Voluntary sector involvement in the Work Programme

Chris Damm, research assistant at the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC), has written a short piece investigating the extent of the involvement of third sector, or not-for-profit, agencies in the Work Programme.

As part of the research TSRC phoned a number of the listed subcontractors around April 2012. The results confirmed that many organisations, particularly those at the “tier two” level (specialist, call-off contractors), had no real involvement in delivery. Some seemed entirely unaware that they were publicly listed as a subcontractor at all.

The latest update from DWP, released this month, contained a statement admitting that the previous list had included organisations that had “never finalised contract terms or delivered to participants”, or who were “attributed to the wrong sector”. Despite this, DWP used the opportunity to again highlight the level of third-sector involvement, claiming that the figures showed “how big a role the voluntary sector is playing”.

Damm says that by remaining on the list, third-sector organisations arguably lend the Work Programme a degree of added credibility. When they leave, this credibility may also be withdrawn.

For the full piece, see To what extent are charities involved in the Work Programme?

I know personally of only one Citizens Advice Bureau that is involved in the Work Programme; there may be more. But to even bid for a contract, never mind finalise one, so compromises a CAB’s independence that it should have been forbidden at national level.

Should independent advice agencies be involved in taking applications for Local Welfare Support and/or part of the assessment and referral process?

Various such models are being suggested for the the local authority replacements for Social Fund CCGs and CLs from April.

Personally I think it severely compromises the adviser’s role as advocate by doing this and is very likely to lead to the perception by clients that the service is “part of the system” and not independent.

Involvement in the work programme is potentially worse because of the (normally written into contract) duty on sub-contractors to report non-cooperation which can lead to sanctions.

This is not an easy one Neil.

Similarly it would be interesting to know local and national organisations view on providing IT access for claimants to make and maintain their UC (and other benefit) claims on line.

No doubt, initially at least, DWP and some LAs etc may make funding available for advice agencies & others to ‘host’ PC terminals etc (any guesses as to which national organisation(s) might ‘snap up the cash’ regardless?). But what are the wider / longer term implications:

- physical space & staff resources
- how will claimants access terminals outside of the organisations normal opening hours?
- how will organisations manage the demands of ‘digital claim’ users against other service users (crowd control)?
- what IT support and claim support will claimants required / expect in practice?
- what expectation will claimants have that they can ‘jump the queue’ because they now have a problem with their claim?
- what happens if a claim completed / maintained via the ‘host’ goes wrong - who will get the blame?
- will organisations keep ‘regular’ clients log in details etc on record (an will this be required to complete any follow up work on a case anyway)?
- what if some organisations in a locale are willing to host and others don’t?
- what will be level of demand on non-advice organisations (housing support workers etc) who assist ‘vulnerable’ claimants to become further involved in the claim process and resolve problems (hepling client with a ‘phone call may no longer be an option etc)?

Im sure readers can think of more issues.