Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Forty-Second Report - The Restart Scheme for long-term unemployed people
Public Accounts Committee
HC 733
Published 22 March 2023
Recommendations
2
Accepted
The Department has ended up paying more per Restart participant than for previous similar schemes,...
Recommendation
The Department has ended up paying more per Restart participant than for previous similar schemes, because it had to pay providers to rapidly build up capacity from a standing start and then did not need all that capacity. From 2010–11, …
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Government Response Summary
The department agrees it is important to have a mix of provision available in order to ensure it can effectively pivot to tackle emerging issues, will further assess the standing capacity and capability of the market in line with government priorities and its commitment to achieving value for money as part of future Spending Review decisions and as part of regular fiscal event updates.
HM Treasury
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3
Accepted
The Department and providers are not working together and sharing information as effectively as they...
Recommendation
The Department and providers are not working together and sharing information as effectively as they might to support participants into work. Both the Department and providers aim to provide coaching support to help participants into work. While it would have …
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Government Response Summary
The department intends to test reducing the current frequency of contact for participants on the Restart scheme and review the impact of doing so.
HM Treasury
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4
Acknowledged
The Department did not know enough about its claimants to understand what support they needed...
Recommendation
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 …
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Government Response 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.
HM Treasury
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5
Accepted
The Department does not understand how well each of the individual 77 providers are delivering...
Recommendation
The Department does not understand how well each of the individual 77 providers are delivering Restart compared to their peers. The Restart scheme is delivered by a complex network of prime contractors and their subcontractors across 12 different contract areas …
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Government Response Summary
Prime providers will report on a simple return, the subcontractor each participant is assigned to. The department will produce relevant MI centrally and circulate subcontractor MI for each CPA to all prime providers monthly for complete transparency. Subcontractor MI will be shared with the evaluation team to be used as part of their process.
HM Treasury
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6
Accepted
Many claimants have complex barriers that prevent them from finding work, and some of these...
Recommendation
Many claimants have complex barriers that prevent them from finding work, and some of these barriers may be better addressed through other means than an employment support scheme such as Restart. The Department’s work coaches must decide whether people from …
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Government Response Summary
The government set out its plan to improve support to those with complex barriers relating to health and disability in the White Paper Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper published on 15 March 2023. The department also works across government to build support for claimants facing other complex needs.
HM Treasury
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8
Accepted
Work coaches use their knowledge of claimants to decide what support a claimant might benefit...
Recommendation
Work coaches use their knowledge of claimants to decide what support a claimant might benefit from and whether to refer people onto particular schemes. However, the Department is not able to use this information when planning the scale of support …
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Government Response Summary
The government claims to have already implemented improvements within the Universal Credit system in March 2023 to record more information on claimant's circumstances, but is unclear if aggregation would make programmes such as the Restart Scheme any more efficient.
HM Treasury
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10
Accepted
Many of the complex barriers that claimants face, which can mean that somebody is less...
Recommendation
Many of the complex barriers that claimants face, which can mean that somebody is less likely to be referred to Restart and that they might find it harder to move into work, are 9 Q 6; C&AG’s Report, figure 6 …
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Government Response Summary
The government agrees that complex barriers prevent people from finding work and has set out a plan to improve support in the White Paper published on 15 March 2023, including extending the Employment Advisers in NHS Talking Therapies services, working with the Ministry of Justice, Department for Education, and Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities.
HM Treasury
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13
Accepted
Restart participants continue to attend a jobcentre to meet their work coach every two weeks...
Recommendation
Restart participants continue to attend a jobcentre to meet their work coach every two weeks while they are on the scheme. Participants also have fortnightly meetings with their Restart provider employment advisor, half of which are in person.21 Participants have …
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Government Response Summary
The government will test reducing the current frequency of jobcentre contact for Restart participants and review the impact, with a target implementation date of Spring 2024.
HM Treasury
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Conclusions (18)
1
Conclusion
Accepted
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Department of Work & Pensions (the Department) about the Restart Scheme.1
Government Response Summary
The Department for Work and Pensions (the department) released an ad hoc publication on the Restart Scheme in December 2022 and is now publishing regular six- monthly statistics, which started in June 2023 and evaluation of the Restart Scheme is underway.
7
Conclusion
In the remaining 43% of instances a claimant was not referred, this is because the claimant was no longer eligible by the time they were considered by the work coach. This could be, for example, because they had found work or because they no longer needed to search for work …
9
Conclusion
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 …
11
Conclusion
Not Addressed
Discussing mental health, the Department did tell us about a number of initiatives arising from a joint Department for Work & Pensions and Department of Health & Social Care unit which looks to target some of the mental health challenges claimants face. The Department told us that it had “paid …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees that complex barriers prevent people from finding work and has set out a plan to improve support in the White Paper published on 15 March 2023, including extending the Employment Advisers in NHS Talking Therapies services, working with the Ministry of Justice, Department for Education, and Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities.
12
Conclusion
Accepted
The Department also told us about some other cross government work it is involved in, including working with the Department for Levelling up, Housing & Communities to avoid benefit recipients paying higher rents for poorer-quality accommodation in the private rented sector.20 17 Q 71 18 Q 75 19 Q 73 …
Government Response Summary
The government agreed to improve support to those with complex barriers, as set out in the White Paper published on 15 March 2023, and will work across government with other departments to build support for claimants facing other complex needs.
14
Conclusion
Accepted
Shortly after starting on the Restart scheme, participants undertake a ‘diagnostic assessment’ with providers, to understand the extent to which things like the physical and emotional demands of work, travel, literacy, numeracy, debt, housing, criminal convictions, and family life challenges are barriers to that individual finding work. Following this, providers …
Government Response Summary
The government agreed to ensure work coaches and Restart provider advisors always have access to key information about participants and their barriers to work. Information sharing is reviewed as part of continuous improvement, including Warm Handovers, and a communications framework has been developed.
15
Conclusion
Accepted
The Department acknowledged that while an IT system that allows information to be shared between provider employment advisors and Department work coaches would be “perfect” and is something it would think about for future programmes, it also told us that it had looked to do this previously and decided not …
Government Response Summary
The government agreed to ensure work coaches and Restart provider advisors always have access to key information about participants and their barriers to work. Information sharing is reviewed as part of continuous improvement, including Warm Handovers, and a communications framework has been developed.
16
Conclusion
Accepted
We have repeatedly recommended that the Department be more transparent and publish more information about the performance of its employment support schemes.28 However, until recently, the only information made available about Restart has been in response to Parliamentary Questions. While the Department did publish an ‘ad hoc’ statistical release in …
Government Response Summary
The Department for Work and Pensions will publish regular six-monthly statistics on the Restart Scheme, and has commissioned evaluations of the scheme, with decisions around publication to be made in due course.
17
Conclusion
The Department used its experience of delivering and evaluating the Work Programme, a similar previous scheme which ran between 2011 and 2017, to help it to design and set up Restart.31 The Department’s evaluation of the Work Programme showed that, on average, scheme participants spent 46 additional days in work …
18
Conclusion
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 …
19
Conclusion
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 …
20
Conclusion
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 …
21
Conclusion
Accepted
The Department used the forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility to build its expectations about how much demand there would be for the Restart scheme, but acknowledges that it did not consider volumes falling as far as they did.41 The Department told us that it designs programmes to “cope …
Government Response Summary
The Department acknowledges the need to better expand and reduce capacity for employment support and to have a mix of provision available in order to effectively pivot to tackle emerging issues, and will further assess the market and value for money as part of future Spending Review decisions and fiscal event updates.
22
Conclusion
Accepted
The Department explained to us that the reduction in volumes meant providers had prepared for a “different scale of service”, and had committed to costs such as staff and building leases that reflected the scale of the programme they had originally been asked to deliver, but now did not need.43 …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and will collate robust Management Information (MI) to assess how providers are performing at Contract Package Area (CPA) level, to increase transparency and competition and share best practice.
23
Conclusion
The Department set out in the Restart business case that it expected to pay around £1,800 per participant but, following the renegotiations, it now expects to pay around £2,429 per participant. The Work Programme, which ran from 2011 to 2017, cost around £1,760 per participant in 2021–22 prices.46 The Department …
24
Conclusion
Although the Department signed contracts with eight prime providers to deliver Restart across 12 contract areas in England and Wales the prime providers can, and do, subcontract much of the scheme delivery to other providers.48 In total, there are 77 providers involved in the delivery of Restart. Providers have their …
25
Conclusion
Accepted
However, the Department’s routinely collected management information only shows the performance in each of the 12 contract package areas, rather than detailing the performance of individual providers. Its management information shows how many people are moving into work in contract areas and how regularly the customer service standards, which aim …
Government Response Summary
The department will enhance the assessment of provider performance by requiring prime providers to report on the subcontractor each participant is assigned to and will produce relevant MI centrally, starting in Autumn 2024, to be shared with prime providers and the evaluation team.
26
Conclusion
Accepted
Several of the Restart subcontractors work in multiple contract areas, and half of the prime contractors also work as subcontractors in areas where they are not the prime. This has helped to facilitate the sharing of best practice, but it reduces competition between contract areas.53 45 C&AG’s Report, para 22 …
Government Response Summary
The government will enhance its processes by having prime providers report on subcontractor assignments, producing MI centrally, circulating subcontractor MI monthly for transparency, and sharing subcontractor MI with the evaluation team, with a target implementation date of Autumn 2024.