Recommendation 18

So far more Restart participants have moved into sustained jobs than the Department had expected, but this is in the context of historically low unemployment and high vacancies. The Department will not know the impact of Restart in increasing the number of people moving into sustained work until it has completed its evaluation, due in 2025, but told us that it “is reasonably confident” it would have the expected impact because the Department had been “cautious” in its assumptions.33 The Centre of Public Data and the Blavatnik Institute provided written evidence stressing the importance of transparency and the need for stakeholders and academics to be able to peer review the evaluation and stay up to date on the progress of the scheme.34 28 Committee of Public Accounts, DWP Employment support, Fifteenth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 177, 8 September 2021; Committee of Public Accounts, DWP Employment Support: Kickstart Scheme, Thirty-Ninth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 655, 25 February 2022. 29 Department for Work & Pensions, Official Statistics Summary: Restart Scheme to September 2022, 15 December 2022, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/restart-scheme-statistics-to-september-2022/ summary-restart-scheme-to-september-2022 30 Q 29; Work and Pensions Committee Oral evidence: The Work of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, HC 549, 30 November 2022, Q2 31 Qq 28, 38, 47, 66; C&AG’s Report, para 1.8 32 Q 28; C&AG’s Report, paras 9, 1.16 33 Q 28; C&AG’s Report, para 12, 4.6 34 Written evidence submitted by Dr Eleanor Carter, Government Outcomes Lab, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, dated December 2022; Written evidence submitted by the Centre for Public Data and John Penrose MP, dated December 2022. 14 The Restart Scheme for long-term unemployed people 3 Managing the employment support market Building capacity of providers to deliver Restart