Recommendation 12

In its business case, the Department recognised the risk that Kickstart might fund jobs that would have been created anyway, and assumed that only 50% of the jobs it funded would in fact be additional.46 However, it told us it was ‘very careful’ about the applications it agreed to fund, and imposed checks on the additionality of the jobs employers were proposing to create.47 It said these checks included asking employers ‘quite stringent’ 36 Qq19–21. 37 Q41. 38 Q93; C&AG’s Report, paragraph 17. 39 C&AG’s Report, Figure 6. 40 C&AG’s Report, Figure 9. 41 Q93. 42 C&AG’s Report, paragraph 1.24. 43 Qq27, 36; C&AG’s Report, paragraph 1.24. 44 C&AG’s Report, paragraph 1.28. 45 C&AG’s Report, paragraph 1.28. 46 C&AG’s Report, paragraph 9. 47 Q10. DWP Employment Support: Kickstart Scheme 13 questions about whether they were planning to create the jobs in question anyway, in the absence of Kickstart funding.48 The Department acknowledged that ‘to a degree we have to believe what they are telling us’, but implied that its tests must be robust on the basis that it had rejected nearly one in two (47%) of all applications from employers.49 However, the Department also told us that, in an effort to increase the number of application approvals, it had adopted a practice of telephoning employers whose applications had been rejected, to ‘talk through the application with them’, and thereby ‘get a better understanding of what they were saying about additionality’.50 Once it has awarded funding to employers, the Department does not routinely check whether Kickstart jobs are actually additional.51