Welfare Reform on the Web (August 2008): Social security - UK - New Deal

Challenges 2009: make or break?

D. Simmonds

Working Brief, June 2008, p. 3-8

The government has planned huge changes in the social protection and welfare to work systems in 2008/09. They will need to cope with challenges including:

• Rising unemployment following the credit crunch
• Delivery of the Flexible New Deal, which will see new contractors taking over employment services
• Demands for increased localisation of services
• Getting people who are economically inactive, including those on Incapacity Benefit, into paid jobs
• Hitting government performance targets.

Employment programmes: assessing the outcomes

P. Bivand

Working Brief, June 2008, p. 17-18

This article examines the performance of the major employment programmes, looking at how many people have been participating, how many started and how many found jobs. Participation of young people in the New Deal programme has started to fall, but the job outcome rate has improved. Job outcome rates for the New Deal 25+ have also started to climb, in spite of the extension of mandatory participation in the Intensive Activity Period to the over-50s from June 2007. Job outcomes for clients registered with the New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) have also improved. The NDDP has gained visibility since being incorporated within the 'choices package' offered to Incapacity Benefits (IB) claimants by Pathways to Work advisers and discussed by Jobcentre Plus IB advisers at work-focused interviews.