Supplementary written evidence from Working Links (FJP0092)

Dear Mr Field,

The Future of Job Centre Plus: the role of Work Coaches

Thank you for inviting me to appear in front of the enquiry on Work Coaches on 13 July. I appreciated the committee’s keen interest in ensuring the role of Work Coaches within Jobcentre Plus is clearly defined and effectively designed to support the wide range of clients who will rely on their services. I am writing to respond to your kind offer to submit further evidence to the Committee’s enquiry to supplement that given on the day as the session was truncated by events.

I would reaffirm my belief that Job Centre Plus is highly capable of adapting to deliver its services well. In recent years it has demonstrated the ability at lowering unemployment while also managing staff reductions. It is in part due to their success that the nature of claimants has changed as the numbers claiming of Job Seekers Allowance has shrunk. The majority of people they now manage are claiming Employment Support Allowance, whether in the Work Related Activity Group, Support Group; or are longer term unemployed and many will have health or disability issues.

In 2015, Working Links carried out research to deepen our understanding of the characteristics that significantly influence a Work Programme customer’s chances of achieving a job outcome. I mentioned the significance of lack of skills in Maths and English. Those with some skills in these areas are four times more likely to achieve a job outcome than those without any. Other characteristics and their impact on job outcomes include:

• no health conditions, twice as likely
• job search confidence, four times as likely
• qualifications, four times as likely
• unemployed less than one year, four times as likely as six years or more
• age, with 18 – 24 year olds twice as likely as those over 51.

The committee also focused on how Work Coaches can be supported to identify key characteristics which indicate whether an individual will need specialist support on their journey to work and what that support should be. We have developed a new system which we are trialling in our operations in Ireland called Catalyst, which we have developed with Sheffield Hallam University and believe is unique. This assessment system may assist Jobcentre Plus to design and utilise a tested and effective approach to delivering successful outcomes for claimants.

Catalyst is a holistic assessment tool that identifies and recognises areas of strength and weakness that can be reinforced or addressed using appropriate interventions that will ultimately help customers achieve their goals and improve their social mobility. It takes account of an individual customer’s own perceptions of their skills and life situation, including employment potential and job seeking ability, but also life skills, health and other categories. 

Using this system Working Links can measure the ‘distance travelled’ by each customer across the different points from first contact through to employment and sustained employment. If the Committee is interested in seeing the system in practice we would be pleased to organise a demonstration at the Committee’s convenience.

When an assessment identifies a person with challenges that means they are ‘further from the work place’ with numerous barriers to be overcome before they are work ready, specialist support should be available within a Jobcentre Plus. This ‘centre within a centre’ approach would separate support from the benefits and conditionality regime of Jobcentre Plus.  This separation would allow for barriers to be addressed which are more effectively dealt with if the work coach is able to develop a trusted relationship with the individual at a distance from the threat of sanctions. To support the internal separation of function and the development of that trust a separate brand from Jobcentre Plus should be developed.

The importance of co-location has been mentioned to the committee and the advantages of Work Coaches working closely with other support services such as health and housing. We are developing a community hub approach which brings together a range of services we know from our experience long term unemployed people need. The committee would be welcome to visit to see one in operation.

We would also echo the point made to the Committee by Keith Faulkner that in addition to skills and knowledge, the recruitment process also needs to incorporate the values, attitude and passion of potential Work Coaches. Many of those with both the right knowledge and attitude are currently employed within the Work Programme by prime providers and we would recommend existing consultants be transferred directly into the Jobcentre Plus through the TUPE process.

We would also recommend that measures of success be changed from the current performance measurements of the numbers of claimants moving off benefits to measurements tracking sustainable employment outcomes.  Moving individuals into sustained employment breaks the cycle of people moving into temporary low paid jobs then back onto unemployment benefits.

My last point is that a great deal of change is being expected concurrently of Jobcentre Plus from working with unemployed people for up to two years, implementation of Universal Credit, recruitment and upskilling of staff, reorganisation and so on at a time where there increasing speculation of rising unemployment and therefore greater footfall. 

In addition, there is a gap in service provision between the end of the Work Programme in Spring 2017 and the implementation of the Work and Health programme in October 2017.During that period there will be no specialist provision for longer term and more vulnerable claimants. Nor funding streams for the specialist organisations currently supporting them.

It would be prudent in these circumstances for the Department of Work and Pensions to assess the risks to successfully delivering against all the policy implementation planned.

One option open to the Department of Work and Pensions is to extend existing Work Programme and Work Choice private sector contracts for a year as part of this assessment to ensure appropriate support to the long term unemployed, those in poor health and the disabled is available during the transition. Once the private service delivery mechanism is dismantled it will take time to regrow if it is needed again.

Once again, thank you for the Committees interest in this very important area and if I can be of any further help, I would be pleased to assist.

Yours sincerely,

Brian Bell

August 2016