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A programme that isn't working

Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 09:10, Fri 30 November 2012:

This week, the government announced the first figures for the number of workless people who’ve got into work as a result of the new Work Programme.

Ministers have been trying to keep these figures quiet for months. And no wonder. They’re terrible. Fewer people got into work as a result of being on the Work Programme than the number that would have been expected to get work if they hadn’t been on any sort of programme at all.

The government had a target that 5% of programme participants would get jobs. You might already be thinking that’s not a very ambitious target. What’s even worse is that in Stretford and Urmston, just 1.5% of those going onto the programme have gone into employment.

Meanwhile the Greater Manchester probation service has done much better getting ex-offenders into work. The success rate for their Achieve programme was 13.6%. You’d think it would be harder for ex-offenders to find work – and you’d be right. Many employers are reluctant to take on someone with an offending history. And many offenders have very low levels of literacy or numeracy, or have mental health problems, which make it even more difficult for them to find and keep a job.

So the probation service must be doing something right. We know that if offenders do get into work, it helps to reduce the risk that they’ll reoffend. That’s why great projects like Clean Start, run by Trafford Housing Trust, which employs ex-offenders to clear out empty properties and look after gardens , are so important, not just for the offenders and their families, but for all our community. Other local projects, like the BigLife jobshop in Partington, and Procure Plus, also have a good track record of working with socially excluded and unemployed people, some with a previous history of offending. These projects help to keep crime down.

I hope ministers will be interested in the successful schemes that are being run locally. But local voluntary organisations tell me it’s increasingly difficult for them to get the funding to run specialist programmes of support. Even more ironically, because of the difficulties they can experience getting paid by the government, it becomes all the more difficult for them to borrow money from the charity banks too.

This is a crazy vicious circle, that means some good projects can’t proceed. And things may get worse. On Monday, I attended a lecture organised by the Prison Reform Trust, where charities were expressing concern about the future, as the government proceeds with a “payment by results” model of funding for those organisations working with offenders on community sentences.

You’d think ministers would learn something from the problems the Work Programme has revealed. That’s also a payment by results programme – but it isn’t achieving results. When ministers say the Work Programme is cheaper than the previous new deal and future jobs fund programmes under Labour, that’s a measure of its failure, not of success.

Best Wishes

Kate Green MP