Recommendations & Conclusions
4 items
4
Recommendation
Forty-Second Report - The Restart Schem…
Acknowledged
The Department did not know enough about its claimants to understand what support they needed and how many eligible claimants would go on to participate in Restart. The Department’s work coaches know a lot about their claimants, but much of this information is recorded as freeform text on a person’s …
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The Department did not know enough about its claimants to understand what support they needed and how many eligible claimants would go on to participate in Restart. The Department’s work coaches know a lot about their claimants, but much of this information is recorded as freeform text on a person’s benefit claim. This makes it difficult for the Department to collate and consider this information when it designs employment support. As an example, the Department said it had recently learned from providers that around 45% of people going onto Restart in some areas have English as a second language. Individual work coaches will know this about their individual claimants, but this is not information that the Department can aggregate to inform providers or use to ensure it is purchasing the support that claimants most need. Similarly, the Department does not have a vulnerability flag in the UC system, or a flag to denote mental health problems. The Department had expected its work coaches to find 82% of system-suggested claimants to be suitable for Restart and in reality, work coaches have only found 43% to be suitable. The Department did not run trials to test these assumptions about how many people The Restart Scheme for long-term unemployed people 7 would be found suitable as it felt it did not have time, that work coaches did not know their claimants as well because of COVID-19 lockdowns, and because claimant circumstances would change between it running a trial and launching the scheme. Recommendation 4: • The Department should set out how it will improve its record keeping so that barriers to work faced by a claimant, such as language difficulties or health conditions, are recorded and can be aggregated in the Universal Credit system to understand the type and scale of support the Department needs to provide, and so that providers have the best possible understanding of how they can help participants. • The Department should seek to establish the level of capacity
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Government response AI summary
The government acknowledges the value of testing assumptions prior to procurement but notes that trials can take up to two years to complete. The department will need to assess and balance the risks and opportunities when determining the right approach.
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HM Treasury
9
Conclusion
Forty-Second Report - The Restart Schem…
Acknowledged
We asked the Department whether it could have had any better information or better data to predict demand, and it told us that it was keen to learn from its experience of Restart about how to predict demand, and later spoke about how some of its data mining work may …
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We asked the Department whether it could have had any better information or better data to predict demand, and it told us that it was keen to learn from its experience of Restart about how to predict demand, and later spoke about how some of its data mining work may be able to help. However on this topic it also acknowledged that Restart has “clearly taught us [the Department] a lesson”.16 Impact of public service failure on the employment support the Department must provide
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the committee's observation, stating the recommendation is implemented. It details lessons learned about designing support during economic uncertainty, including considering broader scenarios, adaptability, and the role of pilots in informing policy.
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HM Treasury
19
Conclusion
Forty-Second Report - The Restart Schem…
Acknowledged
From 2010–11, when it was responding to the last economic crash, to 2020–21, the Department reduced its expenditure on employment support from £2.9 bn to £300 million per year.35 The Department told us that when it was designing Restart, it believed that “well over 2 million” people would be eligible …
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From 2010–11, when it was responding to the last economic crash, to 2020–21, the Department reduced its expenditure on employment support from £2.9 bn to £300 million per year.35 The Department told us that when it was designing Restart, it believed that “well over 2 million” people would be eligible and suitable for the scheme but that the maximum capacity the employment support market could build in the time available was 1.4 million people, and so it signed contracts with providers for that level of capacity.36 The Department’s focus on building capacity meant that it focused less on competitive pressures on price and performance and it set a minimum price and maximum performance expectation. All successful bidders offered the best performance they were allowed to offer, and the lowest price they were allowed to offer.37 The Department also looked to reduce the risk providers faced in delivering the scheme, by changing the payment mechanism so that providers received more income for delivering Restart at the front end of the programme.38
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees and states the recommendation is implemented, explaining that Restart was designed during economic uncertainty. It highlights lessons learned regarding considering a broader range of scenarios and how provision can adapt to changes in demand.
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HM Treasury
20
Conclusion
Forty-Second Report - The Restart Schem…
Acknowledged
However, shortly after launching Restart, the Department realised that had it had significantly overestimated the demand, partly because it expected there to be more eligible participants, and partly because it expected more of those eligible participants to be found suitable to start on the scheme.39 To increase the numbers of …
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However, shortly after launching Restart, the Department realised that had it had significantly overestimated the demand, partly because it expected there to be more eligible participants, and partly because it expected more of those eligible participants to be found suitable to start on the scheme.39 To increase the numbers of people going onto Restart, the Department relaxed the eligibility criteria so that more claimants were eligible. It also revised downwards its expectation of how many claimants would go onto Restart, from 1.4 million to 692,000, and renegotiated contracts with the providers.40
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the committee's observation and states the recommendation is implemented. It highlights lessons learned regarding designing support in uncertain economic conditions, emphasising the need to consider broader scenarios and how provision can adapt.
Read full response →
HM Treasury