Interesting Work Programme, ESA etc. bits

An interesting story at http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/finance/news/content/10688/sector_bodies_join_in_criticism_of_work_programme which includes some snippets.

The Employment Related Services Association (ERSA), the trade association for the welfare-to-work industry, has called on the government to take urgent action to ensure that Atos, the private-sector contractor tasked with conducting Work Capability Assessments, eliminates the backlog of assessments that have built up.

...  London Voluntary Service Council (LVSC) has published a damning report about the involvement of voluntary organisations in the Work Programme.

Its investigations found that the expertise of specialist sector bodies is “largely unused, in danger of being lost, and that employment inequalities will worsen in London as a result”.

... in London the overall rate of subcontracting by the sector is around 20 per cent, a third lower than the 30 per cent figure that DWP had hoped for. It also found that the vast majority of second-tier sub-contractors had so far had no job-seekers referred to them at all.

ERSA added that only around 3-5 per cent of referrals to the Work Programme so far were Employment Support Allowance customers, despite government projections that these would make up around 20 per cent of referrals.

And a Freedom of Information request revealed that Atos has completed only 56,000 Work Capability Assessments since the programme began in April, whereas the target was for 11,000 per week.

...