Jobcentre Plus
Jobcentre Plus

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2007-10-09

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 9780215036230

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This report follows on from a earlier NAO report (HCP 24, session 2006-07, ISBN 9780102943795). Personal Advisers assess needs of people looking for work and point them towards the right kind of assistance needed to find a job. In 2005-06, Jobcentre Plus had some 9,300 advisers at a salary cost of £238 million, conducting in total 10.8 million jobseeker interviews. They are also the gateway to various New Deal programmes, which has cost £5 billion since 1997. With the Government's aim of increasing the employment rate to 80%, personal advisers will have an important role. The Committee has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that the Department for Work and Pensions aim of assisting 1 million people on benefit into work, will require Jobcentre Plus to keep a good knowledge of employers' short and medium term skill needs as well as training opportunities; Jobcentre Plus should take care to protect advisers from unnecessary administrative work, interruptions of interviews to a minimum and allow more discretion and flexibility to advisers on individual cases; in 2005-06 customers failed to attend around 1.8 million scheduled interviews, whilst customers turned up late on average for around one in six interviews, Jobcentre Plus could do more to remind customers of their responsibilities, but also take account of local transport needs and use text messages and phone calls to remind customers of appointment times; improving the amount of time personal advisers spend with customers is a key element in helping Jobcentre Plus in achieving its efficiency targets and in helping it to be effective in achieving organisational objectives of helping people find work.

The Roll-out of the Jobcentre Plus Office Network
The Roll-out of the Jobcentre Plus Office Network

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 9780215523556

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Between 2002 and 2008 the Department for Work and Pension replaced over 1,500 jobcentres and social security offices across Great Britain with a network of just over 800 modernised Jobcentre Plus offices. The aim was to improve significantly the job-seeking experience and the delivery of benefits by providing a service similar to that offered by a bank or modern retailer. To achieve such a radical shift the Department merged the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency into a new integrated service Jobcentre Plus. This roll-out was one of the largest public sector construction programmes undertaken in the UK in recent years. Having learnt lessons from early difficulties, the project was successful in delivering nearly all the planned offices, while making savings against the original budget of £2.2 billion. The estate rationalisation generated savings of £135 million a year, and the Department estimates that the roll-out will ultimately lead to cumulative benefits of £6 billion. The successful delivery of the programme can be attributed to sound governance, intelligent use of existing guidance and external advice, strong support from the leadership of the organisation and, critically, the consistent senior management team. The successful implementation of the project has important lessons for other major government programmes.

The Efficiency Savings Programme in Jobcentre Plus
The Efficiency Savings Programme in Jobcentre Plus

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2006-03-18

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9780215027979

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During the past two years Jobcentre Plus has faced considerable upheaval in trying to accommodate both organisational change and meet the DWP target for efficiency savings (which requires the loss of 15,000 staff by March 20008). This report looks at how these changes have affected the ability of the Agency to meet its objectives in relation to: employment and training programmes; the capacity and role of Personal Advisors; the performance of the Customer Management System; the principles behind and the performance of Contact Centres. It concludes that too much was attempted too quickly, the planning and IT processes were not up to the job and service levels suffered. As a result Jobcentre Plus failed one of the tests of the Gershon programme that service quality should not deteriorate as a result of the efficiency process.

Department for Work and Pensions
Department for Work and Pensions

Author: Great Britain. National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13: 9780102954784

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The Department for Work and Pensions has made progress in reducing the number of leaflets that it produces for its customers and in making application forms simpler and shorter. The Department has significantly changed the way in which it provides information in recent years with a growth in telephone enquiries and in online provision. The Department has reduced the quantity of leaflets that it produces for customers, from 208 different leaflets in 2005 at a cost of �10.3 million to 53 leaflets in 2008 costing �1.7 million. It has also reduced the length of most of its forms, though some are unnecessarily long and guidance notes are complicated and the Department's computer generated letters are overly long and confusing for customers. The Department has put telephone calls at the centre of its application process. It is also increasingly using the internet to communicate with customers. In response to the rise in applications for the Jobseeker's Allowance, up by 81 per cent in the six months to January 2009, the Department plans to implement systems giving customers the option of full online applications for contributory Jobseeker's Allowance from summer 2009, rather than February 2010 as originally planned. Cost efficiencies from online provision have still to be realised fully. Though forms can be downloaded from the internet it is not yet possible to apply for most benefits online, meaning that staff and customer time is taken up handling claims over the telephone or face to face.

DWP's Commissioning Strategy and the Flexible New Deal
DWP's Commissioning Strategy and the Flexible New Deal

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9780215526656

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The design and delivery of employment programmes are critical to the success of welfare reform and fundamental to the Government's aspiration of an 80 per cent employment rate. The new Flexible New Deal (FND) programme will be part of the revised JSA regime and will be delivered by large prime contractors who will work with subcontractors at a subregional level. Prime contractors will be given longer contracts and have greater autonomy to design individualised support for customers who have been unemployed for more than 12 months. The Committee welcomes the move towards longer contracts and endorses the principles of the FND programme, and was impressed by the work that Jobcentre Plus staff are undertaking to prepare for the introduction of the new regime. Yet there are significant concerns that fundamental flaws exist in the design of FND and the assumptions on which it is based. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) accepts that on-flows onto FND could be 300 per cent higher than first indicated, with implications for resources at the providers, and possible delays in implementing FND in some areas. The Committee urges DWP to confirm that changes will be made to the budget to reflect the massive increase in predicted onflows to FND. It might not be possible for providers to meet the targets on which contractor payments are principally based, and the Committee received evidence to suggest that the financial model for FND is flawed and its targets unrealistic. It is crucial that DWP and other departments ensure that collaborative working with City Strategies, local authorities and other local Partners is facilitated at all levels if joint commissioning is to become a reality.

The effect of the economic downturn on the people in the West Midlands
The effect of the economic downturn on the people in the West Midlands

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: West Midlands Regional Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2010-01-26

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 9780215543424

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This report is the Committee's second inquiry in the effect of the economic downturn on the people of the region. The Committee's terms of reference are: what problems exist and how their effect can be minimised in advance of an economic upturn; how effectively Government agencies and other regional bodies are addressing these problems; and what advice and assistance people need to help them live more sustainable lifestyles in the future. The Committee was particularly interested in the level of indebtedness and home repossessions; availability of appropriate training; the adequacy of assistance and social cohesion. The Committee is concerned that some of those areas most in need of additional Government assistance may not be aware of new funding available and do not have the capacity to bid for it. They understand that the Taskforce should not be seen as the answer to every problem in the region and that it was set up to focus on the initial economic impact of the downturn. However the Taskforce has reach within the region and uninhibited connection to Whitehall. It is also recognised that the region's third sector has not been as fully engaged as they had hoped.

Putting Things Right
Putting Things Right

Author: Great Britain. Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9780102959048

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In 2007-08 the Parliamentary Ombudsman received 7,341 complaints about government departments and a range of other public bodies. Of these, 2,574 were about the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This is not surprising given the size and nature of DWP's business, serving as they do over 20 million customers at any one time. It is understandable, even inevitable, that mistakes will happen. What is important is how DWP dealt with the complaints arising from mistakes. Many, but by no means all, of the complaints received could have been resolved much sooner and by DWP themselves, if the complaint handling had been more customer focused. This report contains an anonymised digest of selected cases, highlighting poor information, delays, poor record-keeping, poor communication. Local resolution of complains should be the most efficient way to secure an appropriate outcome. It is hoped the report will encourage DWP to seek ways to improve the service they provide to citizens.

Good governance and civil service reform
Good governance and civil service reform

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2011-07-18

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13: 9780215560674

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The Committee's report on an evaluation of Whitehall departments' plans for structural change in response to the twin challenges of major public service reform and significantly reduced administrative budgets.The Committee expresses concern that the centre of Government, notably the Treasury and the Cabinet Office, is providing neither strategic leadership nor a governance framework to departments in managing their change programmes. The demand is immediate for an all encompassing strategic approach to change, minimising disaggregation and ensuring a 'joined up Government' approach."

Benchmarking Carrots and Sticks
Benchmarking Carrots and Sticks

Author: Julie Castonguay

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 9056295756

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Social benchmarking is an evaluation method in which the performance levels of different public social programs are compared, either relatively to each other or to an absolute value. The first part of this research discusses the use of social benchmarking for the evaluation of active labour market policies. This part also develops a social benchmark model, which can be used to assess the performance of active labour market policies in general, and work-based employment programs in specific. The second part of this research consists of the actual benchmarking of the work-based employment programs in five countries: Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom