Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Rejected
DWP evaluations assess Universal Credit's short-term labour market impact, not long-term individual effects
Conclusion
The Department’s evaluations have considered only the short-term impact of UC on the labour market.19 We asked about the longer-term impact on claimants’ employment status, beyond the six months after they started their claims. The Department acknowledged that it had measured the effects of UC on individuals only in the short term, but argued that this did not mean that UC does not have a sustained and long-term impact on the labour market. It referred to a ‘cohorting effect’, whereby any decreasing impact for individuals over time is offset by more people in subsequent cohorts of claimants being in work.20
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the implicit recommendation to track long-term individual employment impacts, stating it was not an objective of the UC programme and such tracking would not provide valuable insight for business case benefits. It asserts that current monitoring and evaluation programmes are sufficient.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
2.1 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 2.2 Tracking the types of employment Universal Credit claimants take up, and the duration of the claim, were not objectives of the Universal Credit Programme. 2.3 The department remains committed to understanding the labour market effects of Universal Credit and regularly monitors the labour market outcomes of Universal Credit customers using internal management information, as well as through a range of monthly and quarterly official statistics: the Office for National Statistics (ONS) claimant count, the department’s own Universal Credit official statistics, His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs-ONS payroll employment statistics and ONS statistics on employment, unemployment, inactivity, and workforce jobs. 2.4 The department is continuously developing Universal Credit statistics and has a wide-ranging research and evaluation programme on a range of departmental activity including five published impact evaluations, all showing the positive impact Universal Credit has had on employment. 2.5 The department does not agree that tracking a subset of claimants and publishing information on their employment, including a longitudinal study, would create the insight for which the Committee is hoping. This is because it could not show what would have happened in the absence of Universal Credit, and therefore would not help to prove the business case benefits. It would monitor outcomes but not isolate the impact of Universal Credit. The department, therefore, does not agree that this recommendation would be of significant value in the context of the Universal Credit business case impacts.