Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 14
14
While the Department publishes selective statistics about some of its support schemes, such as information...
Conclusion
While the Department publishes selective statistics about some of its support schemes, such as information about the work and health programme, it does not produce regular data on its schemes to allow Parliamentarians or its partners to scrutinise performance in real time, who instead have to wait for formal evaluation results.40 The Department said that it would work with us and the National Audit Office to develop regular updates about the success of the new employment schemes it has introduced, and we discussed how these metrics should be clear about what outcomes the support schemes are achieving, and how they should be easy to understand and interpret at a local level.41 37 Q 61; C&AG’s Report, pg 18 38 Q 61 39 Letter from the Permanent Secretary to the Chair, 5 July 2021 40 Department for Work and Pensions, Work and Health Programme statistics to February 2021, 27 May 2021, available at: Work and Health Programme statistics to February 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 41 Qq 61–66 14 DWP Employment support 2 Ensuring people get the support they need Getting claimants the right support
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
5: PAC Conclusion: The Department is not sufficiently transparent about the impact and take-up of its schemes at a local level. 5: PAC Recommendation: The Department should produce a quarterly statistical publication and regular data updates on measures such as the take-up, participation among different groups, and job outcomes of its schemes including at a granular, local level. We will be questioning the Department on what progress it has made when it next appears before us in September. 5.1 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 5.2 The department will not be introducing regular statistical publications at this stage given that many of the programmes are about to come to an end. Instead, the department is considering how best it can put information about these schemes into the public domain after their closure, and how information is best provided on schemes that will continue for longer. 5.3 The department has been working to improve data collection to support operational planning and policy decisions. As it does so, it has released more information into the public domain over time as the department’s understanding of the data, and its confidence in it, increases. For example, the department has now published information through Parliamentary Questions on the regional breakdowns of Kickstart jobs and information on the number of 20 starts on other employment programmes. The department recently published the Plan for jobs: progress update.