Recent History in Welfare to Work

So here we are.  September 2017.  TWP Solutions is now entering it's 8th year in business and we, the welfare to work and skills sectors have all been through huge changes. Technology changes over this time have meant we are able to close down our old website. The end of Work Programme and the demise or merger of so many organisations over this period has also meant it was time to bring our workprogramme.co.uk networking site to a close.   

As we looked at content for this refreshed site I started to look through the hundreds of news articles and comment pieces we'd published previously and came across this one relating to Work Programme Performance back in 2013.

So even though we've decided not to transfer over other articles we felt  keeping this post alive on the new site would give some recent historic insight re how much the market has changed between then and now.   

Once we publish the results of the recent Work and Health Programme tendering round and the Fair Start Scotland results - it will help show just how much things have changed.  Those new results will be here soon and will show huge change - as much from who isn't there as who is.

In the meantime here is the original post............

The publication of Work Programme performance figures on 27th June 2013 provides plenty of scope for spin by those in favour of the programme as it currently exists and by those who are opposed to the Work Programme in its current format. Things are improving and some providers are doing well with the main JSA customer groups is the positive message from DWP and ERSA – but other voices can equally point to the majority of providers failing to achieve;  that the programme overall could be seen as worse than doing nothing and that it has been an absolute disaster for customers on health related benefits.

The results however tell us as much about the poor decision making of the Coalition government as it does about the inefficiencies of some (but not all) Work Programme Prime Contractors.

There is a raft of different ways in which the numbers can be cut that will provide a range of different ranked leagues tables, and I’ll show you some of them later but what is clear is that there are a few companies that are performing well for the JSA customer groups including, Ingeus, Maximus and G4S and others who are performing consistently badly such as JHP, Rehab Jobfit and Newcastle College Group.

For now let’s look at the very simplest measure based on the total number of job outcomes from the total number of referrals over the life of the contract so far.

This measure shows the following top 5 ranking:-

1/ G4S – Surrey , Sussex and Kent – 13.5%

2/ Maximus – Thames Valley, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight -13.2%

3/ Ingeus – East of England – 13.2%

4/ Ingeus – East Midlands – 12.9%

5/ G4S – Manchester. Cheshire and Warrington -12.7%

So what can we say for certain based on the results published –

Firstly we can be clear that at this stage no one model is better than another –the argument that purely being a managing agent provides better results than is achieved by Prime Contractors who also do delivery just doesn’t stand up. Whilst G4S come out top overall on this measure for Surrey, Sussex and Kent it should not be forgotten that Maximus came top for FND in the same area and the results delivered by Ingeus and Maximus show that doing an element of direct delivery does not lead to a reduction in performance over those who are purely managing agents. For example the G4S contract in North East Yorkshire and the Humber would be ranked 22 out of 40. G4S could argue that they are top in every area they deliver compared to the other local providers however at this stage the gap between them and the others appears to be narrowing – which suggests it has taken time for new providers to get their direct delivery up to speed – but now that they have they could overtake G4S in the future.

Secondly good provision in areas with below average unemployment do best - it’s no surprise that the poorest performing contract for each of Ingeus , Maximus and G4S is in the contract area with the highest level of unemployment amongst their own Prime Contracts.

However it is also clear that whilst some do well others are failing to achieve the same levels of success even in areas with below average unemployment – signalling clearly that there are issues with the quality of provision being made available.

Up to a point good provision can overcome the deficit of higher levels of unemployment with 8 of the 17 contracts that are performing above the average for all programmes being in regions where unemployment is higher than the GB average.  

The league table changes when you look at the results based on the 18 Primes rather than the 40 individual contracts. With the top 9 all performing above average and the latter 9 below the GB average across all of their contracts.

We can easily fall into the world of lies, damn lies and statistics as a number of providers can all claim top spot - for example CESI has completed its analysis using their preferred measure – which is to measure outcomes achieved over the life of the contract ( through to March 2013) as a percentage of referrals up to March 2012 – what they call the one year job outcome measure. This produces another league table that reads as follows :-

So on the basis of the contract package areas, referrals to job outcome; individual provider, referrals to job outcome and CESI’s one year job outcome measure then EOS, ESG and G4S can all claim to have come out as the top performer.

However if we look again at the statistics based on the 3 customers groups for whom there is a Minimum Performance Level we again see a change in ranking-

The Year 2 Minimum Performance Level target for 18-24 year olds set by DWP was 33%. 17 of the 40 contracts achieved this target with G4S topping the table on 42% in Surrey, Sussex and Kent – however in that contract their performance with the 25 and over JSA clients put them in 22nd place out of 40.

Similarly in East Midlands – Ingeus achieved 2nd place for the 18-24 year olds with 41% success rate but their performance for the over 25’s ranked them 25th out of 40. Again Ingeus secured 3rd place for 18-24’s in West London with 39.9% but also secured 2ndplace overall for 25+ with a performance of 41.9% against the DWP MPL of 27.5%.

Maximus were placed 4th in Thames Valley for the 18-24 year olds (39.7%) and 1st for the over 25’s with a performance of 45.1%  Maximus also achieved 3rd spot for the over 25’s at 39% in West London with A4e picking up 4th spot for over 25’s in Thames Valley (36.3%) ; unfortunately for A4e they also picked up 40th spot for the over 25’s in their home patch of South Yorkshire (15.5%)

As indicated above some providers have done very well with 1 group but not the other in relation to MPL, as such only 4 of the 18 Primes have achieved MPL for both JSA 25+ and JSA 18-24 across 8 of the 40 contracts – they are Maximus(2), Ingeus(3), Working Links(2) and A4e. It’s also worth noting that EOS and ESG do not feature on the top lists when MPL is measured suggesting that there outcomes are skewed unusually towards the JSA early entrant category.

So what else have we learned from these results – Ingeus offered one of the lowest prices for delivery whilst G4S secured their contracts with minimal discounting yet both are performing well – critical mass has clearly aided Ingeus in this regard.

But it also begs the question why are we judging providers against the Minimum Performance Levels and why are others arguing that we should measure against a lower MPL based on the lower growth in the economy?

We at TWP Solutions were always concerned about the prospects for Work Programme on managing through a downturn and whilst providers claim they didn’t expect things to be as bad as they are – we expressed those concerns very clearer in a brochure to government whilst working for one of those Primes ( prior to establishing TWP Solutions) and long before the Work Programme was procured – so for people to say they didn’t think it could be this bad or to take their own view ( not just the department’s at the time when they bid) is a ludicrous defence for under performance.

What we should be doing is looking at the performance offer made by each Prime Contractor and measuring against that – in fact I’d support a percentage reduction on their actual offers based on the lower levels of growth achieved. The reality however would be that most would fail to achieve what they promised.

Sadly at the time of Work Programme procurement some people understood the challenges of the MPL and offered no discount on achieving outcomes as they believed they would need every penny to be successful – they lost out (and some lost their jobs) to those who promised significantly better performance than the MPL - DWP should now judge Primes against what they offered.

Finally the statistics tell us that the Work Programme has failed ESA clients to such an extent that the previously criticised Pathways to Work Programme now looks like a model of perfection in terms of meeting the needs of customers with a health condition.

The MPL for year 2 for New ESA customers was set at 16.5% and the highest performance was not even half of this – Ingeus achieved 8.1%. Indeed Ingeus hold Positions 1, 2, 4 & 6 with Seetec taking 3rd spot and G4S in Manchester taking the 5thspot on the league table of performance.

It’s worth noting that Ingeus appear to be one of the few to make use of Health Professionals to support this group of customers in a systematic way.

Much more needs to be done to meet the needs of ESA customers as the current financial model and the Work Programme is failing them.

It is highly possible in our view that even with the same funding greater success would have been achieved for ESA customers if they were on a separate programme ( or if the budget and customer group was managed seperately within the Work Programme).

At the start of this commentary I said that it tells us more about the Coalition Government’s failings than it does about the providers who fought so hard to secure these contracts.

Having an Investment Banker design a funding model for a welfare to work programme that would be more appropriate to major construction projects was perhaps their first mistake and the Liberal Democrats then allowing the Conservatives to run with their policy was clearly the second.

The greatest mistake thereafter was that of many new governments. They hit the ground running; sprinting towards a finishing line of what they thought was a 100m dash in their determination to change everything only to run out of steam ( and ideas) when they realised they’d entered a marathon. But unemployed customers have been the major casualty of this approach.

After 22 months of delivery the statistics show that in terms of achieving outcomes the Work Programme has not been as successful as Flexible New Deal and given the Coalitions' rush to scrap it then Labour will always be able to claim that FND was better.

So here we are 22 months down the line and still not delivering as well as FND. Imagine if rather than rushing around trying to change everything and create a new year zero they had just let the existing FND contracts run their course. Not only would the performance have continued to improve it would have saved the Government an absolute fortune in relation to the compensation they paid out to FND providers. As FND was already at a level of performance not yet achieved by Work Programme thousand more unemployed people would have secured jobs in the interim period.  

More jobs secured, no compensation paid out – even George Osborne would have been happy with that.

Better still in the areas where FND was not yet in place – a prototype Work Programme could have been introduced ensuring that time was taken to listen and learn from FND and Pilot Work Programmes before going for the full roll out. That way Government may have avoided the penny wise pound foolish procurement approach that lead to so many providers securing contracts based on discounts and over promising on performance as opposed to the quality of their solution.  

Unemployed clients are now suffering from that discount approach and the fault for that lies squarely with the Government.

The black box appears to have been a step too far and in too many case providers have thrown away all of the expertise and skills they developed over the years when they grabbed these discounted contracts.

It’s refreshing to see that in Northern Ireland where Steps 2 Success is about to be procured they have recognised this and are adopting a grey box approach more akin to FND than Work Programme; with more sensible pricing and quality control.    

What comes after Work Programme or Work Programme Mark 2 ?

Let’s hope the next Government spends more time making sure they get it right than they have this time and learns from the mistakes of this one.

Finally let’s hope that the results remain as positive post validation as they are in the figures published in June. Any significant decline once job outcomes have been properly validated would be nothing short of a disaster at this stage of delivery.  

Alex Pollock

Founding Director

TWP Solutions