“Help to Work” pilots: success, failure or somewhere in between?

With the launch of the Help to Work scheme today (see rightsnet news: Long term unemployed could be required to attend a jobcentre every day under new ‘Help to Work’ scheme)

.... here’s an interesting anlaysis of the success of the pilot from the National Institute of Ecomonic and Social Research from December 2013 ...

The ‘Help to Work’ pilots: success, failure or somewhere in between?

plus this from the new statesman -

The coalition’s “Help to Work” won’t help the jobless: The DWP’s own study found that forcing claimants to do community work or attend daily jobcentre meetings made almost no difference to employment levels

... and from politics.co.uk -

Why ‘Help to Work’ won’t help jobless back to work

FT is reporting that ..

“G4S is the biggest winner of Help to Work contracts, which involves providing “intensive” coaching for the unemployed in six regions including west and east London, the East Midlands and the Southeast. Other companies to win work include Seetec, Interserve and Pertemps.”

More @ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4f9118a6-ceed-11e3-9165-00144feabdc0.html

And it’s not just here either.

http://righttowork.org.uk/2012/02/workfare-the-lessons-from-the-usa/

http://www.shu.ac.uk/research/cresr/sites/shu.ac.uk/files/review-workfare-usa-canada-australia.pdf

here’s a link to rightsnet news story on december’s evaluation of help for long term unemployed pilot showing ‘no significant effect on employment outcomes’ -

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/news/story/dwp-publishes-statistics-on-support-for-the-very-long-term-unemployed-trail

and evaluation itself -

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/265931/svltu-dec-13-adhoc.pdf