potential to improve the employment prospects of those who are struggling in their search for work. That can be done through increased jobsearching ability, heightened confidence, more effective interaction with others and improved punctuality and time-keeping. The scheme has the potential to help people into sustained work, enabling them to increase their independence and build better lives for themselves, their families and communities. I beg to move.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the lucid way in which he introduced these important regulations. I declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Wise Group in Glasgow, which works in JSA service provision.

I am grateful also to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which looked at these regulations. It does excellent work; it is hard to overestimate the value it brings to some of these very complicated schemes. The committee came to the conclusion that it was not impressed. There are two issues here: the policy behind the pilot and the structure of the pilot—whether that is worth the candle. I want to rehearse some of its concerns, because they are self-evident to anybody who has studied these things. Pilots are very useful; they have played an important role in the past in developing policy and I am sure the Scrutiny Committee accepts that. But how do we expect to get real value out of something that starts on 6 October and ends on 15 April, when we are dealing with the possibility and the opportunity that these regulations provide, as the Minister rightly described, in helping people into sustainable work? In my book, sustainable work is a 12-month contract, with support that a jobseeker can take advantage of from being on benefits into that sustained job outcome. I have severe doubts, as does the Scrutiny Committee, that we will get anything of value in what I think is insufficient time. Why are we stopping on 15 April? Obviously, there is an election. I can see that coming—I am not that stupid. However, it is more important to get this policy right than to have niceties about purdah or any other technicality of that kind. I have serious doubts about what value we will get from the shortness of the period of the pilot. Indeed, client groups of 3,000 are not that useful, either. Before the debate started the Minister helpfully handed us a long list of exclusions of clients who cannot be included.

We have a very limited pilot here, and I think we could have had a much more useful opportunity to test some of these things. We have very minimal information about what will actually happen. Jobsearch is something that, if people have been in the Work Programme, should have been deployed for two years—and intensively, I would like to have thought. Now we have supervised jobsearch, which comes six months after two years so it will be really intense. The new system of Universal Jobmatch—which I have seen; it is very good—takes only about half an hour to prospect for jobs across the United Kingdom, because it is so efficient. This is a full-time commitment. People are being mandated to come in for 35 hours a week. How many hours will they spend over a Universal Jobmatch machine? They can get the full value out of it in half an hour, in my experience. It would help me to understand the value of these pilots better if the Minister could flesh out what would be done over this extended period of 13 weeks at 35 hours a week. What on earth are they going to do? We are told at paragraph 7.19 that:

“On day one, the provider must: assess the claimant’s skills and experience”,

et cetera. Then we are told:

“In week one, the provider must: carry out a number of activities with the claimant … On an ongoing basis, providers must: review and update the claimant’s portfolio, CV and action plan”.

These are things that I always assumed would be taken account of in the Work Programme anyway. Now they are doing it full time, for 35 hours a week for 13 weeks. I am in favour of providing support for people, but I do not know how that intense job-searching activity will look different from what they are supposed to have been doing for the previous two years.

I am interested in the pre-Work Programme group, because I do not understand where it came from. There is a logic to involving people who have been in the Work Programme. In any commonsense view, if someone has been unemployed for two years despite being in the Work Programme, in which they get a lot of help, it would suggest that more than their CV needs fixing. I do not know if it is possible to translate those people into the Troubled Families Programme; I hate that term, but the programme is interesting. It takes a holistic view, going beyond the front door of the family home, looking not just at the CV but at everything that is going on. Somebody who has been unemployed for two years despite the Work Programme’s assistance has got some serious issues behind the front door of the family home. It would be much more sensible for some of these people to at least be offered the option of taking a different route from that of looking at a Universal Jobsearch machine for 35 hours every week. That would drive me crazy.

The Scrutiny Committee says that there is scant information about the cost-benefit ratio for this. We have been told that there is a cap of £5,000 per head. I understand that if this is to be competitively tendered for, the department has got to be a bit canny in determining costs for contracts which will be bid for. However, Parliament requires a little more information, particularly given the department’s straitened circumstances, with departmental expenditure being squeezed so ruthlessly.

In passing, the whole-time staff equivalent costs are being substantially reduced. I looked at the annual report which came out a couple of days ago. In 2012, there were over 100,000 whole-time equivalent staff in the DWP. It fell to 98,000 in 2013. It is now 88,000. We are laying extra layers of responsibility on to a smaller cadre of hard-pressed staff. These job coaches will have their work cut out to do the work they already do on top of this pilot. The Minister was helpful in his introductory remarks, but any more information we can have about what will actually be done during this intensive period of job searching would certainly help me a lot.

I am looking at the Autumn Statement 2013, where the Chancellor said that,

“the Government will invest £700 million over 4 years in a new Help to Work scheme”.

He went on set out what that would do. He said it would,

“require all JSA claimants who are still unemployed after 2 years on the Work Programme to undertake intensive, often daily, activity to improve their employment prospects”

Is this part of that? Is this part of the £700 million four-year programme that the Chancellor set out in the Autumn Statement? I would like to know about that because, if it is, it would make it possible to place this pilot in a wider context. I must sit down. I have just realised how long I have been talking for.

My view about conditionality and support for getting people off welfare into work is captured accurately in the study that Paul Gregg did in 2008 for the previous Government. If the Minister will promise to read it at the weekend, I will say no more about it. That is a deal that he had better accept because, otherwise, it will take me another 20 minutes to explain its detail.

There are some opportunities here. I understand that. I am not against sanctions. I think sanctions should be restricted to a much smaller band of people than the 800,000 or 900,000 that we are headed towards. I am prepared to look at this. I know the Explanatory Memorandum states that the results of the evaluation will be published. I hope the Minister will confirm that on the record because that would give it some solidity and be an assurance. I hope this pilot produces something useful. I have great doubts that it will, but I understand why the Government are taking the powers they are taking. I wish the pilot well and I hope it works.

--- Later in debate ---

It must be right that claimants are given the help and support that they need to get a job, especially after a long period out of work. But if the Government are going to spend some £30 million of public money on a scheme and allow providers to sanction claimants for not engaging with it, Parliament has a right to rather more information than I think has been forthcoming so far. I look forward to the Minister’s answers.

[Lord Bates]

I begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Kirkwood and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for their scrutiny, which compared and contrasted interestingly to the sparks flying and a lot of heat and not much light that took place in the other place when it considered these regulations. I totally accept their spirit of genuine inquiry and the need to flesh out the important issues and details, which we need to get on to the record. At the same time, I ask them to recognise the fact that what we are bringing forward here is a pilot, which in its nature is going to have areas of ambiguity that will be resolved as it takes effect and is rolled out. So a tolerance of that would seem fair.

Another thing should be said and needs to be put on the record. I accept that there is criticism of the Work Programme—but the noble Baroness will accept that there was criticism of the New Deal and even of the Flexible New Deal. The IPPR report came out just last week; it is not normally a champion of government social policy, but it actually said some very positive things about the way in which the Work Programme is going. Of course, 294,000 outcome payments have been paid to providers on the scheme, which suggests that something is happening in the labour market. In addition, at the risk of slightly straying into the territory of the other place, we need to put it on record that there is a changing employment environment. We have employment at record levels in this country and we seeing the number of vacancies increase quite dramatically; it is up 100,000 at 600,000. We are seeing a lot of people getting off benefits and into work; unemployment is down 27%, while youth unemployment is down 33% and long-term youth unemployment is down 39%. So in the interests of balance, one ought to put that record out there, to say that what Her Majesty's Government are doing in trying to help people is not without effect. Therefore, it is progressing.

I turn to the specific points. First, I recognise the sterling work of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which looked at these regulations and commented in a fairly detailed way. It asked that the Explanatory Memorandum be enhanced and updated with a lot more detail, and the department did that. That Explanatory Memorandum was published last week ahead of the scrutiny which is now taking place in Parliament.

The noble Baroness raises a very interesting point about whether there ought to be a mechanism. Whether it is for the House or the Secondary Legislation Select Committee, there should be something that says that when a report makes a recommendation there should be some mechanism for ensuring that people who have a close interest in this—certainly, perhaps, the spokesmen of the respective parties or groups—are systematically made aware. I will take that back to the department, and we will certainly try to respond to it.

Many points were raised. My noble friend Lord Kirkwood and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, referred to many of the same issues, and I will work my way down them. On why the power is for 13 weeks and whether that is too long or too short, this is a new initiative and that is why we are testing it. The evaluation will help inform us about whether it is the right length of time to refer claimants to this more intensive activity. The length of the programme gives sufficient time for claimants to adapt and benefit from the enhanced jobsearcher’s routine. It also gives providers a reasonable amount of time to work with claimants to ensure that the support is effective.

I was asked why claimants will be on the programme for a maximum of 13 weeks. We will track them for as long as it takes after they have left the programme, typically for at least six months, to establish the impact of the pilot. I confirm that the pilot is being run on a randomised control basis, which is regarded as the gold-standard methodology for evaluation. I confirm that we will publish the results of the evaluation.

At this point, I turn to my colleagues behind me because the noble Baroness made a very interesting point when she focused on selection and randomised control and asked about the predominant methodology. The pilot we are talking about is a randomised control trial. The type, category and number of individuals will be the overriding methodology that will be used.

[Baroness Sherlock]

Something is either a randomised control trial or it is not. I am going to try to help the Minister here. It is not impossible that what the department is trying to do is select people to go into the pool, and then people from that pool of those deemed to be eligible will randomly be chosen to go into the programme or a control group. If that is what the department intends to do, will the Minister explain how people get to be in the selection pool in the first place? If I have got that wrong, he will of course correct me.

[Lord Bates]

The normally impassive officials behind me are nodding sagely to say that that is indeed the methodology that has been adopted. Advisers will have discretion on those who are eligible for the pool. Let me make a little further progress and perhaps some further inspiration will be on its way.

I was asked how claimants can possibly look for work for seven hours a day and what a typical day will look like. The Select Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, all asked this. A typical day will be tailored to meet the needs of each individual participant. While there are generic skills that underpin jobsearch activity, participants will have tailored work plans that address their specific needs. They may include work on IT skills, interview techniques and job application skills, which do not just involve visiting the jobsearch website, looking at this person who has been on the Work Programme and has applied for up to 100 jobs without success for two years, and asking what are they lacking that would ensure that they get off benefits and into work, which is the outcome that we all seek. The Government have introduced the principle that looking for work is a full-time job, as has been said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

One of the experiences driven into my brain while working with the Wise Group is that there is a huge amount of ignorance about what is happening to some of these claimants. Some of that is because the letters sent to them are couched in language that is difficult to comprehend. Will the noble Lord pay special attention to making sure that the Queen’s English is used and that people understand exactly what they are being invited or required to do, and the consequences? The group that the Wise Group works with in Glasgow is often completely at sea about what is happening to them.

[Lord Bates]

We can certainly look at that. One of the reasons why it needs to be tailored, rather than just having a letter generated, is that a lot of those people will have literacy or numeracy problems. They cannot comprehend it, whatever form of English it happens to be delivered in. Therefore the ability to talk that through with someone in person, so that they can explain it at the meeting while giving claimants the formality of the letter, would seem to be the right way to do that.

In terms of how we will ensure quality of service throughout the contract, the majority of the payment made to providers will be based on service delivery. The standards of service delivery will be monitored throughout the contract and payment will be related to providers consistently meeting the required minimum service levels outlined in the specifications. In terms of what will happen if the work coach ignores the claimant’s view that they are not suitable, at the point of referral claimants will be able to make representations if they feel that a pilot will not be appropriate for them. The work coach would take this into account before making a referral. Where the work coach decides that a referral should nevertheless be made, the normal appeal route will be open to the claimant who refuses to attend and is sanctioned as a result.

In terms of varying periods and whether they will all be 35 hours, everyone will be attending for 35 hours unless they are not able to do so because of restrictions. That is the point that was made earlier. We acknowledge that people are caring for other people; for instance, there are parents caring for young children and they might have other responsibilities that are entirely legitimate and need to be built around. Again, that is the reason why it is a tailored and individual approach.

[Baroness Sherlock]

I thank the Minister for answering a great many of my questions. I shall flag up one or two that I think he may have missed. One is the question of childcare and travel costs. Can he confirm that those will be available up front—that people will not have to find the money to pay for childcare and then reclaim it from the provider? On the same point, will the Minister clarify the answer he has just given to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood? Is he saying that an individual judgment will be made about whether somebody does not need to do 35 hours because they have other needs or responsibilities, or is he—as I suspect—saying that if somebody is not required to be available full time for work, in a comparable manner they will not be required to be available full time for this programme? Perhaps the Minister can clarify that for the record.

I do not think that he answered the point about whether somebody was engaged in doing something at the suggestion of the Child Poverty Action Group, or if somebody is already engaged in doing something that in fact makes it more likely that they will get a job. With that, can he clarify that anyone doing voluntary work will therefore not be covered by the programme, because that is what the list seems to say?

Finally, will he clarify his answer about the randomised control trial? One of the biggest problems that can befall a randomised control trial is if the selection pool from which people are chosen is itself biased. One of the difficulties in having what is essentially a subjective judgment made by coaches about referring people into the pool is that it does not matter how rigorous the randomisation is from the pool if entry into the pool itself is not biased. Can the Minister say whether the Government have been thinking that through? Do they have any concerns in that direction?

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for saying that there are only one or two issues to cover, which suggests that I have worked my way through the list. I feel as though I am doing well, or, rather, the wonderful officials behind me are doing well.

The point about childcare is a serious one and I want to get my reply on the record. As regards childcare travel guidance, extra costs incurred by claimants will be provided. This is not currently published but has been stipulated in the terms and conditions. The provider is encouraged to consider claimants’ circumstances when awarding this and, if possible, to do this in advance. Good reasons are always considered before applying any sanction, and whether travel costs had been issued would be taken into account.

As regards how the randomised control trial will work, for the pre-Work Programme strand of the pilot, the Jobcentre Plus adviser will first identify suitable claimants, after which they will be randomly allocated to a treatment or control group. I think that I have mentioned that already. The 35-hour period is currently part of the claimant commitment, so that would apply.

As regards the Child Poverty Action Group’s view on charitable or voluntary work, perhaps the noble Baroness would be good enough to send us more information on that group’s recommendation on that.

[Baroness Sherlock]

That group simply asked whether, if somebody was already doing something that made it more likely that they would get a job than by going on the programme, that would do. I am sure that it was not thinking about work experience at a high-level cultural institution, for instance, but I give that by way of example.

[Lord Bates]

I thank the noble Baroness for that very helpful further intervention, which enables me to confirm that those engaged in voluntary work will not need to participate. A work coach will consider any other activity in which the claimant is engaged before deciding what action is taken. I again thank my noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for their scrutiny. I hope that this debate has been helpful. I believe that it will make a positive contribution to understanding how we can help some of the hardest to reach people in our society and give them employment, hope and a future.

Motion agreed.