Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. For what reasons Work programme contractors are not permitted to publish their performance data.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

I thought that this afternoon we might have been extensively debating the benefits cap, but no Labour Members have been brave enough to raise the issue; I cannot think why.

The Department is following guidance issued by the national statistician in order to comply with the code of practice for official statistics and to protect the integrity and accuracy of data. However, we propose to allow providers to publish data that do not compromise the official statistics and will issue guidance to providers shortly.

[John Woodcock]

As the Minister knows, under the flexible new deal, providers were allowed to publish their data if they wanted to. If he is confident in his Work programme and knows that he has got the contracting incentives right, about which there is some doubt, why on earth is he refusing to let these providers publish their data if they want to?

[Chris Grayling]

It is precisely because I am keen to get information out there that we are looking at ways to ensure that that can happen, despite the rules about national statistics, which we have to obey very carefully. If the hon. Gentleman wants some statistics about employment programmes, let me share a set with him. The flexible new deal, to which he referred, cost the taxpayer £770 million and delivered 50,000 six-month job outcomes. He can do the maths on that—it amounts to approximately £14,000 per six-month job outcome. That is one failure of the welfare-to-work programmes we inherited, and that is why the welfare-to-work package that we have put together through the Work programme will be better value for the taxpayer and do a better job for the unemployed.