Tailor-Made? Single Parents’ Experiences of Employment Support from Jobcentre Plus and the Work Programme

Tailor-made? Single parents’ experiences of employment support from Jobcentre Plus and the Work Programme

Dr Adam Whitworth, University of Sheffield

Contents

Table of Figures...... 3 Executive summary ...... 4 Introduction ...... 9 1.1 Policy context ...... 9 1.2 Aims and methodology ...... 11 Single parents and the Jobcentre Plus Offer ...... 13 2.1 The impact of the LPOs on single parent JSA caseloads ...... 13 2.2 Single parents’ experiences of the new Jobcentre Plus Offer ...... 15 2.2.1 Single parent advisers and awareness of the single parent JSA flexibilities ...... 16 2.2.2 Support for skills and training courses within the Offer: back to basics .... 17 2.2.3 Work first versus human capital approaches: variation and tensions ...... 19 2.2.4 Additional personalised, intensive support through external organisations ...... 20 2.2.5 Cut adrift from Jobcentre Plus support? More experienced single parents and the Offer ...... 21 2.2.6 The risks within the Offer’s dual aims: creating cracks that claimants fall through ...... 22 2.3 Access to additional supports: Flexible Support Fund and Get Britain Working ...... 23 2.3.1 Discretionary support through the Flexible Support Fund ...... 23 2.3.2 Relevant work experience opportunities: limits to Pre-Work Programme employment support ...... 24 2.4 Adviser support with job search ...... 27 2.5 Towards a typology of single parent experiences: identifying the strong and weak points of the Offer ...... 29 2.6 The spectre of sanctions ...... 31 2.7 Job outcomes under the Jobcentre Plus Offer ...... 34 2.8 Overall experience of the Jobcentre Plus Offer ...... 34 Single parents and the Work Programme ...... 37 3.1 Quantitative profile of single parents participating in the Work Programme ...... 37 3.2 Single parents’ job outcomes on the Work Programme ...... 46 3.3 Single parents’ experiences of the Work Programme ...... 50 3.3.1 Communication between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers ...... 50 3.3.2 Monitoring and accountability of Work Programme delivery: weak awareness of service promises and complaints processes ...... 55 3.3.3 Quality of Work Programme provision ...... 56 3.3.4 Job outcomes on the Work Programme ...... 63

Conclusions ...... 68 Recommendations ...... 72 References ...... 74 Appendix: Local authority single parent JSA counts (July 2011) and Work Programme attachments (to July 2012) ...... 76

Table of Figures Figure 1: The claimant’s journey through employment support ...... 11 Figure 2: Monthly single parent JSA caseload broken down by age of youngest child (AYC) ...... 14 Figure 3: Total JSA caseloads (left) & single parent JSA caseload as percentage of total (right) ...... 15 Figure 4: Typology of single parents’ experiences of the Jobcentre Plus Offer ...... 30 Figure 5: Single parents’ experiences of the Jobcentre Plus Offer ...... 35 Figure 6: Monthly Work Programme attachments, Jun 2011-Jul 2012 ...... 39 Figure 7: Total single parent Work Programme attachments Jun 11-Jul 12 ...... 39 Figure 8: Work Programme payment groups for single parents and non-single parents ...... 40 Figure 9: Attachment percentages across Work Programme contracts ...... 43 Figure 10: Single parent total Work Programme attachments (shape) and per cent of single parent JSA claims that are 1 year plus (shading)...... 44 Figure 11: Single parent total Work Programme attachments (shape) and single parent attachments as per cent of all attachments (shading) ...... 44 Figure 12: Comparison of single parent and non-single parent job outcome rates for key groups ...... 48 Figure 13: Comparison of single parent and non-single parent job outcome rates across prime providers and Contract Package Areas ...... 49

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Caroline Davey, Amy Skipp and Philippa Newis at Gingerbread for their support throughout the research project as well as to Elle Carter at the University of Sheffield for her help with the transcription of the qualitative material. Particular thanks are due to all the single parents interviewed who shared their experiences so willingly and without whom the research would not have been possible.

Executive summary

Introduction

“It lifts your spirits a little bit thinking maybe this is different, maybe this is something that is more about me, because that’s how they sell it to you – it’s more personalised. But actually your experience isn’t that different.” – Jane, twins aged 12

There is urgent need for a step-change in the delivery of employment support to help single parents into work. As austerity measures hit low income single parents hard, securing sustainable employment at a decent wage represents single parents’ best chance of lifting their families out of poverty. And yet, despite years of government experimentation with welfare reform programmes, the employment rate for single parents still falls far short of that achieved by single parents across other European countries and of mothers in couples in the UK, and has little more than plateaued since 2007.

Most recent studies of into work support have focused either on Jobcentre Plus provision or on the Work Programme. Our research is therefore particularly important as it looks at both together, and is thus able to draw conclusions and recommendations that consider the complete package of government-funded employment support that single parents may experience.

The current coalition government approach to getting single parents into work is closely built on that of the previous government. Significant numbers of single parents have been subject to conditionality in return for out of work benefits since 2008, and in return have been offered employment support based on key principles of flexibility, personalisation, value for money and a welcome emphasis on sustainable job outcomes.

However, these principles are often poorly applied and inadequately delivered. This research shows that significant reform is required to both the Jobcentre Plus Offer and the Work Programme – and, crucially, that there must be a clear differentiation of their roles if the system is to stop failing single parents who are highly motivated to work but face significant barriers in a tough job market.

Key findings and recommendations

Employment support is failing far too many single parents. Our research shows that: - Single parents are largely invisible within the system. The lack of understanding amongst providers of the specific barriers they face – in particular finding work that fits around their caring responsibilities, the cost and availability of childcare,

low skills and limited work experience – or of how to overcome these barriers, impedes the process of supporting them to find work - Although promised personalised and tailored support, single parents are mainly receiving a very limited and basic offer of generic support, whether accessed through Jobcentre Plus or a Work Programme provider - Job outcomes for single parents are well below that of other claimant groups, despite evidence that single parents are highly motivated to work - Despite some moves to measure performance (of Work Programme providers at least) on ‘sustainable job outcomes’, the system of employment support overall is still more geared towards ‘any job’ than a job that lasts and provides an adequate income.

Most worryingly, not only has the overall single parent employment rate stalled far below that of mothers in couples but this research also shows that single parents are already falling significantly behind other claimant groups in achieving job outcomes under the Work Programme. This brings into serious question both the Work Programme’s effectiveness for single parents and its value-for-money for the taxpayer.

1. Tackling invisibility – putting the focus back on single parents

“I didn’t feel that my circumstances were going to make any difference to what I was going to have to do” – Mark, one child aged 14

Single parents, as a group, have particular needs and face particular barriers to work. And yet, despite the number of single parents on jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) increasing from around 5,000 in 2008 up to over 145,000 in autumn 2012, specialist provision tailored to their specific needs has actually decreased, replaced by a growth in generalist provision. Single parents, and their specific employment support needs, are falling under the radar – with significant consequences.

Our research provides evidence of poor understanding of single parents’ specific needs and of the flexibilities available for parents with caring responsibilities, and no access to specialist advisers. Moreover, on the Work Programme single parents are already getting consistently lower job outcome rates than other claimants: the first set of monitoring data showed that 3.5 per cent of referrals overall in the first year of the Work Programme resulted in job outcome payments, an already disappointing figure that was below the government’s minimum performance target for providers. However, for single parents the figure was 30 per cent lower at just over 2.5 per cent, and was lower still for single parents who are disabled or aged 18-24.

Recommendations: - The government must ensure that employment support providers put renewed focus on single parents as a discrete claimant group in order to deliver a

significant increase in single parent employment, and as part of this focus should set a clear and ambitious target for single parent employment and an action plan to achieve it. This would also support existing priorities to reduce the number of workless households and tackle child poverty

- The government should ensure that single parents receive consistent and reliable support for childcare costs incurred when preparing for work in order to ensure that they are on a level playing field with other claimants. Jobcentre Plus should guarantee access to the Flexible Support Fund to pay for childcare costs for single parents seeking work, and there should be an equivalent scheme provided by Work Programme providers.

2. Providing a genuinely tailored service offer that can meet the needs of all single parents

“There’s never anyone there to help you actually find something. So you’re just basically on your own really and it’s just a hard thing actually to get to the interview stage.” – Aisha, two children aged 10 and 12

Government has made clear commitments to delivering a more personalised approach to employment support. This includes the promise to give “more responsibility to Jobcentre Plus advisers to assess claimants’ individual needs and to offer the support they think most appropriate”, as well as the Work Programme’s aim of “creating a structure that treats people as individuals and allows providers greater freedom to tailor the right support to the individual needs of each claimant”.

Our research shows that these commitments are firmly at odds with many single parents’ experiences. A significant number of the single parents we spoke to reported being offered only a relatively basic and generic core of training support by either Jobcentre Plus or Work Programme. Some had also experienced being ‘parked’ while on the Work Programme – that is, being left unsupported while others are favoured for support. This appears to have affected both those closest to and those farthest from the labour market, with provider energies focused on those they felt needed relatively low resource input to ‘tip’ their prospects of finding work.

Our research unearthed further system problems, with a lack of clear and tangible minimum service expectations communicated to single parents and a lack of accountability for what they are offered by way of support. This ranged from a lack of awareness of Work Programme minimum service guarantees, the all-too-common report that many single parents were not being told by either Jobcentre Plus or Work Programme advisers about the single parent JSA flexibilities (special rules that allow them to combine work with caring for their children), to limited use by any provider of more intensive interventions such as work experience or referral to specialist provision.

Recommendations: - The Work Programme referral process should be amended to allow claimants to choose which of their local providers to go to. Consumer choice would improve competition both between the two or three prime providers per Contract Package Area and between the different providers in each prime’s supply chain, encouraging them to deliver high-quality personalised employment support

- Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers must ensure that all advisers understand and inform single parents about the single parent JSA flexibilities, so that they are best able to balance job seeking with their childcare responsibilities

- The government must build public and employer confidence in the value of work experience by developing a portfolio of well-managed work placement schemes available on a voluntary basis to improve job prospects

- The government must place higher priority on claimant feedback within performance management and accountability frameworks.

3. Clarifying the respective roles of Jobcentre Plus and the Work Programme

“I don’t think the left-hand knows what the right-hand is doing... It’s almost like when I go to Jobcentre – ‘that’s what the Work Programme is for’, when you go to the Work Programme often they’re like, ‘oh, what did the Jobcentre say?’” – Shareen, two children aged 13 and 18

Single parents referred to the Work Programme following a period of support by Jobcentre Plus found that they were frequently being offered a very similar suite of basic support as before, such as generic courses on CV writing, job search and basic skills. This ‘groundhog day’ approach is not only deeply frustrating for individual claimants but is also a significant waste of time and resources on the part of both providers.

Our research also highlighted a number of communication problems between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme advisers, particularly around initial referral to the Work Programme, duplication of job search requirements, responsibility for the provision of better-off calculations, and the process of signing-off JSA. This led, in some cases, to single parents being bounced between the two organisations multiple times before a problem was resolved.

Recommendations: - The government must urgently undertake a rapid review to draw out the key differences between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme provision, map out a

seamless referral process between the two, and remove duplication in the services provided

- Once there is clarity between what is provided by each of Jobcentre Plus and the Work Programme, consideration should be given to developing a diagnostic tool for use at the start of a single parent’s JSA claim which identifies whichever employment support provision is most appropriate for their needs, matches those needs to providers within either Jobcentre Plus or Work Programme supply chains, and enables the claimant to choose to fast-track to that support.

4. Jobs that last – not jobs first

“No, no. I’m not doing a course or training because they are really pushing for the work” – Maria, two children aged 12 and 13

Sustainability is not being given due priority. Our research shows that many advisers across Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers still take a ‘work first’ approach, pushing for rapid transitions into work irrespective of single parents’ needs or work aims. Although Work Programme providers are paid in part on the basis of sustained job outcomes (this is not currently the case for Jobcentre Plus), there appears to be very limited investment across both types of support for skilling up single parents. The lower job outcome rates already in evidence for single parents on the Work Programme reinforce our concerns, particularly when the primary aim of this programme is to support claimants into sustainable employment.

Recommendations: - Jobcentre Plus should include sustainable job outcomes in its performance management and accountability framework so as to match the focus on sustainability that is intended in the Work Programme

- Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers must undertake early assessment of need for skills training, and provide adequate investment in vocational skills – not just basic skills and employability.

Introduction 1.1 Policy context The policy landscape around single parent employment support has evolved very rapidly in recent years. Following the introduction in 2001 of work-focussed interviews (WFIs), in 2006 the DWP proposed the idea of requiring single parents with secondary school-aged children to participate in work-related activities with support from a personal adviser (DWP, 2006: 57). This policy direction was extended in 2007 when the DWP stated that certain groups of single parents (initially those with a youngest child aged 12 and over) would be transferred from income support (IS) to jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) and, as a consequence, be expected to attend regular WFIs at Jobcentre Plus offices and seek a move into paid work (DWP, 2007: 11).

Since 2008 and the roll-out of Lone Parent Obligations (LPOs), single parents have been transferred from IS to JSA according to the age of their youngest child so that, as of May 2012, all single parents with children aged five or above are ordinarily now entitled to JSA rather than IS and, as a consequence, expected to seek paid work.

As a result employment support programmes have come to affect a far greater number of single parents than ever before. At the same time significant change has also occurred in recent years in the delivery of that employment support. During the 2000s the Labour government placed emphasis on the importance of tailored, personalised support and, in part related to this, began to promote sub-contracting and payment-by-outcomes within employment support schemes such as Pathways to Work, Flexible New Deal and Employment Zones. Further thinking around the possibilities of an enhanced role for sub-contracting and payment-by-outcomes in employment support were developed and gained momentum within the Freud Review (2007).

Since taking office in 2010 the Coalition has made two significant reforms to employment support policies: the introduction of the Jobcentre Plus Offer in April 2011; and, more dramatically, the introduction of the Work Programme in June 2011. Whilst very different in terms of their delivery and payments model, both the Jobcentre Plus Offer and the Work Programme share common emphases on flexibility, personalisation, targeting and value-for-money within their delivery models.

Since April 2011 the Jobcentre Plus Offer has changed the nature of Jobcentre Plus employment support to encourage greater local flexibility and discretion in provision around a spine of core interventions. The aim of this policy change is to move the focus from nationally prescribed procedures and towards a focus on enabling greater local flexibility and targeting in the frequency, nature and intensity of Jobcentre Plus provision in order to maximise work outcomes as well as value-for-money for the taxpayer.

The Work Programme, introduced in June 2011, has replaced all of the previous New Deal employment support programmes and has produced a step-change in the extent to which employment support is based on a contracted-out, payment-by- results model (DWP, 2011). It is in a variety of ways a genuine revolution in employment support policy, most notably in terms of the extent and complexity of sub-contracting, the degree to which payments are based on job outcomes, and in terms of the flexibility from the ‘black box’1 model of delivery which gives providers complete flexibility around the nature of support offered.

Delivery of the Work Programme takes place through prime providers across 18 Contract Package Areas (CPAs) throughout Great Britain, with two or three prime providers in each CPA to whom claimants are randomly allocated and with each prime provider co-ordinating a supply chain of organisations that claimants can be referred to as appropriate. Within the Work Programme claimants are placed within one of nine payment groups dependent largely upon the type of benefit received (as a proxy for the level of their perceived support needs), and there are differential entry requirements and outcome payments across these payment groups (DWP, 2011; NAO, 2012: 14-15). Single parents can in theory be placed in any of these payment groups. In practice, however, around 90 per cent of single parents within the first year of the Work Programme were in the JSA 25+ payment group and so would ordinarily be transferred to the Work Programme after one continuous year of JSA receipt and associated Jobcentre Plus support.

Work is by no means a guaranteed route out of poverty: 62 per cent of poor children live in households with at least one working adult and a quarter of single parents working part time and a fifth of those working full time remain in poverty (DWP, 2012). However, paid work remains a key way for single parents to reduce their risks of poverty, clearly seen by the reduction in single parent poverty since the late 1990s alongside their steady increase in employment rates to around 60 per cent today (DWP, 2012; ONS, 2012). However, even this employment rate for single parents still falls far short of that achieved by single parents across other European countries and of mothers in couples in the UK, and has little more than plateaued since 2007. In this context, it is important that these new forms of employment support continue to help more single parents to move into work that lifts them out of poverty and which can be reconciled with their care needs.

As summarised in Figure 1, single parents (along with all other JSA claimants) receive their employment support in two stages. Firstly, single parents receive support via Jobcentre Plus through the new Jobcentre Plus Offer. If single parents have not found work within a certain period – usually twelve months given their

1 The ‘black box’ approach means that providers do not have to follow prescriptive rules on how to deliver support to claimants or what this support should include, but rather they are given significant freedom and flexibility to design their services as they see fit

10 concentration in the JSA 25+ payment group – then they are transferred from Jobcentre Plus to a Work Programme provider which then takes over responsibility for the delivery of their employment support. It is also possible for single parents to join the programme voluntarily2 although this was expected to be – and has proven to be – uncommon.

Figure 1: The claimant’s journey through employment support

Jobcentre Plus Offer Work Programme -Core mandatory meetings -Outsourced delivery -Greater local flexibility -‘Black box’ delivery -Discretionary Flexible Support Fund model -Pre-Work Programme and Get -Payment by results Britain Working schemes. -18 prime providers -Flexible supply chains.

Year 1 Years 2-3 One Timeline of (most) single parents’ Jobseekers’ Allowance (JSA) claims

1.2 Aims and methodology As outlined above, increasing numbers of single parents are experiencing employment support, and this is taking place in a rapidly changing policy landscape. Recent DWP commissioned research has explored the implementation and claimants’ experience of both the new Jobcentre Plus Offer (Coulter et al., 2012) and the first year of the Work Programme (Newton et al., 2012). Whilst recognising potential gains from the more flexible and personalised intentions of both policies, these reports also highlight a range of issues around their realities on the ground. Concerns around the Work Programme have also been expressed by the National Audit Office (NAO, 2012) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC, 2012). The release of the first year of job outcome statistics from the Work Programme in November 2012, which showed a job outcomes figure of only 3.5 per cent for DWP’s preferred performance measure, has further sharpened focus on the Work Programme.

This mixed-methods research project complements these studies but focuses specifically on single parents’ experiences of employment support within the Jobcentre Plus Offer and the Work Programme. The quantitative analyses make use of publicly available DWP data to describe the changes to single parent JSA receipt

2 Single parents can join the Work Programme voluntarily either if they join the JSA Early Entrant group after three months if they fall within specified ‘vulnerable groups’, or if they are within certain benefit groups (e.g. Income Support, Incapacity Benefit, Pension Credit, certain ESA groups) that are able to join the Work Programme voluntarily. See DWP (2012) for further details.

11 following the roll-out of the LPOs, as well as to describe the volume and characteristics of single parents who have participated in the Work Programme in its first year of operation. These quantitative analyses are combined with in-depth qualitative telephone interviews with 27 single parents carried out in autumn 2012 in order to gain first-hand accounts of their experiences of employment support via both Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers.

All 27 single parents interviewed had experienced the new Jobcentre Plus Offer, and nine of the 27 had also participated in the Work Programme across six different prime providers in three Contract Package Areas. The sampling strategy for the qualitative work was open rather than prescriptive so as to gain a broad insight into the experiences of a range of single parents. We recognise that the size of the qualitative sample allows us to present the results solely as illustrative examples rather than representative of broader experience. However, the qualitative findings are not only consistent with the many calls to our helpline on related matters that we have received from single parents on JSA over recent years, but are also strengthened and supported by being placed in the context of existing published evidence.

Single parents and the Jobcentre Plus Offer For most single parents, the first year of their JSA claim will involve regular visits to Jobcentre Plus for employment support. This section focuses on single parents’ experiences of that support under the new Jobcentre Plus Offer which has been in place since April 2011. Before doing so, however, we set out a brief overview of the changing context within which that qualitative material sits in terms of single parents’ recent and rapid transfer from IS to JSA over the last few years.

2.1 The impact of the LPOs on single parent JSA caseloads As outlined above, since 2008 the roll-out of the LPOs has meant that single parents have gradually been transferred from IS to JSA according to the age of their youngest child:

 Single parents with a youngest child aged 12+ were transferred from November 2008  Single parents with a youngest child aged 10+ were transferred from October 2009  Single parents with a youngest child aged seven+ were transferred from October 2010  Single parents with a youngest child aged five+ were transferred from May 2012.

Figure 2 shows the number of single parents receiving JSA in each month over this period broken down by age of the youngest child. All of the JSA data3 presented in this section relate to Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and each country makes up around 87 per cent, 8 per cent and 5 per cent of the total JSA figures respectively.

The impact of the LPOs on the figures is clear. There has been a consistent increase in the number of single parents receiving JSA over this period from around 5,000 in early 2008 up to over 145,000 in autumn 2012, and Figure 2 highlights the waves of ‘new’ groups of single parent JSA claimants as the LPOs are gradually rolled-out. Over the same period there has of course been a related, and indeed somewhat larger, decrease in the number of single parents receiving IS, down by around 160,000 single parent claimants from 741,600 in February 2008 to 548,140 in February 2012.

3 http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/jsa/lone_parents/?page=jsalp

Figure 2: Monthly single parent JSA caseload broken down by age of youngest child (AYC)

As Figure 2 shows, the single parent JSA caseload has inevitably risen considerably due to the roll-out of the LPOs. As a percentage of the total JSA caseload in Great Britain, however, Figure 3 highlights that single parents continue to remain a relatively small – albeit slowly rising – part of Great Britain’s JSA story. The left pane of Figure 3 highlights the total JSA caseload in Great Britian for all persons in each month from mid-2008 to autumn 2012 and shows an approximate doubling of the total JSA caseload from around 750,000 in mid-2008 up to around 1.5 million in autumn 2012, illustrating the impact of the financial crisis and ongoing weak economic context since that time.

Over the same period the right pane of Figure 3 shows that the single parent JSA caseload has accounted for a small but slowly growing share of that total JSA caseload, from under 1 per cent in mid-2008 up to around 10 per cent of all JSA claims in autumn 2012. At local authority level there is some variation in the share of JSA claims that relate to single parents4, from lows of around 5 per cent (Weymouth and Portland, West Dorset) up to highs of around 13 per cent (Barking and Dagenham, Enfield, Epping Forest). This variation principally reflects the proportion of single parents in different local authority populations.

4 Based on the mid-2011 data which are the most recently available local authority level single parent JSA figures. http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/adhoc_analysis/index.php?page=adhoc_analysis_2011_q3

Figure 3: Total JSA caseloads (left) & single parent JSA caseload as percentage of total (right)

2.2 Single parents’ experiences of the new Jobcentre Plus Offer As noted above, for most single parents receiving JSA the first year of their claim will involve employment support from Jobcentre Plus. Since April 2011, this support has been in the form of the new Jobcentre Plus Offer which is based on locally flexible provision built around a core minimum set of mandatory interventions: an initial New Jobseeker Interview; fortnightly Jobsearch Review meetings; and a final Work Programme Referral Interview. This core spine of interventions is combined with a flexible menu of support options dependent upon the benefit type (e.g. JSA, employment support allowance (ESA), IS) and the needs of the claimant. Additional discretionary resources are also available in the form of the Flexible Support Fund. This can be used for particular training and skills development (from external providers as appropriate), and also to overcome financial barriers to finding or retaining paid work (such as travel, childcare or medical costs). Finally, Pre-Work Programme Support schemes – including Get Britain Working, Mandatory Work Activity placements and Mandatory Skills Conditionality courses – offer a range of training and work experience opportunities to which advisers can refer claimants.

The qualitative interviews with single parents explored the extent to which the Jobcentre Plus Offer realised its stated ambition to provide single parents with the tailored, personalised support which they need to move back into paid work. Our research focused on several key areas:

 The nature of support from single parent advisers, including their awareness of the single parent JSA flexibilities  Support for skills and training within the Offer  Advisers’ use of the Flexible Support Fund and Get Britain Working measures  Adviser support with job search  Experience of sanctions  Job outcomes under the Offer.

2.2.1 Single parent advisers and awareness of the single parent JSA flexibilities Whilst most unemployed parents face difficulties in finding paid work that enables them to balance employment with care responsibilities, these difficulties are particularly acute for single parents. This is recognised in policy terms both through the existence of specialist single parent advisers, and of single parent flexibilities within the JSA requirements. One area of interest is the extent to which this more specialist support is made available to single parents, both in the form of access to single parent advisers and discussion by advisers of the single parent JSA flexibilities5.

Specialist single parent advisers within Jobcentre Plus are well placed to understand the challenges that single parents face in seeking paid work that fits in with their caring responsibilities, and the difference these specialist advisers make to single parents’ prospects of finding work is well-documented (e.g. Lane et al., 2011). Disappointingly, however, virtually none of the single parents that we spoke to were aware of seeing a specialist single parent adviser despite advisers being aware of their single parent status. In some instances this seemed to be a result simply of too few single parent advisers for the volume of single parents wishing to see them.

Where single parents were seeing generalist advisers it was common that they were not made aware of the single parent JSA flexibilities available to them to enable them to balance work and care – in fact only five of the 27 single parents interviewed were told about these flexibilities by Jobcentre Plus advisers. This lack of awareness amongst most of the single parents places them in a potentially vulnerable position when discussing work plans with their advisers, some of whom were more focussed on short-term transitions to any job rather than supporting single parents to move into employment that fitted in with their care needs (and which was therefore better in terms of family well-being as well as employment sustainability).

5 The single parent flexibilities enable single parents, dependent on the age of their child or other more specific circumstances (e.g. case of truancy), to legitimately restrict their hours in various ways (e.g. to sixteen hours per week, to within school hours, or to situations where appropriate and affordable childcare is available). For further details see (Gingerbread, 2011).

In DWP commissioned research, Lane et al. (2011) found both that advisers sometimes applied the flexibilities without necessarily outlining them to single parents, and also that some advisers were pushing single parents to apply for inappropriate jobs. Similarly, this research found that the majority of advisers had not discussed the flexibilities with single parents and were also pushing single parents to apply for jobs that were beyond the requirements placed upon them within the single parent flexibilities – for example working in the evenings or for longer than 16 hours per week:

Shontae6 (one 14 year old child): Well I was actually led to believe differently. I was led to believe, one of the first questions she asked me was how many hours a week was I available to work. And I said well I’m looking for full-time so it’s 40 isn’t it. She said yes and that’s what we need you to say for jobseekers... I’ve not been searching for anything under 40 hours you see because I thought I wasn’t allowed to.

Tina (one child aged 10): When I mentioned it to my adviser she said ‘no, it’s the same for everybody; you’ve got to be seen to be looking for full-time work’…. I did say to them that I was looking for something between sixteen and twenty-five hours…but they told me that I had to consider everything.

2.2.2 Support for skills and training courses within the Offer: back to basics The first of the mandatory meetings within the Jobcentre Plus Offer is the New Jobseeker Interview in which circumstances, care needs and job aims are discussed and formalised into a Jobseeker’s Agreement. Following this, the key regular contact with Jobcentre Plus advisers comes via fortnightly Jobsearch Review meetings which serve both to check job search activities as well as to provide claimants with an access point to more substantive support in terms of referral to courses, training and actual job search, whether internally or through specialist external organisations.

In line with previous research (Lane et al., 2011: 49), the pervading experience of the single parents that we spoke with was that these mandatory meetings were weighted towards the procedural rather than the substantive part of the Offer, and that they were generally experienced as a brief and largely bureaucratic ‘box ticking exercise’ to check up on job search activities over the previous fortnight. The logic of this fortnightly checking exercise was understood by the single parents, but was felt to be unnecessary as they shared a strong desire to find work.

Rather, the single parents interviewed stated that they were instead looking for substantive help from their advisers to overcome barriers and find suitable, care

6 To ensure anonymity and data confidentiality all names of people and places in the report have been changed

17 compatible job vacancies. Some substantive support was offered by advisers and consisted primarily of a suite of common courses around key skills (literacy, numeracy, IT), CV writing, and interview techniques, and that these were geared towards occupations commonly offering vacancies within Jobcentres (e.g. retail, catering, hospitality). Across the single parents that we spoke with, around half had received help with writing CVs, finding suitable jobs that they would not otherwise have found, or in attending skills courses. Several single parents had found the suite of courses offered helpful in giving them the skills and confidence they needed to move closer to, or into, paid work:

Joanne (four children aged 10, 15, 22 and 24): My first adviser was very nice; she was helpful because I went on a course. I went on a catering NVQ1 course which I did well. And now they are taking me for the second one, the NVQ2 which I’m starting in September. So I want to go on with that because I know if I do the NVQ2 I’ll get a better job.

However, single parents who found the support offered adequate to their needs were in a minority and two other groups of single parents – those who were not really offered anything and those who felt the provision offered was far too basic and generic for their needs – were unfortunately more common. For the first group the issue was that the fortnightly Jobsearch Review meetings were brief and almost exclusively focussed on their bureaucratic function of job search verification, with little or nothing in the way of discussion around barriers to work and substantive support needs:

Celia (two children aged 14 and 16): It’s literally in, out, ‘have I found anything?’

Single parents were well aware that the limited time and content of these meetings was related to caseload and time pressures for advisers. Whilst this awareness did not alleviate their frustrations around the level of support they were receiving, they often did empathise with the adviser’s task:

Rana (one child aged 10): Even though my appointments are supposed to be five to ten minutes long, they’re always like one or two minutes long.....throughout the entire interview she’s saying ‘oh you know we’re going to have to hurry this up because I’ve got more people waiting’...I mean I felt quite sorry for her really.

Anita (three children aged nine, nine and 12): I know they have to go through it all but it was just a waste of everybody’s time.

For others the issue was not that courses were not made available but rather that the options available were felt to be too limited as well as too basic, with advisers

18 appearing to have little to offer those with stronger and more specific skills, experience and employment aims:

Jocelyn (three children aged five, 12 and 21): They did used to run one which was more like a confidence boosting one to help you get back into work. And I enquired about that last year when she first started reception, but they’d stopped it...They said there was either basic English and maths, I said I’ve got my GCSEs in English and maths so I didn’t.... I found the courses that are about tend to be very basic.

Despite advisers commonly using some form of profiling tool to assess the level of support required for each claimant (Coulter et al., 2012: 30), the offer of training courses also did not always appear to be well targeted. As a result single parents with more advanced experience and skills were often advised, and sometimes even required, to attend basic skills courses that were of little benefit to them or their job search:

Anita (three children aged nine, nine and 12): Well, they were saying, ‘go on this course, go on that course’ and it was just useless, really, going on employability courses. I could understand it for some people, like building your confidence up. I’m a naturally confident person.

Aisha (two children aged 10 and 12): Yeah so I was already on a course and they basically just wanted to stick me on a[nother] course. And I’m thinking I don’t need that, I’m already in training at the moment, I’m trying to find a job on top of that.

2.2.3 Work first versus human capital approaches: variation and tensions One factor that seemed to affect the extent to which training courses were suggested or approved was the orientation of the adviser towards what might be termed either a ‘work-first’ or ‘human capital’ approach (Dean, 2007; Lindsay et al., 2007). Some advisers were happy and active in suggesting and approving courses, whilst others pushed single parents to move quickly into some form of paid work with less emphasis on the quality or sustainability of that work. Hence, whilst some single parents – such as Joanne quoted above – were supported by their advisers to progress through training and skills courses, some others, though thankfully a minority, were experiencing tensions between their own training (and linked employment) desires and their adviser’s emphasis on a rapid return to some form of paid work:

Maria (two children aged 12 and 13): No, no. I’m not doing a course or training because they are really pushing for the work. I haven’t got that much skills or training, because anywhere they want experience or some skills, so

it’s better to have something before you go to the job...but there’s no time to learn now, it’s time to work he always says.

Jane (two children aged 12): It’s been problematic if I talk about it [an existing training course] too much. You know, because they don’t want to hear about training, and they don’t want to hear about volunteering. They want to hear about full-time paid work in anything. They’re not interested in you fulfilling your, you know, ambition.

2.2.4 Additional personalised, intensive support through external organisations Advisers have the flexibility within the Offer to refer claimants to more specialist courses and providers, whether internal to Jobcentre Plus or via external organisations, in order to provide the type of personalised support required. The national evaluation of the Jobcentre Plus Offer, however, found a range of barriers to the provision of personalised support including limited adviser awareness of the support options, limited local provision, procedural difficulties in accessing provision quickly, and pressures from managers not to spend additional resources on specialist outsourced provision (Coulter et al., 2012: 34).

Around a third of the 27 single parents interviewed had received more intensive and personalised support from a range of different external organisations and, in two cases, from within Jobcentre Plus. Most of these external referrals were initiated by advisers and focussed on participation in voluntary sector-run employability training schemes. More personalised support was highly valued for a number of reasons: it enabled single parents to overcome particular hurdles to applying for or securing jobs (e.g. language problems, interview skills and confidence); it provided advice on benefits and tax credits (e.g. the existence of the single parent flexibilities); and it gave access to work experience placements that provided a reasonable chance of a job offer at the end. Several single parents had, in addition, found more intensive support themselves through a range of organisations, and found these useful in offering more personalised support in smaller group sizes or, in some instances, on a one-to-one basis.

In all cases, whether via adviser referral or self-referral, these single parents contrasted the personalisation, intensity and value of this support with that offered via Jobcentre Plus. Whilst virtually all of this ‘additional’ personalised support was accessed via external organisations, two single parents did receive this type of support through Jobcentre Plus. Particularly useful to one of these single parents had been a special adviser within their Jobcentre Plus who could be booked for longer thirty minute sessions for more intensive support, although this adviser was hard to access because they were consistently over-booked.

2.2.5 Cut adrift from Jobcentre Plus support? More experienced single parents and the Offer With around only half of the single parents receiving more substantive support from advisers or external organisations to help them move into work, and with issues around the basic level and targeting of the training provision that was offered, these findings do not at first glance fit easily with the Offer’s emphasis on personalised support. However, the Jobcentre Plus Offer has two stated aims – to maximise transitions into paid work and to maximise value-for-money for the taxpayer.

If implemented accordingly, the implication is that the ‘optimal’ level of provision may not result in all claimants being supported according to their needs but, rather, that decisions around provision are instead based on a joint calculation and trade-off between the cost of any provision and the impact of that provision on the likelihood of an individual’s transition to paid work. It is not clear whether this is indeed the intention of the policy or the way in which Jobcentre Plus advisers are making decisions around provision, but it does suggest that the debates around ‘creaming’ (i.e. prioritising claimants who are perceived to be most likely to move into work) and ‘parking’ (i.e. reducing provision for claimants considered to be unlikely to move into paid work) in relation to the Work Programme seem equally applicable to the Jobcentre Plus Offer.

Given that Jobcentre Plus budgets are constrained, the Offer could result in a situation where those who seem to have a reasonable likelihood of moving into paid work without much input might be left alone to look after themselves, particularly when the support requested by these groups may be both specialised and costly – and this could be viewed as a positive choice by Jobcentre advisers in order to achieve value for the taxpayer. Indeed, for single parents with greater work experience and stronger qualifications, as well as those who are more confident and independent in proactively driving their own job search, the overriding experience was that Jobcentre Plus advisers were either not able or not willing to offer very much in the way of provision or referral. This left these single parents feeling that the Offer was not going to help them and that they were essentially on their own in terms of finding work:

Rana (one child aged 10): Since I’ve been signing on, which is a couple of months, nearly three months, I haven’t had anything at all. No seriously, nothing. I go in and they ask me what I’ve done; they say ‘okay’; I sign on the dotted line and I’m out within about thirty seconds.

Anita (three children aged nine, nine and 12): She [adviser] said ‘I don’t really need to see you, because you’re not lacking in confidence and no doubt you’ll get a job soon’. And that was basically it...They encourage you to work, but there’s not actually any work programmes there as such, you know, to push

you and to actually find employment for you – it’s all basically down to yourself.

Rather than seeking to extend the Offer to meet these more advanced and specific needs, Jobcentre Plus provision seems instead to have retreated towards a relatively basic, generic and inflexible suite of core programmes. Whilst this may fail to meet the needs of some single parents, it is perhaps not inconsistent with the stated aims of the Offer. Although single parents with stronger work experience, more advanced skills or more specific job desires were frustrated with the limitations of the provision made available to them, it is perhaps also true to say that they did have a realistic chance of finding work independently and without that support (even if that support may have boosted their chances).

It is unclear whether advisers were deliberately choosing not to provide more personalised, advanced and specific support to these single parents due to the targeting and value for money priorities within the new Jobcentre Plus Offer, or whether this was due to other financial, informational or procedural factors as identified by Coulter et al. (2012: 34). Even if intended, and even if ‘efficient’ in terms of value for the taxpayer, the result was that for this group of single parents they were on their own, and they knew it.

2.2.6 The risks within the Offer’s dual aims: creating cracks that claimants fall through A separate group of the single parents that we spoke with were also frustrated at a perceived inadequacy in the support offered by their adviser but, unlike those single parents discussed above, seemed far less able or likely to be able to overcome their obstacles and make the move into paid work on their own. Around half of those that we spoke with fell into this group. These single parents would have welcomed support around generic job seeking skills (for example self-esteem, confidence, CV writing or interview skills) but found that support and courses were either not available or were not able to provide the targeted support they felt they needed.

Aisha (two children aged 10 and 12): I just didn’t find them helpful. You’ve just got to fill out a thing every week and there’s never anyone there to help you actually find something. So you’re just basically on your own really and it’s just a hard thing actually to get to the interview stage.

Maria (three children aged 13, 12 and eight): If someone would sit down next to me and help me, yes this is a job suitable for you. Sometimes I don’t know how to fill the application form. Sometimes I don’t know how to make the right word in my covering letter. If they sit down next to me and help me like this, then I feel, yes someone is really supporting me, they’re helping me. But it’s not like this.

2.3 Access to additional supports: Flexible Support Fund and Get Britain Working Another key way in which the Offer intends advisers to move beyond the core Jobcentre Plus suite of provision is through effective use of the resources and programmes within the Flexible Support Fund (FSF) and Get Britain Working schemes7. Amongst the single parents that we spoke with around a third either discussed or made use of these additional discretionary supports.

2.3.1 Discretionary support through the Flexible Support Fund The national evaluation of the new Jobcentre Plus Offer finds evidence of “widespread current underuse of FSF” (Coulter et al., 2012: 36) and our interviews confirm this picture. Around one third of the single parents that we spoke with had been either offered or had asked for and received some support via the Flexible Support Fund (FSF). For these single parents this included additional resources to cover short-term obstacles to attending interviews or starting a new job, with public transport costs and clothing the most common items.

Advisers therefore seem to understand and make use of the FSF in the same way as the former Adviser Discretion Fund. The FSF, however, is potentially broader than this and can also be used to fund one-off training provision or even specialist outsourced provision. As noted above, the national evaluation found that procurement processes, adviser awareness and managers’ budget controls were reducing the use of the FSF for these broader purposes (Coulter et al., 2012: 36-7), and none of the single parents that we spoke with appeared to have received support through the FSF for more specialised training.

DWP’s Equality Impact Assessment of the Jobcentre Plus Offer highlighted the potential for inequalities in provision within its deliberately flexible and discretionary framework (DWP, 2011), and this is evident in the highly mixed use by advisers of the FSF found in this research. Many single parents who did not get access to the FSF seemed to be equally deserving of support as others who did receive it, and comparing the cases it is difficult to establish any consistent reasons for these differences. Indeed, several single parents suggested that some advisers deliberately did not advertise the funding but instead simply responded to requests from those already ‘in the know’:

Aisha (two children aged 10 and 12): They don’t really tell you, you have to know it yourself.

Tina (one child aged 10): They actually said to me, ‘we don’t tell people unless they ask for it’.

7 For details see Lane et al. (2011: 47-48) and Coulter et al. (2012)

One issue that many single parents discussed was the impact of ‘invisible costs’ associated with attending Jobsearch Review meetings and job search activities. In particular, public transport costs could quickly mount up over the course of a fortnight, eating into already stretched JSA payments. The FSF could have helped several single parents to meet these financial costs and, in doing so, to support their active job search.

Aisha (two children aged 10 and 12): I was unaware until this year that if it’s not a day that you sign on that you can actually claim your bus fare back if you need to go to the Jobcentre…which is really quite helpful because it’s like four pounds for a bus ticket for a day ticket so it’s quite a lot of money.

Karen (two children aged 14 & 16): I went three times or four times the week previous…I was going up towards twenty pounds, twenty quid is a lot of money…£3.40 every time you go in.

With single parents receiving only £71 per week in JSA payments, the costs associated with attending meetings and going out looking for work represent a hidden but real and, in percentage terms, significant reduction from the household’s finances. The FSF could be used more proactively to support these costs, and Jobcentre Plus advisers could also do simple things to help minimise some of these costs. This could involve allowing single parents greater input into appointment scheduling so as to minimise the number of journeys needed by, for example, avoiding multiple meetings on different days or, for those on the Work Programme, lining up Jobsearch Review meetings for the same day as Work Programme meetings. However, and in contrast to the emphasis on flexibility within the Offer, single parents were generally not invited to help decide appointment days and times but were simply told when these would be, sometimes generating additional journeys (and therefore costs) for single parents and sometimes creating clashes with other meetings or job search activities.

2.3.2 Relevant work experience opportunities: limits to Pre-Work Programme employment support The second main discretionary element of the Jobcentre Plus Offer is the skills and work experience schemes falling within Pre-Work Programme employment support. This consists of several schemes under the ‘Get Britain Working’ banner – Work Experience (16-24 year olds only), New Enterprise Allowance, sector-based work academies, Work Clubs, Work Together and Enterprise Clubs – as well as Mandatory Work Activity and Mandatory Skills Conditionality courses. Work experience was identified as an important potential route back into paid work by all the single parents and there was interest from most in opportunities that would genuinely boost skills, CVs and job prospects in relevant sectors:

Clara (one child aged 16): I had to keep explaining to them, you know, that I didn’t have a lot of experience, that I didn’t feel confident about applying for

these jobs and that. But at the end of the day they were just printing them off and telling me to apply for them and not really listening to what I was saying you know, that I had no experience, which is impossible you know applying for a job when you haven’t really got anything to write about.

A key limitation to the impact of these schemes, as discussed above, is the low level of referrals from Jobcentre Plus advisers. Five single parents were advised to do some volunteering work as a way of building up skills and experience, although just one of these single parents was signposted to a volunteering website for information about opportunities. Several other single parents were active in finding their own voluntary work, despite this not being suggested by their adviser.

Amongst these single parents some had found their advisers unsupportive of their volunteering work on the grounds that the hours involved interrupted their job search. The arguments that job search could take place online in the evenings or volunteering could be stopped if they found a job were not always accepted by advisers, leaving these single parents feeling that they needed to be somewhat careful discussing voluntary work with their advisers. One single parent was keen to try to set up their own business part-time – an obvious candidate for the New Enterprise Allowance scheme – but nobody in the Jobcentre had mentioned this to them.

Mandatory Work Activity and Skills Conditionality placements are designed to be used when claimants are unwilling to comply with job search requirements. However, while the single parents interviewed all expressed a strong desire to find work, some of their advisers still made use of these mandatory schemes. One single parent had been required to participate in a Mandatory Work Activity placement full-time for eight weeks. Another very experienced single parent was directed to what was described to them as a voluntary work experience placement with a large retailer but transpired to be a basic ‘work habits’ programme aimed at young adults without a stable work history; which the single parent was then unable to leave without loss of benefits.

Two further single parents had been required to attend mandatory training courses via the Skills Conditionality scheme on threat of sanctions, despite both arguing that the courses were too basic given their educational qualifications. All four of these mandatory experiences created frustration and resentment towards their advisers for requiring participation in ‘support’ that was seen as unnecessary, unhelpful and punitive, and most importantly which did nothing to support their desire to move into work. There was also unhappiness around the mandatory nature of some of the schemes in terms of perceived exploitation of the ‘free labour’ of those on benefits.

In general, the single parents agreed that work experience of the right kind was important to build their skills, experience and confidence as well as providing

25 references or even job offers. Ideally there would also be a realistic possibility of a job at the end, but this was not felt to be essential so long as the placement helped to move them closer to the kinds of jobs they wanted. Many said that they would have liked their adviser to have discussed the Get Britain Working schemes with them. Importantly, however, single parents were clear that to be attractive and beneficial these schemes needed to involve:

 Genuine work experience placements that could develop their skills and confidence (rather than what was perceived by some as ‘free labour’)  Being in a sector of interest to their experience and aspirations  Being viable in terms of their current caring responsibilities.

Whilst the principles behind Get Britain Working are supported by single parents, it is not clear that the current suite of schemes is able to offer the requisite depth or breadth of genuine work experience placements. The provision of more and better work experience programmes is an area where government policy could do far more to support single parents to move back into paid work. Voluntary and positive work experience and sector-based work academies come closest to the type of provision that single parents require, but most of these single parents would not be able to take part in the government’s Work Experience scheme as it is restricted to those aged 16-24, and the majority of single parents are older than this.

By contrast, there was widespread dissatisfaction amongst the single parents around the mandatory nature of some of the government work experience schemes. Mandatory schemes were considered unnecessary, unhelpful and punitive given their existing willingness to work. There was also widespread concern about the perceived irrelevance and basic nature of the types of work experience available within the Get Britain Working offer. Sandra’s views are typical in this respect:

Sandra (two children aged 11 and 12): It would have basically given me something else to put on my CV to say well I’ve been doing work experience here and you know in an area where you want to go in. I wanted to go in accounts. They could have put me anywhere. If they’d have said right we’ve got you doing a bit of accounts at this office or here for a couple of hours a week I would have gone right yeah fine yeah I’ll do it because the kids are in school yep fine...Because it would have been something on my CV [and] that’s a reference for me, a reference that’s not 12 months old...If they had offered me work experience and it was in something to do with my qualification and what I wanted to go into I would have said yeah. Because what scared me with the work experience was they chuck everyone in [retail outlet]. Well what’s that got to do with my career?

2.4 Adviser support with job search As well as providing access to training opportunities, another key role of advisers in fortnightly Jobsearch Review meetings was finding job vacancies. The basis for this search was the Jobcentre’s database of vacancies alongside the Jobseeker’s Agreement from single parents’ initial New Jobseeker Interview which set out their circumstances, caring responsibilities and type and hours of employment desired. Virtually all of the single parents regularly received information about job vacancies from their advisers, with some single parents finding this very useful.

Most of the single parents were themselves proactive in looking for vacancies and many were regularly searching external job websites and signed up to job search email alerts at external websites and recruitment agencies. These single parents tended to find that their advisers did not find many of the jobs that they were seeing advertised externally and that their advisers’ suggestions were vacancies that they had usually found themselves already. Adviser dynamism mattered and, in general, a relatively quick search and a few suggestions, often not in the desired sectors outlined in the Jobseeker’s Agreement, was all that was offered by advisers. A handful of advisers were much more active and personalised in their job suggestions – phoning or emailing single parents with relevant job opportunities as they came in – and single parents were highly appreciative of these advisers who they felt went the extra mile to really try to help them.

As well as caseload and time pressures, another factor that affected the quality of job suggestions made was adviser turnover. Very few of the single parents had seen a single adviser consistently and many had seen several different advisers throughout their time on JSA. As a result it was felt that fortnightly meetings were not as effective as single parents would have liked, with time from already short meetings often eaten up with the adviser establishing basic awareness of the single parents’ circumstances and employment aims:

Clara (one child aged 16): There was no one person who would get to know your situation. So I found myself having to explain my situation over and over with each person I saw.

Even when advisers did get to understand the types of job and hours that single parents were looking for, there was a strong view from the single parents interviewed that the vacancies identified by advisers from the Jobcentre database were more limited in number and more basic in nature than those available through recruitment agencies or major external job search websites. Where single parents were not searching these external sources themselves – and it did not seem that advisers were pointing the single parents towards these websites where they were not – it was inevitably more difficult to find suitable opportunities in terms of skills and hours to fit around childcare.

Jobcentre vacancies also seemed disproportionately concentrated in relatively low- skilled occupations and within certain occupational sectors. Whilst this suited some of the single parents, for others it was especially difficult to find vacancies via the Jobcentre at the more advanced levels of skills and pay or within more specific sectors of interest to the individual. This dramatically reduced the usefulness of the Jobcentre’s job search function for these single parents:

Rana (one child aged eight): So they’ve written down the types of jobs that I’m looking for. And each one of them has a reference number, so they’ve looked on their systems again and they say that there’s pretty much nothing there that they could refer me to... it’s call centre work or retail work. And it’s those two that keep coming up over and over again.

Simon (one child aged four): But you know, Total jobs and Fish4jobs and Monster: there’s far more stuff on there than on the Jobcentre website... I don’t even bother looking on the Jobcentre website anymore.

In the context of the DWP’s shift to Universal Jobmatch there is a risk of systemically embedding these limitations in advisers’ vacancy information, to the obvious detriment of claimants. It is important that claimants have access to the full range of job vacancies available, both within Universal Jobmatch and/or via signposting to additional external websites and sources.

As with support for training, a shorter-term emphasis on a rapid transition into any form of paid work amongst some advisers also created pressures to move into jobs which did not necessarily fit with skills, experience and ambitions. This was a particular problem for those looking for more advanced or specialist roles:

Oleta (one child aged 10): They have no chance, because of my skills and experience, they can’t match me up with the jobs that they want me to get...They just said ‘take anything’.

Rana (one child aged eight): Because you walk in with a plethora of individual talents and skills, and you try to explain what it is that you can do in the labour market, but they shove it all aside straight from the off. You’re put into boxes – they don’t really look at what you can do, they look at what the minimum is that you should be doing, which is menial work... They’re always seeking to have you underemployed rather than in gainful work.

2.5 Towards a typology of single parent experiences: identifying the strong and weak points of the Offer For the Jobcentre Plus Offer to effectively meet its dual needs of offering personalised support for employment transitions whilst also delivering value-for- money to the taxpayer, an accurate and on-going assessment of each claimant’s needs is essential – as is a willingness from advisers to act on those needs within the constraints of the Offer. Coulter et al. (2012: 30) find that the use of some form of claimant profiling tool is common within Jobcentre Plus, yet the experiences of many of the single parents discussed above questions the extent to which provision for single parents is then effectively tailored and targeted.

Figure 4 presents a typology of these 27 single parents’ experiences of the Jobcentre Plus Offer and, although clearly only indicative given the size of the sample involved, identifies four separate ’types’ of single parents whose employment support needs were met to varying degrees by the Offer. The typology suggests that much more needs to be done if the reality of the Offer on the ground is to match the policy rhetoric on paper.

At one end of the spectrum is a group of single parents who are satisfied with the relatively generic core offer of courses, advice and job search suggestions (‘Satisfied with basics’). At the other is a group of single parents who are accessing more intensive and more personalised support, typically through external organisations, and who also feel well supported as a result (‘Additional supports’).

Of particular concern, however, are the two other groups of single parents who both felt under-supported by the provision they were receiving. Single parents in one of these groups had relatively strong skills and experience and were self-confident, but were frustrated at the lack of support they felt they were receiving (‘Under-supported and independent’). For this group, however, the lack of support provided probably would not dramatically hinder their job outcomes. The other group (and by some way the largest group of those interviewed) expressed similar frustrations but appeared less likely to be able to independently overcome any barriers to work, making a transition to paid work unlikely in the near future (‘Under-supported and frustrated’).

Figure 4: Typology of single parents’ experiences of the Jobcentre Plus Offer

An indicative typology of four distinct groups of single parents can be identified from the interviews in terms of experiences of employment support within the Jobcentre Plus Offer. The typology helps identify where the Offer is working effectively and where further attention is needed in order to ensure that all single parents are supported to realise their employment aspirations.

Group Number of single parents (n=27) ‘Satisfied with basics’ 3 ‘Under-supported and independent’ 6 ‘Additional supports’ 6 ‘Under-supported and frustrated’ 12

Group 1: ‘Satisfied with basics’ These single parents seem reasonably well served in that their needs and job aims mapped onto the relatively basic and generic core offer from advisers – courses in key skills (e.g. English, maths and IT) and employability techniques (e.g. CV writing, job search techniques and writing job applications) alongside suggested job vacancies from advisers in relatively low-skilled jobs such as cleaning, retail and call centres.

Group 2: ‘Under-supported and independent’ The core offer from advisers may have met some of their needs but could not offer the level of personalised support that was wanted. This was often because single parents were better qualified and more experienced and were looking for specific and/or more advanced training and job vacancies than their advisers were offering. Dissatisfied with their Jobcentre provision and able to seek out appropriate courses and vacancies themselves, these single parents opted to conduct their employment support largely independently of the Jobcentre. Whilst left feeling frustrated that Jobcentre Plus was offering them little, these single parents will probably find themselves work in due course, even if that transition could have been hastened by better provision.

Group 3: ‘Additional supports’ These single parents were benefitting from more intensive and personalised packages of support and were generally satisfied with what they were receiving. This support came largely from external organisations via intensive small group or even one-to-one provision to tackle specific problems such as language, job search or job application barriers, as well as longer courses to build confidence, boost skills or develop job success techniques (e.g. CVs, job applications, interview techniques). Work experience placements were also sometimes taking place and were considered very useful.

Group 4: ‘Under-supported and frustrated’ These single parents are by a distance the largest share of those interviewed. These single parents were frustrated at not receiving the more personalised and intensive employment support they felt they needed but, unlike those who were ‘Under-supported and independent’, they lacked the skills, confidence and/or knowledge needed to make an independent transition to work likely.

2.6 The spectre of sanctions Single parents were acutely aware that their advisers had the discretion to impose sanctions for non-compliance and, given the severe financial pressures that single parents receiving JSA face, they were extremely concerned about the threat or use of sanctions. Single parents were sensitive to the difficult power imbalance that sanctions created and knew that their advisers could impose sanctions at their own discretion:

Mark (one child aged 14): You just felt like they had so much power, which they did really, if we’re going to be honest about this. They have a lot of power over your life basically – whether you eat or not, you know?

Five of the single parents interviewed had experienced sanctions from their Jobcentre Plus advisers and many others stated that the threat of sanctions was felt in the background of conversations with advisers. Amongst these five cases a range of issues emerged around the potential risks associated with discretionary sanctions as well as around the process following from a sanction. Given that these single parents wanted to work, were clearly on low incomes and had family responsibilities it is unsurprising perhaps that the sanctions were for relatively minor, and in some cases questionable, ‘offences’. It seems that advisers could have chosen to be more lenient, with cases including:

 Failing to attend a meeting after a regular appointment was changed  Failing to attend a meeting because the single parent was at a work placement organised by the adviser themselves  Failing to attend a meeting due to an unexpected call-up at short notice to cover an employment shift  In one instance, being sanctioned without warning and without good cause such that the Jobcentre Plus manager immediately removed the sanction and spoke with the adviser on receiving the single parent’s complaint.

All of these sanctions were technically justifiable (but not ethically so, we would argue), but avoidable if advisers had wished. Given that most cases were the result of the single parents being involved in work-related activities or, indeed, work itself, it seems almost perverse to sanction such behaviours when sanctions are actually designed to correct perceived unwillingness on the part of claimants to engage in work-related activities.

As previous research has also found (Goodwin, 2008), once sanctioned these five single parents also spoke of further difficulties in the process including: a lack of clarity about how much the sanction was and how long it would last for; a lack of information about what they had been sanctioned for; a lack of information as to why benefit amounts had changed, with the phrase ‘due to a change in your

31 circumstances’ failing to alert single parents to the reality and impact of the sanction; and difficulties in restarting claims via the Jobcentre Plus telephone line which repeatedly went unanswered and/or automatically cut the caller off.

The single parents interviewed all wanted to work and were looking for support and advice from their advisers to overcome barriers to work and to help them find a job appropriate to their skills, experience and caring responsibilities. Maria is typical of the way in which single parents approached job search and their meetings with advisers:

Maria (three children aged 8, 12 and 13): I’d love to do something, but, you know, it needs to be suitable for me.

Many of the single parents felt that their advisers did recognise that they wanted to be supported into work on the proviso that it fitted in with their ability to deliver care to their children; for these single parents the risk of their adviser implementing sanctions was far less of a concern. In contrast, however, some single parents felt that their advisers seemed to start from the premise that they did not wish to work and that the threat or use of sanctions was therefore required. Given the increasing severity of sanctions from October 20128, in which single parents receiving JSA could lose 100 per cent of benefits for three months for a first failure to accept (or, indeed, to leave) a job considered to be suitable by their adviser, it is imperative that sanctions are only used where appropriate and that single parents are aware of their rights within the system.

As discussed above, given that most of the single parents were not informed about the single parent JSA flexibilities there is a risk that single parents may be sanctioned for failing to apply for or accept jobs which the flexibilities would have protected them against. There were examples within the interviews of single parents being asked by their advisers to apply for jobs with early morning or evening shifts which they could not realistically do given their childcare responsibilities. For the single parents that we spoke with these cases did not result in sanctions, but it is perfectly possible that they could have. It is therefore of even greater concern that, from October 2013, jobseeking single parents (and main carers in couples) claiming universal credit will have a significantly weakened ‘safety net’ of flexibilities to fall back on, as the majority of the current flexibilities are being moved from regulations into guidance9. This will substantially increase adviser discretion, and potentially put more single parents at risk of poor decisions and sanctions.

In addition, pressure from some advisers for single parents to be more flexible in their job search in order to move into work more quickly often conflicted with the

8 http://www.dwp.gov.uk/adviser/updates/jsa-sanction-changes/ 9 Newis (2013) Jobseeking requirements for single parents under universal credit: briefing note for parliamentarians on the universal credit regulations 2013

32 single parents’ own employment aims. There could be various reasons that jobs were not considered viable, for example: childcare availability or childcare costs during the day; mismatch of skills and experience (jobs could be in the wrong sector or at too low a level); and jobs which the single parent felt would not actually ‘pay’ in terms of a holistic evaluation of the financial and non-financial costs and benefits. In these situations, however, some single parents expressed feeling pressured by their advisers to widen their job search and their expectations, even in cases where this lay outside the scope of the Jobseeker’s Agreement and where it was known by the single parent that the suggestion would not be practical and therefore likely not sustainable:

Tracey (one child aged eight): They said that I had to say when I was available from and to. So if I started off with certain hours and I wanted to stick to them they said because I wasn’t getting any work I had to extend that. And I said but there’s no point me extending my availability if I can’t do it. And there was always the pressure ‘well you haven’t got work with what you’ve got, well you’ve got to change and you’ve got to be willing to do more things’.

Particularly concerning in this context are the comments of one adviser to Mark, a single parent with one fourteen year-old child, around the ‘flexible’ approach taken by his adviser when detailing the type and hours of job within the Jobseeker’s Agreement:

Mark (one child aged 14): I didn’t feel that my circumstances were going to make any difference to what I was going to have to do….Because it was just like, well you know, ‘let’s just tick these boxes, but you know, if you don’t accept a job we give you or an interview, you are going to be sanctioned’. Interviewer: Did they say that to you quite clearly? Mark: Very clearly. Very, very clearly.

Under universal credit (UC), sanctions will also quickly become relevant for single parents working in (low) paid work but in ‘mini-jobs’ and still in receipt of UC. For these working single parents it is clear that the government sees such ‘mini-jobs’ as temporary steps to longer working hours which advisers will be able to use in-work conditionality to achieve. In the context of more severe sanctions over which advisers have considerable discretion, a shortage of ‘care friendly’ employment and affordable childcare as well as relatively weak marginal financial returns to single parents going beyond ‘mini-job’ hours (eight-10 hours per week) (Hirsch, 2012), there are concerns that the threat of sanctions may be invoked to push single parents into jobs or longer hours where this does not necessarily benefit them and their children, either financially or in terms of their broader well-being.

2.7 Job outcomes under the Jobcentre Plus Offer Ultimately, of course, the aim of Jobcentre Plus support is to move single parents off JSA and into paid work. In addition, this employment should preferably be sustainable, relatively well paid and in line with single parents’ care responsibilities and work aspirations such that it contributes to the family well-being in a sustainable way. Of the 27 single parents interviewed five had moved into paid work whilst receiving support from Jobcentre Plus. All were delighted to be back in paid work, but views differed as to how important Jobcentre Plus support had been in making this move into employment.

The greatest impact that advisers seemed to have made to these five employment transitions was the referral of two single parents to a work experience scheme which had not only been extremely helpful but after which they had also been offered a part-time job with the employer with care compatible hours.

Aside from these two jobs secured via adviser referral to a work experience scheme, however, the three remaining single parents who had moved into paid work whilst receiving Jobcentre Plus support did not feel that this support had played a role in their successful employment transition. Clara’s comment was typical of the views of these single parents who felt that they had essentially found work themselves:

Interviewer: How did that job come about? Was that something that the Jobcentre helped you with? Clara (one child aged 16): No, no (laughs).

Of these five single parents, four were broadly happy with the type of work that they had moved into in terms of level of pay, security and fit to their work aspirations as well as their care responsibilities.

2.8 Overall experience of the Jobcentre Plus Offer The Jobcentre Plus Offer represents a new and potentially more flexible and personalised model of employment support, offering advisers far greater discretion to tailor support as well as to target resources effectively. Within the Offer it is possible to identify several different types of support (Coulter et al, 2012: 7-9; Lane et al., 2011: 47-8). Figure 5 below details the different elements of the Offer’s support package and, for each item, provides a summary RAG rating10 of whether, on balance, the single parents that we spoke with said that the item had been effectively delivered.

10 A RAG rating provides a traffic-light rating: red is poor; amber is medium; green is good

Figure 5: Single parents’ experiences of the Jobcentre Plus Offer

Nature of Jobcentre Plus Offer for single parents RAG Type of funding/ rating support provision Core JCP Initial New Jobseeker Interview Bureaucratic provision Fortnightly Jobsearch Review meetings delivered by dedicated Jobsearch Review staff who receive training to deal with single parents, if resources permit Work Programme Referral Interview A better off calculation Advice on in-work benefits, tax credits and back to work payments (e.g. Job Grant, In Work Credit, Return to Work Credit) Discussion of single parent JSA flexibilities Advice on childcare options Advice on training opportunities In-work adviser support One-to-one personalised support from an adviser trained in single parent issues A realistic action plan detailing steps to be taken to assist the single parent to find work Pre-employment support including help with job search and finding suitable vacancies Flexible Access to Childcare Assist

Support Access to Childcare Subsidy

Fund In-work emergency payments for single N/A

parents

Provide support costs around training,

interviews or work placements (e.g. childcare

costs, clothing, transport)

Access to approved activities including Jobcentre Plus Support Contract provision, non-contracted provision and one-off contracted provision Access to Work Trials Pre-Work Access to Get Britain Working Measures Programme Use of Mandatory Work Activity support Use of Skills Conditionality measures Additional European Social Fund Provision Substantive schemes

The first column of Figure 5 indicates the source of funding or programme for the item – in particular whether the item rests on core Jobcentre Plus provision or, instead, requires use of the Flexible Support Fund or the range of Pre-Work Programme support measures. The Offer combines what might be thought of as

35 bureaucratic or administrative through to more substantive support, and the items listed in Figure 5 are sorted so that the most bureaucratic or procedural items are at the top whilst the most substantive types of support are at the bottom.

Whilst fully acknowledging the limited size and generalisability of the sample on which this analysis is based, what is apparent from these 27 interviews is that the Jobcentre Plus Offer does not appear to have revolutionised provision on the ground:  Jobcentre Plus remains relatively good at carrying out bureaucratic processes around job verification and basic job search  Jobcentre Plus is more limited and more patchy in some of the information that it offers, particularly around the JSA flexibilities, local external providers and organisations and (not discussed in detail above) local childcare options. There are examples of good practice but this is by no means widespread  Jobcentre Plus remains relatively poor in terms of offering more personalised, more intensive, more specific and more advanced employment support across all three core dimensions of activity: adviser meetings (largely due to caseload pressures and high adviser turnover); the provision of training and courses; and the ability to find suitable jobs.

The Jobcentre Plus Offer: targeted, tailored support for all?

As with recent programmes such as Working Neighbourhoods and Pathways to Work (Lindsay et al., 2007), the new Jobcentre Plus Offer has the potential to offer every claimant tailored, targeted support, varying both the quantity and nature of provision offered to different claimants dependent upon their needs. The possibility within the Offer for advisers to choose not to deliver provision to certain claimants as well as to refer claimants to more intensive or specialised provision in theory enables advisers to achieve the Offer’s dual aims around supporting employment transitions as well as realising value-for-money. At the same time, and as the DWP’s Equality Impact Assessment itself recognises (DWP, 2011), this flexibility presents risks around inequalities in provision and the creation of a porous support net through which some individuals with genuine support needs blocking their job success unintentionally fall.

Despite the Offer’s potential, there is a danger that its flexible potential is not being realised and that the Offer continues the recent UK tradition in welfare-to- work policy of offering only relatively basic, generic and patchy work-first provision, as occurred with both Working Neighbourhoods and Pathways to Work (Lindsay et al., 2007). Based on our research with single parents, the typology presented in Figure 4 above suggests that the Jobcentre Plus Offer has not learned the lessons of these previous policies and is failing to deliver the personalised, targeted and, where needed, intensive support made possible by the flexibility inherent in its design.

Single parents and the Work Programme After an initial phase of employment support from Jobcentre Plus in the form of the new Offer, since the introduction of the Work Programme in June 2011 single parent (and other) JSA claimants have been randomly allocated to a Work Programme prime provider within their Contract Package Area (CPA) for up to two further years of employment support. The second strand of this report’s analysis of single parents’ experiences of employment support focuses down on the experiences of the nine single parents interviewed who had participated in the Work Programme in its first year of operation. Before moving onto the experiences of these single parents, however, the following section offers some quantitative context and description of single parents’ participation in the Work Programme across Great Britain as a whole.

3.1 Quantitative profile of single parents participating in the Work Programme As a new type of employment support there is interest within the quantitative analyses presented below in building up a picture of the size, nature and geographical location of the single parent Work Programme participants over the first year of the programme. The analyses make use of the most recently available DWP data which relate to the first twelve months of the programme (i.e. June 2011 to July 2012) across Great Britain. These data relate to attachments – the number of individuals who have joined Work Programme prime providers – but do not provide any details about the duration of the Work Programme participation. Hence, the data can be understood to relate to ‘starts’ on the Work Programme but it is not possible with these data to say how many individuals are actively participating11 in the Work Programme at any one point in time.

Participants in the Work Programme are placed within one of nine payment groups. These are important because they determine entry requirements for claimants as well as the size of job outcome payments for Work Programme providers. Single parents can, in principle, fall within any of these nine payment groups, although in practice Figure 8 below shows that virtually all single parents in the first year of the programme fell within two payment groups, with the following entry criteria:

 JSA 25+ group (payment group 2): 87 per cent of single parents who participated in the Work Programme in the first twelve months are within this payment group and are required to join the Work Programme if they have been on JSA for 12 consecutive months  JSA Early Entrant group (payment group 3): 10 per cent of single parents who participated in the Work Programme in the first twelve months are within this payment group and are required to join the Work Programme after three consecutive months of JSA receipt either if they are Not in Education,

11 Non-participation may include where participants have left the programme or where they potentially have little (or possibly no) contact with their Work Programme provider despite being formally attached to the programme (i.e. ‘parking’).

Employment or Training (NEET) or if they are classified by DWP as ‘JSA repeaters’ because they have received JSA in 22 of the past 24 months. Single parents can also join this Work Programme payment group voluntarily if they have received JSA for at least three months and if they fall within certain ‘vulnerable groups’12.

The vast majority of single parent Work Programme participants analysed below are therefore within the JSA 25+ payment group and as a result required twelve months of continuous JSA receipt before entry to the Work Programme. Given the timings of the gradual roll-out of the LPOs this means that the final group of single parents transferred to the JSA regime – those with a youngest child aged five or six in May 2012 – could not be part of this payment group’s data so far13, though they may feature within other payment groups in relatively small numbers. Indeed, given the inevitable time taken to actually transfer each wave of single parents from IS to JSA then many of those with a youngest child aged seven plus could be expected to join the JSA 25+ payment group only in the final few months of the data series analysed below.

Therefore, we can expect that the overwhelming majority of single parent attachments to the Work Programme in the initial twelve month period analysed below would relate to single parents with a youngest child aged 10 or over. We can also expect that the volume of single parents participating in the Work Programme will continue to rise over the next few years as single parents transferred to JSA in the later waves of the LPO roll-out reach 12 months of JSA receipt and begin to enter the Work Programme in increasing numbers.

Figure 6 shows the volume of Work Programme attachments each month since the programme began. Results are shown separately for single parents and non-single parents to give a sense of the relative size of each group. Broadly speaking, between 4,000 and 7,000 single parents have joined the Work Programme each month over this period compared to between 40,000 and 70,000 non-single parents (though these numbers appear to be gradually falling).

12 These include those who are disabled (as defined under the Equality Act), have a mild to moderate mental health condition, drug/alcohol misuse issues, are homeless, a carer on JSA, or an ex-offender. For further details see DWP (2012:6) 13 As the earliest they reach 12 months’ continuous JSA receipt is at the end of May 2013

Figure 6: Monthly Work Programme attachments, Jun 2011-Jul 2012

Whilst Figure 6 focuses on the monthly data, Figure 7 presents an overview of the total number of single parent Work Programme attachments across each of the Contract Package Areas (CPA) (darker bars and left-hand axis) as well as the percentage of total attachments that single parents represent in each CPA (lighter bars and right-hand axis).

Figure 7: Total single parent Work Programme attachments Jun 11-Jul 12

Even after twelve months there is already a considerable variation in the total number of single parent attachments across the CPAs, with Devon and the South West seeing around 1,500 single parent attachments during this period whilst, at the other extreme, East London had over 8,000 single parent attachments. This reflects regional differences in the single parent population. Within the Work Programme each CPA has either two or three prime providers and the total number of attachments on Figure 7 is divided across these prime providers within the darker bars. The lighter bars on Figure 7 show that single parent attachments make up between 6 per cent and 7 per cent of all attachments across most CPAs, although in London this increases to between 10 per cent and 11 per cent.

As noted above, single parents can potentially fall into any of the Work Programme’s nine payment groups and Figure 8 presents single parents’ total attachments across these payment groups. Equivalent figures for non-single parent attachments are also presented for comparison.

The right hand chart shows that so far there have been almost 800,000 attachments to the Work Programme in total in its first year and just over 60,000 of these were single parents. To simplify the comparison the left hand chart shows the percentage of these attachments in each payment group so that both bars sum to 100 per cent. Despite single parents being technically able to fall within any of the nine payment groups, in practice 87 per cent of their attachments relate to the JSA 25+ payment group and a further 10 per cent are within the JSA Early Entrant group. For non- single parents there is a more varied spread across the nine payment groups but still a concentration into three main groups – JSA 18-24 (around 22 per cent), JSA 25+ (around 42 per cent), and JSA early entrants (around 26 per cent) – which together make up around 90 per cent of these attachments so far. Figure 8: Work Programme payment groups for single parents and non- single parents

Most single parent Work Programme participants are therefore similar in terms of the payment group into which they fall. They also broadly reflect the single parent demographic in that single parent Work Programme participants are concentrated in the 35-44 age group (reflecting the fact that the average age of single parents is 38) and are weighted heavily towards women (reflecting the fact that around 90 per cent of single parents are female).

Most interesting, however, are the disability profiles of single parents in comparison to other Work Programme participants. These data reflect health information held by DWP in which “[D]isability is self-assessed as having a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activities”14. This disability information is provided by the claimant themselves when applying for JSA and is only updated thereafter when and if the claimant informs the DWP of a change. This disability indicator does not affect the JSA claim, however the DWP do not seek to verify its accuracy and hence, whilst the data may be indicative, they should be treated with some caution. Nevertheless, according to this disability indicator just over 21 per cent of the single parent Work Programme participants in its first year (and 31 per cent of other Work Programme participants) are identified as disabled. Figure 8 highlights however that virtually all of these single parents must be classified as either within the JSA Early Entrant payment group or, far more likely, the JSA 25+ payment group.

Whilst recognising that the validity of this indicator cannot be guaranteed, it does seem surprising that at least some of these single parents would not have entered the Work Programme via one of the incapacity benefit (IB) or employment and support allowance (ESA) payment groups rather than through a JSA payment group. This raises questions over the degree to which these single parents have been appropriately assessed and categorised within the benefits system, with implications for the nature of support offered and job outcome payments made within the Work Programme. Being within an ESA or IB related Work Programme payment group, for example, would offer greater financial incentives to Work Programme providers to support such claimants into paid work and/or lighter conditionality for the claimants which may enhance their employment support experience.

As noted above, a second possibility, and one which seems less widely acknowledged, is that single parents who fall into one of several ‘vulnerable groups’ specified by DWP (2012:6) can enter the Work Programme voluntarily via the JSA Early Entrant group after three months of JSA receipt as opposed to waiting for twelve months if within the JSA 25+ payment group. This may be important for single parent (and other) claimants firstly because the JSA Early Entrant payment group offers Work Programme providers higher job outcome payments (£6,600) compared

14 http://83.244.183.180/WorkProg/wp_cuml_jo/lp_flag/clndsbmt/a_cnatt_r_lp_flag_c_clndsbmt_jul12.ht ml

41 to the JSA 25+ payment group (£4,395) and thus may offer increased incentives for providers to support these claimants, many of whom at present must be within the JSA 25+ payment group. Secondly, employment support that is more effectively tailored towards these individuals may be offered if identified as entering via this voluntary JSA Early Entrant route if prime providers offer different types of provision or if they refer to certain sub-prime providers based on a client’s payment group and entry route into the Work Programme.

The DWP descriptions of eligible ‘vulnerable groups’ include, amongst other categories, those with a disability (as defined under the Equality Act), a mild to moderate mental health condition or drug/alcohol misuse issues. In addition to seeming less widely understood, the possibility for these ‘vulnerable groups’ to join the JSA Early Entry group in this way may be further confused by the fact that ‘vulnerable’ claimants who do not activate this ability to join the JSA Early Entry payment group are by default treated as if they are part of either the JSA 18-25 or JSA 25+ payment group depending on their age. With most claimants unaware of this possibility, Jobcentre Plus advisers become key figures in affecting the numbers of single parents (and other claimants) exercising this option to join the JSA Early Entrant group voluntarily. Findings from the first phase of the qualitative evaluation of the Work Programme, however, state that many Jobcentre Plus staff have concerns over the suitability of Work Programme support for disabled claimants, feel that the Jobcentre Plus has a more effective network of support services to offer, and are consequently reluctant to suggest voluntary Work Programme participation to these claimants (Newton et al., 2012: 39).

This may matter to single parents (and other claimants) because the differential financial rewards across the payment groups within the Work Programme’s design are intended to reflect the relative difficulty for providers in supporting different types of clients into sustainable employment. The risk in this context is that Work Programme providers may ‘cream’ (i.e. pick the best/easiest clients first) and ‘park’ (i.e. poorly serve or even ignore hard to place clients) particular Work Programme participants within each payment group given that all of these individuals earn the provider the same job outcomes payments. Whilst this is by no means inevitable there is nevertheless already evidence that Work Programme providers are ‘creaming’ and ‘parking’ different types of participants in this way (Newton et al., 2012: 107-111), and this process is facilitated by the existence of differential payments across broad and relatively crude payment groups combined with prime providers’ vague and weakly monitored minimum service quality guarantees.

Whilst creaming and parking are risks across a range of different participants, the roughly 20 per cent of single parent Work Programme participants (and 31 per cent of equivalent non-single parent participants) flagged as disabled but who find themselves in a JSA payment group appear particularly vulnerable to being ‘parked’ by Work Programme providers. It is also worth noting that there is currently nothing

42 in the payment structure to account for single parents’ likely additional costs of childcare during job search/training activity which means they could ‘cost’ more for prime providers to support compared with childless participants.

In terms of the process of joining the Work Programme, individuals are randomly allocated by Jobcentre Plus to one of the prime providers within their CPA. This prime provider then accepts that referral and the claimant is ‘attached’ to that prime provider’s network of provision. Attachment rates (i.e. the percentage of referrals that result in attachments) are high – typically over 90 per cent – but are unlikely to reach 100 per cent for a range of reasons (e.g. claimants exiting the process after referral but before being attached, or prime providers refusing attachments or failing to respond to a referral).

Figure 9 shows the attachment rates for each of the 40 contracts within the Work Programme and differentiates between attachment rates for single parents (vertical axis) and for other Work Programme participants (horizontal axis). Both axes run from 90 per cent up to 100 per cent and all of the 40 contracts fall within this range. A dashed 45 degree line is drawn on Figure 9 which would represent a situation of identical attachment rates for both single parents and non-single parents in each of the 40 Work Programme contracts. Looking along the vertical axis highlights that a large group of prime providers cluster together with single parent attachment rates of around 96 per cent to 98 per cent, and whilst there is some variation across prime providers in these rates there does not seem to be any systematic pattern to these differences in terms either of the geographical area or the prime provider involved.

Figure 9: Attachment percentages across Work Programme contracts

Comparing the attachment rates of single parents and other Work Programme participants, however, shows that single parent attachment rates are systematically higher than those for other Work Programme participants across all 40 contracts. The difference between the two groups is small, but is surprising nevertheless. The difference may simply be the result of chance but this seems unlikely across such a large volume of participants and across so many provider organisations. If driven instead by systematic factors then it is not possible from these data to confirm what these factors may be. However, factors could include that single parents may be more committed on average to finding work15 compared with non-single parents (hence their drop-off levels after referral are lower), and/or that prime providers may be more likely to attach single parents – or, conversely, less likely to attach some other individuals – for some reason.

Figures 10 and 11 provide analysis at local authority level with two cartograms in which the standard local authority boundaries are resized according to the total number of single parent Work Programme attachments in each local authority over the first twelve months of the programme. Hence, local authorities with large volumes of single parent attachments so far are inflated in size, and vice versa, compared with the standard local authority boundary maps. Local authorities across the north, West Midlands and in particular London come to dominate the two figures.

Figure 10: Single parent total Work Figure 11: Single parent total Work Programme attachments (shape) and Programme attachments (shape) and per cent of single parent JSA claims single parent attachments as per that are 1 year plus (shading) cent of all attachments (shading)

15 Single parents’ strong motivation to work is well-documented in the research evidence. See for instance Tu and Ginnis (2012)

Both figures are then divided into five equally sized groups and shaded accordingly. In Figure 10 local authorities are shaded to give a sense of the share of all single parent JSA claims in each local authority that relate to single parents participating in the Work Programme. In order to measure this percentage one would normally simply compare the JSA and Work Programme data at a single point in time but this approach is not possible given the differing nature of the JSA and Work Programme data released by DWP16.

Given that almost 90 per cent of single parent Work Programme participants so far fall within the JSA 25+ payment groups, and given that single parents within this payment group must receive JSA for 12 consecutive months before joining the Work Programme, Figure 10 instead maps the percentage of the single parent JSA caseload in each local authority in July 201117 whose spells had lasted at least one year. The resulting percentage can be understood to give an indication of the share of the single parent JSA caseload that would be expected to be on the Work Programme at any one point in time in that local authority.

The percentages vary from practically zero up to just under 25 per cent and Figure 10 highlights that there is noticeable variation in these percentages across those local authorities with large single parent JSA caseloads. Across London, for example, in some local authorities single parents with JSA spells lasting one year or more make up around 10 per cent of all single parent JSA claimants at any one time whilst in other local authorities in the capital this figure is closer to 20 per cent. In addition to the varying size of the single parent JSA population across Great Britain’s local authorities, Work Programme providers will also need to take such compositional differences into account to ensure that adequate provision is available locally within their supply chains.

Local authorities in Figure 11 are also resized according to their relative share of total single parent Work Programme attachments over the first twelve months. In contrast to Figure 10, however, local authorities in Figure 11 are then shaded based on the percentage of all Work Programme attachments in the first year that relate to single parents. In general single parents make up less than 10 per cent of each local authority’s total volume of Work Programme attachments. London, however, reflects a clear regional difference in having a consistently higher share of its Work Programme attachments relating to single parents compared with other local authorities, albeit by only a few percentage points.

16 JSA data relate to caseload snapshots at a point in time whilst Work Programme data relate to starts on the programme; it is not possible from these Work Programme data to calculate caseloads at any particular point in time 17 The most recent such data available at local authority level. See: http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/adhoc_analysis/index.php?page=adhoc_analysis_2011_q4

This London difference holds true even compared to those local authorities in the north and Midlands which like London are themselves large urban areas with relatively large volumes of single parents participating in the Work Programme. This finding seems to be the result of the higher percentage of single parents in London having longer JSA spells (as shown in Figure 10), combined with London having the third largest single parent population as a share of its working age population of England’s regions as well as having lower levels of both parental and maternal employment compared with other regions18.

3.2 Single parents’ job outcomes on the Work Programme The release in November 2012 of the job outcomes data from the first year of the Work Programme has focussed attention squarely on whether the programme is delivering effective support to claimants. Overall these data must be considered disappointing in that only 3.5 per cent of Work Programme referrals achieved a successful job outcome in the first year, a figure below the DWP’s minimum performance benchmark (CESI, 2012). Future job outcome rates are however likely to be higher than this 3.5 per cent figure as higher levels of job starts feed into the statistics, and due to the unusual nature of the DWP’s preferred calculation for the job outcomes rate which has the effect of depressing these early outcomes results somewhat artificially19.

Figure 12 sets out the job outcome statistics from the first year of the Work Programme20. They compare the outcomes for single parents (darker bars) and other Work Programme participants (lighter bars) across a range of different groups. Beginning at the far left of Figure 12, single parents fared substantially less well than other participants in terms of their job outcome rates on the Work Programme. Whilst 3.6 per cent of non-single parent referrals resulted in job outcome payments, for single parents this figure was a full percentage point lower – around 30 per cent lower – at just over 2.5 per cent. Indeed, looking across Figure 12 shows that single parents experienced worse job outcomes under the Work Programme across almost every group analysed. Disabled21 Work Programme participants experienced markedly lower job outcome rates, with a particularly large reduction in job outcomes for non-single parents (which fall from 4.2 per cent to 2.3 per cent), but with disabled single parents showing the lowest absolute job outcome rate at 2.1 per cent. These

18 Bell (2012) (ed) We can work it out: parental employment in London 19 The DWP’s preferred job outcomes rate calculation is total referrals over the period/successful job outcome payments over the period x 100. For most Work Programme participants employment needs to be sustained for six months before a job outcome payment is made. Therefore, given that the calculation of the first year’s figure of 3.5% was based on data up to July 2012 this means that most Work Programme referrals after around March 2012 would be counted in the denominator but could not possibly have been part of the numerator given that they would not even have been on the programme for six months in July 2012 20 To clarify, these are the data released in November 2012 and relate to the period up to and including July 2012 21 According to the disability indicator on Tabtool as discussed above

46 data do not prove that prime providers are ‘parking’ participants who might be expected to be harder to move into work, but they are consistent with that story and certainly do not disprove it.

Across the three main payment groups that single parents are concentrated in, it is perhaps surprising that by far the highest job outcome rates are seen within the JSA Early Entrant payment group, given their composition of NEETs, JSA repeaters and ‘vulnerable groups’22. This is true for non-single parents as well as for single parents. Given that this JSA Early Entrant payment group could be expected to have a more challenging caseload compared to the other two payment groups shown in Figure 12, this lends support to the notion that the higher outcomes payments for the JSA Early Entrant group may be encouraging providers to direct support towards individuals in that payment group.

This adds weight to the earlier discussion around the need for single parents (and, indeed, all claimants) identified as disabled within the Tabtool data and underlying Jobcentre Plus systems to be accurately placed within the most appropriate and most supportive payment group. Greater referral to the JSA Early Entrant payment group appears to offer potential benefits to single parents (and other claimants) compared with JSA 18-24 and JSA 25+ payment groups. These differing outcomes may not remain, of course, if potentially more challenging claimants begin to enter this payment group. Indeed, this is also not to say either that these JSA Early Entrant outcomes are necessarily ‘good’ – at 4 per cent they still fall below the DWP’s minimum performance benchmark – or that they might not be better under Jobcentre Plus; particularly as this is the main reason (as discussed above) why the national evaluation finds a reluctance amongst Jobcentre Plus advisers to encourage disabled claimants to enter the Work Programme voluntarily (Newton et al., 2012: 39).

Across the other groups shown in Figure 12, younger single parents are less likely to experience successful job outcomes. It is interesting to note that this relationship does not hold across non-single parents, however, suggesting perhaps that childcare issues around younger children23 and/or a lack of skills and work experience are a particular challenge for younger single parents within the Work Programme. Male single parents are more likely than female single parents to experience successful job outcomes and this is again a difference which is not nearly as strong within the broader Work Programme population, but which would be expected given the demographic differences between single fathers and single mothers24. Across

22 The JSA Early Entrant payment group is made up of: those Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET); JSA ‘repeaters’ who have received JSA for 22 of the past 24 months; and those within one of several ‘vulnerable groups’ (e.g. homeless, ex-offender, disabled (under Equality Act definition), ex-carer, drug/alcohol dependency) 23 Given that younger single parents will tend to have younger children 24 Single fathers tend to have older children than single mothers (54 per cent of single fathers have a youngest child aged 10 or over, compared with 38 per cent of single mothers – General Household

47 different ethnic groups the most notable findings are the markedly lower job outcomes rates amongst White and Asian single parents compared with other Work Programme participants of the same ethnic group25.

Figure 12: Comparison of single parent and non-single parent job outcome rates for key groups

Figure 13 presents the same job outcomes data but here analysed across each separate prime provider in each CPA. Single parent job outcome rates are again shown by darker bars and other Work Programme participants by lighter bars. Overall figures for Great Britain are shown at the far left. Given that single parents are the focus of this report prime providers are organised from left to right in Figure 13 according to their single parent job outcome rates.

It is noticeable that single parents experience worse job outcomes than other participants across the vast majority of prime providers in Figure 13, resulting in the worse national figures shown at the far left of Figure 13. In a handful of prime providers single parents do experience better job outcomes than other participants, most noticeably within The Rehab Group and JHP, both in Gloucestershire. It is clear that variation in performance is already apparent across providers both within and between geographical areas. Looking at the Manchester CPA, for example, a large difference in performance is apparent between G4S (around one third from the left in Figure 13) and Avanta (at the far right in Figure 13). Indeed, the differences in

Survey 2007). This is likely to make it easier for them to find work that they can combine with their caring responsibilities and childcare 25 To note, however, that the base numbers of single parents in the Mixed race, Asian, and Chinese groups are less than 100, and this data should therefore be treated with some caution

48 outcomes between these two appear across both single parent and non-single parent claimants.

The DWP has stated that market shares will be adjusted in line with provider performance and that changes to supply chains should be expected in the years to come. With only two or three prime providers within each CPA, however, it is not clear that these measures alone will be sufficient to drive up performance across the programme. Whilst the ‘black box’ model of the Work Programme offers the potential for innovation and experimentation, and whilst competition between two to three primes in a CPA helps to generate a degree of performance pressure, a key challenge for the next phase of the Work Programme is how learning and best practice can be shared effectively across what are competitive and, in virtually all cases, profit-driven private prime providers. The design of the Work Programme makes this challenging and levers around outcome payments and market share may not be sufficient to ensure that employment support for the unemployed as well as value-for-money for the taxpayer are maximised across the Work Programme.

Figure 13: Comparison of single parent and non-single parent job outcome rates across prime providers and Contract Package Areas

3.3 Single parents’ experiences of the Work Programme Within this quantitative context a key aim of this section of the report is to hear first- hand of single parents’ early experiences of the Work Programme in its first year of operation. Nine of the single parents interviewed had experienced the Work Programme as well as Jobcentre Plus employment support, and these nine single parents had been attached to six different prime providers across three Contract Package Areas between them.

Seven had received their employment support from end-to-end prime providers, one was referred smoothly from the prime to an end-to-end Tier One provider within their supply chain, and another had been referred directly to an end-to-end Tier One provider without having contact with the prime provider. There had otherwise been no further referrals from the prime providers, and only one instance in which prime providers had made use of specialist ‘spot’ providers either inside or outside of their supply chains: a referral to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau – a Tier Two sub within this prime’s supply chain – to carry out a better-off calculation that the prime provider was unable to provide. This mirrors findings from the national evaluation that use of specialist spot provision seems relatively rare across the Work Programme as a whole, despite prime contractor’s bid statements and supply chains (Newton et al., 2012: 22).

3.3.1 Communication between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers For the Work Programme to function successfully there are various ways in which it is important that Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers communicate effectively. However, in general these single parents did not feel that there was any real communication between Jobcentre Plus and their Work Programme provider, with each seeming largely unaware of the requirements and processes of the other. This mirrors a range of communication concerns raised by both providers and Jobcentre Plus staff during the first phase of the national evaluation (Newton et al, 2012: 62-69). Shareen’s comment sums up the general impression of the level of communication and understanding between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers:

Shareen (two children aged 13 and 18): I don’t think the left-hand knows what the right-hand is doing... They don’t have much knowledge in terms of the questions I ask. It’s almost like when I go to Jobcentre – ‘that’s what the Work Programme is for’, when you go to the Work Programme often they’re like, ‘oh, what did the Jobcentre say?’

Four specific issues caused by poor communication between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers emerged within the interviews and each offers opportunities for policy improvement: initial referral to the Work Programme; Jobcentre Plus requirements around signing-on and job search verification; the

50 provision of better-off calculations; and signing claimants off JSA when they move into paid work.

Initial referral to the Work Programme

Within the new Jobcentre Plus Offer a Work Programme Referral Interview is one of the three mandatory sets of contacts with claimants. In general terms all nine single parents experienced smooth transitions to their Work Programme providers and began their Work Programme provision in good time. At the same time, however, ‘Work Programme Referral Interview’ suggests a rather grander meeting than these single parents experienced. Rather, single parents were simply told that they would now be transferred to a named Work Programme provider and, as also found in the national evaluation (Newton et al., 2012: 40), there was very little evidence of ‘warm handovers’ involving Jobcentre Plus, Work Programme and the claimant.

The national evaluation finds evidence of problems around handover to the Work Programme as well as tensions between Jobcentre Plus staff and Work Programme providers (Newton et al., 2012: 42). Similarly, these nine single parents described how in general Jobcentre Plus advisers left them with no uncertainty that after referral it was then to be Work Programme providers who would be responsible for the employment support and that single parents should no longer look to the Jobcentre for that support:

Jane (two children aged 12): Yes, now you’re on the Work Programme they [Jobcentre Plus] have really washed their hands of you altogether, yeah…. the last adviser that I was seeing regularly at the Jobcentre was kind of, in quite a smug way, was sort of saying ‘anything that you need now, any information, anything at all, is done by the Work Programme. We don’t do anything for you; you just come here to sign [on].’

There was a feeling amongst some single parents that transfers to the Work Programme were not always timely, with interviewees claiming knowledge of other single parents who had continued to receive employment support from Jobcentre Plus despite receiving JSA for over a year26. One of the nine single parents that we spoke with had themselves been transferred to the Work Programme around a year later than would have been expected.

In some cases, single parents were provided on referral with a leaflet from Jobcentre Plus describing the Work Programme, but these single parents still remained generally unclear about the structure of the Work Programme in terms of prime

26 Entry time to the Work Programme depends on which payment group single parents fall in. Almost ninety per cent of single parents are in the JSA 25+ payment group and so are intended to join the Work Programme after one continuous year receiving JSA with Jobcentre Plus employment support. Other payment groups enter the Work Programme more quickly

51 providers and supply chains of provision. Providing claimants with a clearer understanding of the nature and financing of the Work Programme may help them to feel more secure in that provision. It would also support stronger claimant-led monitoring of provider performance through facilitating awareness of prime providers, supply chains, minimum service guarantees and complaint points.

Greater claimant awareness of the structure of the Work Programme may also help to move towards a situation where claimants themselves have some input into the provision they would like to receive. In terms of these single parents, for example, none were asked whether they had any views as to which provider they would receive support from. If one were to follow the market logic which underpins the Work Programme then it seems reasonable to allow claimants some ability to choose their provider and, if desired, to switch between providers, but this is not enabled at present. Such claimant choice would also push providers to make their offer clearer – and more distinctive – and market themselves more actively on this basis, and this increase in transparency and genuine competition could be expected to create pressure to improve their offer as a result.

Variation and duplication in job search verification

Significant variation in Jobcentre Plus practice around job search verification and signing-on was apparent across the single parents on the Work Programme, with considerable duplication with the job search requirements of Work Programme providers. A whole range of Jobcentre Plus practices emerged in terms of job search verification: some single parents were required to provide a summary of job search activity to both Jobcentre Plus and to their Work Programme provider (usually either fortnightly or monthly dependent on how often Work Programme meetings were); others were not asked to meet with a Jobcentre Plus adviser but did have to deposit their summary of job search activities into a large bin in the Jobcentre Plus office; others still were required to provide the job search list to their Work Programme provider but not to the Jobcentre.

Job search items were inevitably duplicated between the Jobcentre and Work Programme lists – raising the question of the utility of these parallel requirements – yet usually with no agreement between the Jobcentre and Work Programme provider as to the number of items and activities that single parents were required to demonstrate or the time period over which this should take place. Jobcentre Plus contact was fortnightly whilst Work Programme contact varied (though was typically either fortnightly or monthly). Whilst flexibility is intended to be encouraged within the ‘black box’ design of the Work Programme, the current system appears to involve undue inefficiency and duplication around job search verification between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers. Moreover, given the general lack of communication between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme advisers this duplication typically created additional travel costs for single parents as they were

52 required to make journeys to separate appointments with each organisation scheduled for different days.

Harmonising and simplifying this current dual system of job search verification would seem sensible. Indeed, if the DWP is of the view that Work Programme providers are genuinely incentivised to effectively support claimants into work then it would seem contrary to that logic to also state that Work Programme providers cannot be relied upon to ensure active job search.

It is also interesting to note that single parents varied in their responses to these differing arrangements. Whilst there was general confusion as to why they needed to duplicate job search lists for the two organisations, some welcomed the ‘lighter touch’ and more flexible approach that enabled them, for example, to drop job search lists off in a Jobcentre Plus wheelie bin rather than meet an adviser at a fixed, and potentially unsuitable, time. There was, however, also a degree of cynicism around how rigorously the job search verification process was carried out by Jobcentre Plus staff, including some disbelief that Jobcentre Plus staff would ever empty that wheelie bin and verify each list.

In contrast, some single parents did not necessarily want to minimise contact with Jobcentre Plus advisers during participation in the Work Programme. After moving to the Work Programme one single parent felt further isolated from advice around tax credits, better off calculations and benefit questions, all issues which this single parent – as well as those others who had moved on to the Work Programme – felt that Jobcentre Plus could solve but which their Work Programme providers were not knowledgeable enough to help with.

Problems with better-off calculations within the Work Programme

Since at least the late 1990s UK welfare-to-work policy has placed considerable emphasis both on ‘making work pay’ and making sure that the unemployed are aware of the financial gains to work. In this context better-off calculations have become a central policy tool to display the (sometimes marginal) financial returns to paid work and, therefore, to encourage the unemployed to move into work. Despite the importance of the better-off calculation, however, five of the nine single parents had some form of difficulty with getting accurate better-off calculations from Work Programme providers.

One area of concern which emerged was uncertainty and disagreement over who was responsible for providing better-off calculations. For most of these single parents Work Programme providers did attempt to provide a better-off calculation, despite only one prime provider explicitly stating in its minimum service guarantee that better-off calculations would be provided for its clients. One spoke of being referred from their Work Programme provider back to Jobcentre Plus for a better-off

53 calculation. Another prime provider referred a single parent to a Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) to carry out a better-off calculation for them as the prime provider was unable to do this (CAB was a Tier Two organisation within this prime provider’s supply chain, though it was unclear from the interview whether the passing of a CAB telephone number to the single parent for this support would entail any flow of resources to CAB should the single parent move into work). For some single parents, however, there seemed general uncertainty as to who was responsible for providing the better-off calculation:

Clara (one child aged 16): And I also wanted a better off calculation and I went to [Provider X27] and they said ‘no you have to go to the Jobcentre’. Went to Jobcentre they said ‘no you’re on the Work Programme’. So I went back to [Provider X] and they said ‘but we don’t have the programmes on our computer to sign you off’. And when she did the better off calculation it was like the first time she’d been on it. She obviously hadn’t been trained in it.

Several other single parents also raised concerns over the ability of Work Programme providers to give accurate better-off calculations, with Work Programme calculations generally perceived as less accurate than equivalent calculations given by Jobcentre Plus:

Aisha (two children aged 10 and 12): I found the Jobcentre more helpful with that than [Provider Y]...I found she sent me the information but she said it might not be 100 per cent...when you do it with Jobcentre Plus you know exactly what your rent is going to be and everything like that. But they said they’ve not got, they can’t have access to certain things so they can’t really tell you 100 per cent.

Mark (one child aged 14): And it [the Jobcentre Plus calculation] was a little bit different from the one that [Provider Z] did for me. And the Jobcentre one was accurate; that’s what I got.

Moving into work and signing off JSA

As with the provision of better-off calculations, a final area where communication could be improved between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers also relates to facilitating smooth transitions into paid work. One single parent had successfully moved into paid work whilst on the Work Programme but then experienced difficulty in getting their change of status acknowledged and their entitlements to benefits and tax credits adjusted accordingly:

27 The aim of the qualitative research is to highlight single parents’ experiences and potential areas for policy improvement rather than seeking to criticise particular organisations. For this reason, names of Work Programme providers have been anonymised in the report

Clara (one child aged 16): It wasn’t smooth when I actually got a job, no. [Provider X] and the Jobcentre were both saying that they were each responsible for signing me off and I was back and forwards to the Jobcentre.

3.3.2 Monitoring and accountability of Work Programme delivery: weak awareness of service promises and complaints processes Two related and well-documented risks with the current design of the Work Programme are that it is very difficult to ensure that a minimum level of service is delivered and to protect against inequalities in provision which are commonly referred to as ‘creaming’ and ‘parking’. As Finn (2012) argues, it is difficult in any contracted-out model to entirely eliminate opportunities for providers to ‘game’ the system, but minimising risks of creaming, parking and poor service quality are key challenges to any performance-based and output-related funding model in welfare- to-work provision (Finn, 2009: 51). However, the breadth and internal diversity of the nine payment groups combined with the lack of a clear, enforceable and widely understood minimum service guarantee makes the Work Programme particularly vulnerable to these risks.

Within the Work Programme tender process each of the prime providers supplied a set of minimum service guarantees, though in keeping with the ‘black box’ approach these varied enormously in length, detail and ambition. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, these minimum service delivery promises also varied widely in terms of the extent to which they were tangible and enforceable such that for some prime providers it would be possible to hold them to account for below minimum standard provision whilst for others this would be virtually impossible given the vague nature of their minimum service delivery promises.

Leaving aside the precise nature and enforceability of the service promises, a key initial factor is the extent to which these single parents were even aware of minimum service delivery promises as a means of holding providers to account. Amongst the nine single parents only four stated that their providers had outlined these minimum service promises and this had typically been done just once in the initial meeting. Even here, some of these single parents felt that this initial meeting was overloaded with forms and administration and that the substance and role of the minimum service guarantees was rushed within these bureaucratic necessities:

Aisha (one child aged 14): But we did sign a lot of things and that’s probably what you’re talking about but I didn’t think they went through them enough...It was basically like a group of 10 of us and they said ‘sign this, sign this, sign this’ but I didn’t find it was, we didn’t get told everything 100 per cent really... you didn’t have enough time and you didn’t get a copy of it either. You just signed it. You don’t get a copy. That’s what I didn’t get, whenever you sign something you’re supposed to get a copy.

Of the four single parents who were made aware of the existence of the minimum service delivery promises only two stated that they had been given a copy to take away and, if necessary, refer to during their time with that provider. None of the nine was clear about what their prime provider’s minimum service promises actually were, and only the two single parents with written documents filed away at home appeared to have the potential to actually make use of them. Five of the single parents had no awareness at all of the prime provider’s minimum service promises.

In order to try to gauge whether minimum service promises were being met, these single parents were asked about how their experiences of provision mapped onto their respective provider’s published minimum service guarantee. The test was by no means exhaustive, focussing briefly on one or two randomly chosen examples in each case, but did suggest that the experiences of some single parents fell short of the minimum standards. But without a clear awareness of what these minimum service guarantees were these single parents had not sought to hold their provider to account, nor could they have been expected to.

Assuming that claimants were aware of the nature of service that they should expect from their Work Programme provider, a related area of interest was whether single parents were clear about how to complain should they wish to do so. Amongst the nine single parents who had experienced Work Programme provision, three said that they had been informed by their providers about the complaints process of the prime provider and two single parents had raised a formal complaint to their prime provider during their time on the Work Programme. Only one of the nine had been informed about the existence of the Independent Case Examiner (ICE)28.

Given the ‘black box’ nature of the Work Programme and the reliance on bottom-up monitoring of service quality from claimants, this lack of awareness around minimum service promises and complaints processes are clear areas of concern for those with an interest in ensuring effective employment support within the Work Programme.

3.3.3 Quality of Work Programme provision There has been much discussion as to whether the Work Programme is offering the unemployed the high-quality and personalised support described in the policy rhetoric and documentation. In particular, there have been concerns (NAO, 2012; PAC, 2012), and growing evidence (Newton et al., 2012: 107-111), around swelling caseloads, poor quality service, a lack of more intensive and personalised substantive support, and ‘creaming’ and ‘parking’ in response to cost-pressures and challenging performance targets. The release of disappointing job outcomes figures

28 This perhaps explains why the ICE dealt with just 70 complaints in the first nine months of the Work Programme, over half of these relating to three prime providers (A4e, Ingeus and Seetec) http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/105412/response/262571/attach/2/FoI%20626%2009.03.12 .pdf

56 from the first year of the programme has further sharpened focus on what it is that Work Programme providers are actually doing inside their many ‘black boxes’.

There are many different possible ways to analyse service quality within the Work Programme and this section focuses on the following elements of service quality:  The duration and frequency of Work Programme contact  The quality of adviser relationships and adviser support  The range and quality of the training provision available  Access to additional support schemes and resources.

Direct support around finding suitable jobs is discussed in the next section on the Work Programme job outcomes for these single parents. The extent to which support is tailored and personalised is an important feature of service quality and job outcomes and is discussed throughout.

Frequency and duration of Work Programme contact

Creaming and parking – the idea that providers minimise effort on ‘harder to place’ claimants (‘parking’) whilst focussing their energies and resources on those closest to the labour market (‘creaming’) – have been core concerns around the Work Programme. Creaming and parking can occur qualitatively in terms of the nature of support offered, by varying the provision and quality of support according to perceptions of the work readiness of different claimants. More simply, however, creaming and parking can occur quantitatively through variation in the frequency of meetings with different types of claimants and/or the duration of those meetings. Within the Work Programme the vast majority of prime providers clearly state within their minimum service guarantees how frequently they will meet clients (typically at least every two or four weeks), though not all do. None make promises about the duration or content of those meetings.

Whilst the first phase of the national evaluation does find evidence both of creaming and parking (Newton et al., 2012: 107-111), amongst these interviews there was not strong evidence of creaming and parking in terms of frequency and duration of meetings, although this is less clear in terms of the duration of meetings. Most of the nine single parents did see their Work Programme providers every week or every fortnight. Meetings were almost always in person, although for one single parent around a third of their support had been over the telephone.

There was variability and, perhaps more concerning, some fragility in the frequency of meetings however. One single parent was meeting with their provider monthly, whilst two single parents – both of whom were attached to providers who promised at least fortnightly contact within their minimum service guarantees – had gaps of around three months between meetings. In one instance this was a planned,

57 scheduled gap by their Work Programme adviser – possible evidence of deliberate parking by the provider – whilst for the other it was the consequence of an adviser leaving their job and this single parent’s support simply getting lost in that process without anybody noticing (and without the single parent being aware of how frequently they ought to be meeting). In terms of duration, meetings were generally short, usually around ten minutes. Several of these single parents felt that they were ‘left alone’ because they were engaging willingly with the process and actively looking for work themselves; as a consequence they felt that they were perceived to be less problematic and to require less input compared to most of the adviser’s caseload.

In terms of the ‘creaming’ and ‘parking’ debate the interviews suggest that this is more of a U-shaped process whereby those most at risk of being ‘parked’ are those who are hardest to place due to their complex and/or more resource intensive needs and also those who have a reasonable prospect of finding work themselves. It is those who require some, usually relatively low-resource, input to move into paid work where advisers’ energies seemed to be focussed. This is problematic if single parents (and claimants more generally) do not receive the amount of support they are looking for from their Work Programme provider simply because either they are considered too difficult and/or expensive to support into work or if they are considered of relatively low need and with a realistic prospect of getting themselves into work without resources.

The quality of adviser relationships and adviser support

In general the personal relationships between advisers and single parents were positive and Work Programme advisers did tend to be considerably more flexible than Jobcentre Plus advisers in terms of discussing mutually convenient appointment times and using phone and email to regularly communicate over rescheduling meetings and discussing job vacancies. Whilst this greater flexibility was appreciated, most of the single parents were relatively unimpressed with the actual quality and depth of the support they were getting from their adviser. As discussed further below, to some extent it was felt that this was a result of advisers simply not having a particularly large set of training and advice options to offer from within their ‘toolkit’ of support. Within the first phase of the national evaluation there is likewise a view amongst Jobcentre Plus staff that Work Programme participants “were not receiving much in the way of support at all” (Newton et al., 2012: 109).

There was inevitable variation in experiences, but in general there was a feeling that advisers were not particularly knowledgeable about how to help them move into work, nor about more practical questions around benefits, tax credits or better-off calculations that Jobcentre Plus advisers were generally felt to be relatively well informed about. None of the Work Programme advisers, for example, had mentioned the single parent flexibilities despite these still being applicable to all nine of the

58 single parents. Rather, the atmosphere and staffing of Work Programme providers appeared, perhaps unsurprisingly, closer to that of a recruitment agency.

A related issue for some single parents was the amount of adviser turnover experienced within the Work Programme. For some single parents their experiences were of a positive atmosphere within the provider’s office and stability in terms of the adviser they were seeing, a welcome relief from the ‘doom and gloom’ that some people described as more common to Jobcentre Plus. For others, however, frequent adviser turnover meant that they did not establish a strong relationship and understanding with any adviser and that the quality of the provision was affected during staff shortages and changes. The degree of adviser turnover experienced by some of the single parents appeared linked to larger issues with the Work Programme itself, with several single parents commenting on conversations with advisers who spoke of feeling under constant pressure to achieve challenging employment targets within severe cost-constraints and with large and complex caseloads:

Jane (twins aged 12): Everybody leaves. Two advisers on the trot have confided in me how difficult it is, how they’re not going to be staying, how they don’t know what to do...the thing is that it changes all the time...when they’re short staffed and everything’s rubbish they sort of do your thing over the phone...so you’ve booked an appointment to go in and see somebody and then they’ll ring you that morning and say, you know, ‘can we do it over the phone?’

Within this context, several single parents experienced a degree of empathy and respect flowing in both directions: more than one of the single parents was told explicitly that they were in a minority of the caseload that the adviser considered to be relatively reasonable, unproblematic and willing to work, compared to the much more challenging majority of their caseload; in return, several of the single parents expressed frustration at the quality of the support they were receiving but empathised personally with the pressures and challenges of their adviser’s job. More than one single parent said that they almost felt sorry for their adviser given their evidently large caseloads and pressured targets.

Perhaps flowing from these relatively positive personal relationships, sanctions did not seem a significant issue within these single parents’ conversations with their Work Programme advisers; none had been sanctioned as a result of compliance doubts from Work Programme providers and, indeed, there was no evidence that any compliance doubt forms had been raised at all. The single parents were aware from conversations with advisers and from missing participants at Work Programme meetings and courses that there were many other claimants who did not seem to be engaging as fully as themselves and where sanctions may have been applied, but

59 there seemed less mention of the threat of sanctions underlying conversations with Work Programme advisers than with certain Jobcentre Plus advisers.

There was some evidence that greater clarity of information could be offered around sanctions, however. One single parent had received a letter from her Work Programme provider outlining that sanctions could occur due to non-compliance and was unsettled by this because she was unclear whether the letter was a generic reminder to all participants – as it seemed to be – or rather in relation to something that she had done (or not done) and that she was unaware of. Another had moved into work and was frustrated at continuing to receive phone calls from her Work Programme provider each month despite being in paid work and now, in her mind, having moved on from her Work Programme provider. She was irritated by these monthly phone calls now that she was in work but was unclear whether sanctions could be applied to her wages or tax credits if she rejected these calls.

The range and quality of the training provision available: rhetoric vs reality

Experiences were inevitably varied, but the single parents interviewed most commonly made negative comments about the quality, range and personalisation of the training offer from their Work Programme providers. Most of the single parents found that the courses offered were too basic for their needs and relatively generic in nature: how to write CVs, job applications, how to job search, basic skills, and sometimes sector-specific skills courses in popular industries (e.g. hospitality, construction, catering, education). This supports the national evaluation which suggests that, although there is evidence of considerable variation in the referral to specialist providers, cost-pressures are appearing to limit the extent to which providers are willing to buy-in more specific or more substantive training provision (Newton et al., 2012: 56).

For a few of the single parents this level of support was suitable and met their needs: one spoke glowingly, for example, of a four-day intensive course at the start of her time on the Work Programme which covered all of these fairly basic issues – CVs, job search strategies, job applications, interview skills, confidence building – and wished that she had been offered this a year prior at the start of her time claiming JSA with Jobcentre Plus. Another found it helpful to have their adviser build two CVs for them, each tailored to different types of jobs that they were applying for.

For most of the single parents, however, the overriding feeling was that the Work Programme offer was, like the Jobcentre Plus Offer, oriented around the lowest common denominator and that their Work Programme advisers had very little of relevance to offer beyond relatively generic core provision. Indeed, for one single parent the generic core offer of training did seem extremely limited in that their Work Programme provider claimed not to offer entry level IT courses on Word and Excel that this single parent felt they needed.

Several single parents suggested that they could understand why the core training offer was relatively basic, talking in terms of Work Programme providers “meeting the mass”, as one single parent put it. Yet, given that the Work Programme is built around the idea of personalised support, this remains surprising. Also surprising, given the emphasis on tailored support, is that three of the nine single parents were mandated to attend some form of training on offer even when this was stated by the single parent to be at far too basic a level or in an area irrelevant to their previous work experience and current job search:

Mark (one child aged 14): She said ‘I have to send you on a course...I’m going to send you on this because, you know, this is the course we send our customers on who we know are serious about looking for work and they don’t need a lot of’ – she called it ‘hassle’... Interviewer: And was that a useful course? Mark: No...Not for me personally. I could see it being useful for other people, who maybe they’ve not been in the country very long and don’t know how to apply for a job, how to source a job...but personally I was sourcing my own, job hunting, filling in my own applications.

Tina (one child aged 10): there was a lot of provision, yeah it was really well organised...but I do think they have to tailor the needs to the person they’re speaking to...because they should have been able to tell by my CV, that they had a copy of, how experienced I was, what kind of work I’d done...they were basically starting me off at the bottom again...it wasn’t applicable to me [but] the in-house course was mandatory.

Another single parent felt pressured to attend courses that were not relevant and claimed that this seemed to be driven by the adviser’s need to simply fill up a particular course rather than out of any concern with their own training needs or desires. At the other extreme, whilst a suite of relatively generic training courses were available across most of the primes, two single parents did not receive any offers of training. One single parent had been unable to get on any of the courses offered despite repeated requests due to cancellations by the provider.

More broadly, several single parents felt that there was a mismatch between the words and actions of their advisers. For some their frustration was that their adviser appeared to do nothing more than tell them what they already knew themselves – that they needed more experience or to have more confidence for example – without offering any solutions to overcome the problems. For others the frustrations were around advisers talking of impressive-sounding personalised training and support options but this never materialising into anything of any substance:

Jane (twins aged 12): And they’re actually just using sort of estate agent type language but really what you’re getting is not anything really...And kind of it

lifts your spirits a little bit thinking maybe this is different, maybe this is something that is more about me, because that’s how they sell it to you – it’s more personalised. But actually your experience isn’t that different.

Clara (one child aged 16): It was all talk but it didn’t lead to anything.

Access to additional support schemes and funding resources

The Work Programme providers made very little use of additional support schemes or funding. One prime provider had given a single parent contact details for the Citizen’s Advice Bureau in order to get a better-off calculation, but this did not seem to be a formal referral within the Work Programme, despite CAB being a sub within that prime’s supply chain. Despite the apparently formal nature of the Work Programme supply chains and payment methods, these interviews highlight that provision remains complex and that Work Programme boundaries – but not necessarily financial payments – remain porous. The national evaluation finds similarly that much of the referral to specialist ‘spot’ providers is outside of the formal supply chains at low or no cost (Newton et al., 2012: 2).

Three of the nine single parents received offers of additional funding from their Work Programme providers and particularly interesting here is the timing of those funding offers and the broader nature of the provision offered. In one instance funding was offered to purchase clothing for an interview and work placement in the hope that this may lead to a job offer, or at least a strengthened CV, as a result. In the two other cases, however, access to additional funding was offered after single parents had themselves secured job offers following minimal input by the Work Programme provider. This funding was used to pay for a bus pass, clothing and two weeks of petrol allowance for the initial week or two in work.

What is interesting about the timing of this additional financial support is how it relates to claims made by former Work Programme advisers that in order for prime providers to be able to claim clients’ moves into work as a successful outcome for them without any risk of dispute, there needs to be a clearly evidenced input from the Work Programme provider into that work outcome. Indeed, Work Programme providers are required to evidence support to successful employment transitions in order for job outcomes payments to be ‘claimable’. Where such an input cannot readily be evidenced, as in the case of the latter two single parents described above, then it has been claimed by former Work Programme managers that offering discretionary financial support for the initial period in work enables the Work Programme provider to evidence their role in the outcome even though it occurred after the job has been secured29.

29 http://www.channel4.com/news/46m-payout-for-a4e-despite-missing-work-programme-targets

Whilst the funding support was of course welcomed by these two single parents, one could question whether the use of discretionary financial resources in this way by Work Programme providers represents value for money for the taxpayer, both in terms of Work Programme providers then claiming outcomes which in reality they had very little input to, as well as in terms of diverting finite resources away from funding needs further upstream to support other claimants to overcome barriers and move into work.

3.3.4 Job outcomes on the Work Programme As discussed above, the release in November 2012 of the 3.5 per cent job outcomes figure for the first year of the Work Programme has focussed attention on the extent to which this radical new form of employment support is effectively helping the unemployed back into work. Of the nine single parents that we interviewed who had experienced the Work Programme, six had moved into paid work whilst attached to a Work Programme provider. Not all had been in work for the six months required for the JSA 25+ payment group to trigger a job outcome payment – one of the issues with the national 3.5 per cent figure – but these single parents’ transitions did at least seem stable and on the way to triggering those outcomes and sustainability payments in the future.

To count the number of individuals who move from the Work Programme to paid work is of course not the same as establishing the impact of Work Programme providers on those employment outcomes. Nevertheless, providers are paid irrespective of their actual role in their client’s employment transitions (as long as they can evidence support, as outlined above). To properly isolate the actual importance of a Work Programme provider in securing a job outcome for their client – and to seek to link payments to that role – would require complex statistical impact evaluations of the sort that are not currently possible by anyone relying on the publicly available data. Without such data and such statistical approaches the best that can be done is to talk to Work Programme participants qualitatively about their evaluation of the role that their provider played in their successful employment transition.

Of the six single parents moving into paid work whilst on the Work Programme, five felt that their Work Programme provider had not played a significant role in supporting that transition. In contrast, one single parent said that their Work Programme provider had been central to helping them move into work through offering highly professional employment support: they had talked to her about her CV, about training courses and about how to do well in interviews, and also made use of excellent business contacts to line up an interview in the knowledge that this single parent’s experience, aspirations and care responsibilities were a good match with the needs of the employer. This Work Programme provider also clearly worked hard to maintain a positive reputation and relationship with a network of employers: the

63 single parent said that during their job interview it became clear that it was seen as a positive by the employer that they had come from this Work Programme provider.

For the remaining five single parents, however, their Work Programme provider seemed to have played a relatively minimal role in their transition to employment. Mark’s views were typical of these single parents:

Mark (one child aged 14): I did it myself…I found it. I sourced it myself. I filled in the application for myself. Got the interview…And got the job myself. So it was absolutely nothing to do with [Provider Y].

It is not clear whether this relative lack of input to the job outcome was a deliberate decision on the part of the Work Programme provider – ‘parking’ on the basis not of distance from the labour market but rather of proximity to it. More broadly, however, there were again mismatches with the rhetoric of personalised support and the reality of Work Programme provision on the ground. One single parent spoke of how they received regular mass emails from their Work Programme adviser listing all of the currently available jobs. Whilst the single parent appreciated receiving these job alerts they found it difficult to understand their adviser’s explanation that within that prime provider advisers were not allowed to tailor claimants’ job alerts to particular sectors or locations but were instead required to send out generic emails with all vacancies included, irrespective of their suitability to individuals.

In addition, several single parents actually felt that their Work Programme provider had been a hindrance to their job search in different ways. For two single parents this was based mainly around their prime provider’s mandatory requirement to come into the office to spend two hour slots on the provider’s computers to find and apply for jobs. This required the single parent to pay for a journey to the provider where they had only a small number of very old computers – meaning that most of the time there were too many people for the number of computers available. Both single parents explained at length that they would prefer to use their own home computer or those in the library, but this was not permitted by the provider.

Two further single parents felt that their advisers had little interest in their employment experience, job aspirations or financial needs in work but were instead pressuring them to apply for jobs irrespective of their suitability or relevance. There was no explicit threat of sanctions expressed to these single parents but they certainly felt under pressure to move into work quickly, irrespective of the type of job, rather than trying to find a more suitable role in time.

Regardless of the role of the Work Programme provider, all six single parents who moved into employment were happy with the kind of work that they were doing. Five of the six were working part-time hours and all but one was doing so within school hours. An important issue for those moving into work was achieving the 16 hours per

64 week required to become eligible for working tax credits. Of the five single parents who had moved into part-time work, four had managed to find jobs of 16 hours or more per week.

The only single parent who stood out as somewhat frustrated by their work situation was working 10 hours per week and frustrated that she was not able to get enough hours from her employer to become eligible for working tax credit. The arrival of universal credit will change this situation by providing greater financial rewards for short hours ‘mini jobs’, but it will also apply in-work conditionality to push single parents towards longer hours. Recent research for Gingerbread suggests however that under universal credit there will be relatively modest financial gains to working 16 hours per week – the point around which part-time working single parents are currently clustered due to the current eligibility rules for tax credits – compared with eight-10 hours per week in a ‘mini-job’ (Hirsch, 2012), particularly where a single parent has significant childcare costs.

As with the vast majority of single parents (Tu and Ginnis, 2012), the single parents interviewed as part of this research wanted to work and were looking for support from their Work Programme providers to move into paid work that could be reconciled with their caring responsibilities. The overwhelming view of the six single parents who had recently moved into employment whilst on the Work Programme was, understandably, one of delight, even for the one single parent seeking more hours. Indeed, one single parent was contracted to work part-time in a hospital but given staff shortages was regularly working full-time and rapidly accumulating overtime that he suspected he would never be able to take. Nevertheless, he was very pleased to have found an enjoyable job that paid reasonably and did not seem to really care about the extra unpaid hours at the moment:

Mark (one child aged 14): It’s a job. I’m so glad to have a job.

Continued support in work: help or hindrance?

In recent years, and seen most visibly in the DWP’s large scale Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) demonstration project, the issue of employment retention has become a central feature within welfare-to-work support alongside the traditional focus on supporting employment transitions. One feature of the Work Programme is that participants remain attached to their Work Programme provider for two years even if they move into paid work. This is intended to offer individuals continued support during the transition to work and the early period at work, in theory offering an opportunity for any in-work issues to be addressed to help sustain work transitions.

All six single parents who had moved into paid work whilst with a Work Programme provider said that they were receiving continued contact from their primes. This

65 contact was usually in the form of a brief telephone call on a monthly basis to check that the single parents were still in work and, sometimes (though felt to clearly not be the central aim of the contact), to ask if there were any issues around keeping that employment. Opinions were mixed amongst these single parents as to whether this continued in-work support was desirable. For Tina and Aisha this continuation of Work Programme contact and support in work had been helpful in exactly the way intended, offering a source of advice and practical help with any problems in the early stages of work:

Aisha (two children aged 10 and 12): Because I was having a few problems a few weeks ago at work…so I did text her…and they just said if there was a problem just give us a ring and you can come in and have a chat and things. So you’re not just left in the job and then you’re forgotten there’s a little bit of contact still.

For others, however, this continued contact was an irritation more than anything else, a perceived inability to ‘escape’ from a Work Programme provider with whom they may have enjoyed a less than positive experience:

Mark (one child aged 14): Yeah. Well, I’ve got a bugbear about this…I don’t understand why a working person has to have a link with a jobless provider for two bloody years. Do you know what I mean?...When you’re with these things, honestly you sort of look in a dream and think, “I can’t wait to get a job and get rid of these people”. They get on my nerves…But it’s not like that. You get a job and they’re still there!...Like a monkey on your back.

The irritation was at least short-lived, and providers were usually amenable to making this contact via email rather than telephone if single parents requested this. Of concern, however, was the lack of information provided by prime providers around the rationale and conditions around this continued contact, which left several of these single parents uncertain of the reasons for the continued contact and, more alarmingly, of whether benefits, tax credits or even wages could be sanctioned if they did not engage with this continued contact from primes. With finances remaining tight for many of these working single parents it is important that they are not made to experience unnecessary concern about possible financial sanctions simply by virtue of inadequate information on the part of providers:

Mark (one child aged 14): I mean can they sanction my tax credits? I don’t know.

Inside the ‘black box’ of the Work Programme: a revolution in employment support?

Whilst genuinely revolutionary in its scale of commissioning and payment-by- results, the Work Programme in many ways represents a simple extension of the principles of personalisation, payment-by-results and mixed provision that flow through previous similar welfare-to-work models as well as in the current Jobcentre Plus Offer. In this context, any analysis of the Work Programme must rest on assessing whether the scheme is delivering anything more innovative and more effective than what has gone before in terms of its delivery and its outcomes. The first year’s job outcome statistics are disappointing and more will be hoped for in the next data release. Indeed, the unusual nature of the DWP’s preferred job outcomes rate calculation should help to deliver more positive news in the future, however poor the first year’s data.

On the delivery side, whilst the Work Programme’s ‘black box approach’ offers the potential for innovation and effectiveness, it is inevitable that observers will want to look inside those ‘black boxes’ and see what is actually taking place in practice. In contrast both to policy rhetoric and their own hopes, the overriding experience of these single parents was largely one of punctured hopes and frustrated isolation: Work Programme advisers in general seemed unable or unwilling to offer more support beyond kind words and generic courses, with little in the way of substantive support or effective job search to make movements into work noticeably more likely than these single parents could have achieved alone.

Particularly frustrating for these single parents was that, whilst they were left feeling poorly supported, they felt that providers were being credited – and paid – for job outcomes to which they had contributed little. Of particular concern was that the weak accountability framework within the Work Programme design exposed these single parents to risks around poor quality and unequal provision that could have (and in some cases did) go undetected for significant periods.

There is little doubt that the Work Programme is indeed a revolution in employment support in the UK. This research suggests, however, that at present it is considerably more revolutionary in terms of its design, its payment model and its policy rhetoric than in terms of the experiences and outcomes of those actually on the receiving end of Work Programme support.

Conclusions In recent years, the expectation that out-of-work single parents will ordinarily receive JSA and be expected to seek, and wherever possible accept, paid work has transformed the policy landscape for single parents. There has been an inevitable surge in the number of single parents claiming JSA and described as ‘unemployed’ as the LPOs have reclassified single parents with older children as ‘workers’ rather than as ‘carers’, even though single parents remain a relatively minor part of Great Britain’s whole JSA story, representing just 10 per cent of all JSA claims. At the same time there has been a commensurate (indeed slightly larger) reduction in the number of single parents claiming IS.

Whilst the transfer of single parents from IS to JSA has been a dramatic change, the introduction of universal credit represents the next radical step in terms of benefit reforms. It is necessary to be mindful of the way in which different proposed elements of the UC reforms may alter single parents’ work incentives, and to which employment support programmes such as the Jobcentre Plus Offer and Work Programme will have to respond. The shift to UC contains some clear benefits for single parents, particularly in terms of extending eligibility for childcare subsidies to those working fewer than 16 hours per week and, partly as a consequence, improved financial returns for ‘mini-jobs’ (Hirsch, 2012).

Yet UC also carries risks for single parents, not least in terms of the implementation and impact of in-work conditionality. At this stage it is unclear precisely how in-work conditionality will operate in practice in terms of its relationship to the Jobcentre Plus Offer and, potentially more problematically, to Work Programme providers whose current contract terms cover referrals until 2016. Whilst the Government’s view is that claimants deemed to be not working ‘enough’ should be required to increase their earned income over a certain threshold, in practice childcare responsibilities and job availability constrain single parents’ ability to increase their hours at will.

Alongside the roll-out of the LPOs, recent years have also seen dramatic change in terms of employment support for single parent (and all other) claimants through the introduction of the Jobcentre Plus Offer and the Work Programme, and this report has focussed on single parents’ experiences of these programmes in terms of supporting them to realise their work aspirations. To differing degrees both programmes continue the direction of previous policy travel, and their emphases on delivering more flexible and personalised employment support offers potential benefits to single parents. This research, however, finds that there is a considerable gap between the rhetoric surrounding the Offer and Work Programme and the reality of the programmes on the ground as experienced by single parents. As with some previous similar welfare-to-work reforms (Lindsay et al., 2007), therefore, the potential inherent within the flexible design of the Offer and the Work Programme does not appear to be being realised at present.

Overall single parents’ job outcomes whilst receiving support under the Jobcentre Plus Offer were relatively limited, with five of the 27 single parents interviewed moving into paid work. Of these five, however, only two stated that Jobcentre Plus had played a significant role in their work transition. Their jobs were not necessarily what they were ideally looking for, but all were delighted to be in paid work. Jobcentre Plus advisers were relatively strong in terms of carrying out the more procedural and bureaucratic aspects of the Offer such as holding meetings and conducting some form of job search with claimants. Some key procedural issues were not well delivered however, particularly offering single parents the chance to meet with single parent advisers, informing them of the single parent JSA flexibilities, making use of the Flexible Support Fund, and the use of sanctions. Single parents are clearly at risk of becoming ‘invisible’ within the system, despite the specific challenges which they face and the specific provision which exists to support them.

Jobcentre Plus job vacancy information also did not seem comprehensive, and a number of single parents described how job vacancies which were known to exist and were advertised on external websites and through recruitment agencies were not being picked up by Jobcentre Plus advisers within Jobsearch Review meetings. In the context of the move to Universal Jobmatch it is important to ensure that JSA claimants are given access to the full range of relevant local job opportunities – not just those available on Universal Jobmatch. Advisers varied in the extent to which they supported single parents’ own wishes regarding training, voluntary work and different types of jobs: whilst most advisers were supportive of single parents’ care responsibilities and work aspirations, some single parents felt pressured by their advisers towards a rapid return to work largely irrespective of the type of job and how this fitted with their experience, work aims and caring responsibilities.

More substantive and personalised support was in short supply however, despite the stated intentions of the Offer. Single parents were generally offered a core set of advice and training support from Jobcentre Plus advisers, but many found this to be too basic and generic to make any significant difference to their job prospects. As a consequence, single parents with advanced, more specific and/or more intensive needs were left frustrated at a lack of such support from Jobcentre Plus. One area where single parents felt more help was needed was the availability of genuine work experience placements that could develop skills and confidence, build experience in a sector of interest to single parents’ skills and aspirations, and which were also viable in terms of their current care responsibilities.

It was notable that Jobcentre Plus advisers made limited use of the suite of Pre- Work Programme support measures, including the Get Britain Working schemes, with these single parents. Whilst greater use of such schemes may help, there was general unease amongst single parents about their mandatory nature, which was perceived to be punitive and exploitative, as well as concerns that such mandatory training courses and work experience could be in sectors completely unrelated to

69 past experience and future career aims. It is also not clear that the existing suite of Get Britain Working measures is able to deliver the type of work experience that single parents are looking for, particularly as most will be too old to be eligible for the Work Experience scheme as this is aimed only at young adults.

The single parents that we spoke with responded to these limits in the Offer in different ways. For a handful of these single parents the relatively basic generic core offer from advisers suited them well. Other single parents felt they needed more advanced, specialist or intensive support and whilst such support was not forthcoming from Jobcentre Plus some single parents accessed this through self- referral to external organisations; it was noticeable however that Jobcentre Plus advisers did not make much use of referral to external organisations where additional support seemed to be needed. A third group of single parents also felt that Jobcentre Plus was not meeting their needs but, although left frustrated, felt reasonably able to try to get back into work on their own due to their experience, skills and/or confidence. However, a fourth and final group of single parents, and the largest group of single parents that we spoke with, were left feeling under-supported but also lacking the work experience, skills and/or confidence to make a transition to paid work likely without more support from Jobcentre Plus. If the rhetoric of the Offer is to become a reality of effective, personalised employment support for all different types of single parents, then it is important that Jobcentre Plus advisers have the resources, information and options that they need to realise the potential inherent in the flexibility that the Offer provides.

Although the Work Programme and Jobcentre Plus Offer both reflect a continuation of previous policy trends in welfare-to-work support, the Work Programme is far more radical in its ambition and, in a number of ways, significantly accelerates the development of these trends so as to represent a genuine revolution in employment support in Great Britain. The single parents who had experienced the Work Programme were themselves optimistic about its rhetoric of personalisation and intensity. In general these single parents did experience additional flexibility from Work Programme advisers, compared with Jobcentre Plus advisers, around procedural issues such as appointment times and use of email correspondence. But in general these single parents were disappointed by what again appeared to be a relatively basic and generic package of training, skills and advice which left many feeling there was little of substance on offer beyond the words of encouragement.

The nature and effectiveness of what is actually taking place within the many ‘black boxes’ across the Work Programme has been placed under far greater scrutiny since the release of the first year of job outcomes data in November 2012. Bulging caseloads, budget constraints, pressured targets and high adviser turnover described the backdrop to many of these single parents’ experiences of the Work Programme, and this makes both continuity and quality of Work Programme support extremely challenging. Greater use of supply chains and more specialist providers

70 may have offered more intensive or specialist support, but Work Programme advisers made little use of such referrals. Indeed, despite the concepts of flexibility and personalisation inherent in the ‘black box’ design of the Work Programme, there was evidence of Work Programme advisers pushing, and on occasions mandating, participation in training courses irrespective of their suitability to the single parent.

There was some evidence of ‘parking’ across these single parents, both for those closest to and farthest from the labour market. In this context, and taking into account concerns outlined above around the quality of provision, one area of concern was the minimal discussion from advisers, and resulting minimal awareness from single parents, about prime providers’ minimum service guarantees and complaints processes within the Work Programme. Whilst the ‘black box’ approach offers the potential for innovation and flexibility, it also offers considerable flexibility for providers not to deliver on their promises; in the absence of strong top-down monitoring of prime providers’ activities it is important that active consumer choice and genuine competition is bolstered to seek to enforce high standards of provision for all claimants and to empower claimants to hold their providers to account where provision is not adequate.

In terms of job outcomes – and acknowledging the small sample size in our study – particularly concerning was that amongst the six single parents who had moved into paid work whilst receiving Work Programme support, only one stated that their provider had played a significant role in that transition. As an indicative marker, the experiences of these single parents raise significant concerns around the size of the gap between the rhetoric and reality of the Work Programme in terms of offering tailored, intensive and, most importantly, effective employment support to all claimants. Any reform on the scale of the Work Programme will take time to bed in, but there is sufficient evidence from within this piece of research, and from elsewhere, to be concerned that the Work Programme as it currently stands is not delivering the employment support that single parents (and other claimants) need to realise their work aspirations.

Whilst this report has focussed on issues, and potential policy improvements, within the Offer and the Work Programme, it is also necessary to recognise the importance of the broader policy context which lies beyond the reach of these programmes but which nevertheless plays an important role in shaping their ability to support single parents (and other claimants) into work. Although most single parents are now expected to work, their care responsibilities inevitably remain and the key issues which have frustrated single parents’ work aspirations in recent decades – childcare costs, the availability of ‘care compatible’ job opportunities, access to skills and training courses to boost career prospects and earnings, and transport costs – remain outside the reach of the Offer and the Work Programme. The development of this broader policy infrastructure around these employment support programmes remains a central challenge as we all seek to support single parents – indeed, all parents – to move into the type of paid work that improves their family’s well-being.

Recommendations This research highlights an urgent need for a step-change in the delivery of employment support to help single parents into work, and shows that significant reform is required to both the Jobcentre Plus Offer and the Work Programme if the system is to stop failing single parents who are highly motivated to work but face significant barriers in a tough job market.

Our policy recommendations focus on four key areas:  Tackling invisibility – putting the focus back on single parents  Providing a genuinely tailored service offer that can meet the needs of all single parents  Clarifying the respective roles of Jobcentre Plus and the Work Programme  Jobs that last – not jobs first.

Tackling invisibility – putting the focus back on single parents

 The government must ensure that employment support providers put renewed focus on single parents as a discrete claimant group in order to deliver a significant increase in single parent employment, and as part of this focus should set a clear and ambitious target for single parent employment and an action plan to achieve it. This would also support existing priorities to reduce the number of workless households and tackle child poverty  The government should ensure that single parents receive consistent and reliable support for childcare costs incurred when preparing for work in order to ensure that they are on a level playing field with other claimants. Jobcentre Plus should guarantee access to the Flexible Support Fund to pay for childcare costs for single parents seeking work, and there should be an equivalent scheme provided by Work Programme providers.

Providing a genuinely tailored service offer that can meet the needs of all single parents

 The Work Programme referral process should be amended to allow claimants to choose which of their local providers to go to. Consumer choice would improve competition both between the two or three prime providers per Contract Package Area and between the different providers in each prime’s supply chain, encouraging them to deliver high-quality personalised employment support  Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers must ensure that all advisers understand and inform single parents about the single parent JSA flexibilities, so that they are best able to balance job seeking with their childcare responsibilities

 The government must build public and employer confidence in the value of work experience by developing a portfolio of well-managed work placement schemes available on a voluntary basis to improve job prospects  The government must place higher priority on claimant feedback within performance management and accountability frameworks.

Clarifying the respective roles of Jobcentre Plus and the Work Programme

 The government must urgently undertake a rapid review to draw out the key differences between Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme provision, map out a seamless referral process between the two, and remove duplication in the services provided  Once there is clarity between what is provided by each of Jobcentre Plus and the Work Programme, consideration should be given to developing a diagnostic tool for use at the start of a single parent’s JSA claim which identifies whichever employment support provision is most appropriate for their needs, matches those needs to providers within either Jobcentre Plus or Work Programme supply chains, and enables the claimant to choose to fast- track to that support.

Jobs that last – not jobs first

 Jobcentre Plus should include sustainable job outcomes in its performance management and accountability framework so as to match the focus on sustainability that is intended in the Work Programme  Jobcentre Plus and Work Programme providers must undertake early assessment of need for skills training, and provide adequate investment in vocational skills – not just basic skills and employability.

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Appendix: Local authority single parent JSA counts (July 2011) and Work Programme attachments (to July 2012)30

WP JSA WP att JSA WP att JSA LA WP att JSA LA att to Jul LA to Jul Jul LA to Jul Jul to Jul Jul Jul 201 2012 201 2012 201 2012 201 Birmingham 20121780 3551 Rochdale 300 5751 W Dunb 170 2551 Arun 100 2151 Glasgow City 1130 2070 Oldham 300 525 Wiltshir 170 415 Basingsto 100 200 Leeds 1010 178 5 Cornwall 300 710 eShrops 170 345 keNuneaton and 100 240 Lambeth 860 1410 NE Lincs 300 520 hReadin 170 320 DeaneBath 100 195 Liverpool 830 152 0 Bolton 290 590 gHarrow 170 415 Her’shire 100 230 Enfield 820 1365 Caerphilly 290 490 Ipswich 160 315 Wrexham 100 225 Manchester 800 1595 Barnsley 290 530 Har’poo 160 300 Fenland 100 195 Newham 740 1200 Wigan 290 680 lN Lincs 160 340 W Lancs 100 195 Southwark 730 1190 Salford 290 595 Kensing 160 320 Grav’sha 90 210 Bradford 720 1275 Thurrock 290 515 tEpping 150 270 mBassetla 90 175 Haringey 680 1090 Tameside 280 500 ForestBlackbu 150 315 wAshford 90 175 Croydon 660 1260 Northumb 280 540 rS 150 320 Dartford 90 190 Lewisham 660 1170 erlandMiddlesbro 280 495 GloucsFalkirk 150 315 Allerdale 90 155 Hackney 640 1190 ughHam’smith 280 560 GloucesNorwich 150 285 Kings 90 200 Sandwell 620 1120 Medway 280 640 tershireIs Wight 150 250 LynnVale 90 225 Sheffield 600 1130 Cardiff 280 700 M’stone 140 210 GlamBridgend 90 225 Waltham 590 1030 Milton 270 590 Trafford 140 300 Clackman 90 160 ForestKingst upon 570 1125 KeynGateshead 270 450 Preston 140 280 nanshireMerth 90 165 HullNottingham 570 1030 Derby 270 595 Bury 140 295 TydWest 90 175 Wolverhampto 540 9455 Brighton 260 485 Hasting 140 225 BerkshireBreckland 90 195 nBarking & Dag 530 995 andPeterbor’ Hoveg 260 525 sBl ae 140 230 Dover 90 185 Kirklees 510 955 hCalderdale 250 485 GwTorbay 140 270 King 90 210 Tower 500 900 North 250 490 Swale 140 280 ThamE Lindsey 80 155 HamletsCounty 490 940 AyrshireS’hampton 240 420 Braintre 140 280 Gosport 80 135 DurhamBristol 490 930 Portsmout 240 440 eW Lothi 140 335 Rushmoo 80 145 Ealing 480 885 hMerton 240 395 Gloucs 140 240 rWindsor 80 145 Leicester 470 990 Stockton 240 450 Ch’ford 140 235 Broxtowe 80 170 Walsall 470 860 Rhondda 240 515 Darlingt 130 255 Neath PT 80 240 North Lanarks 470 965 Southend 240 420 onLancast 130 215 Rother 80 135 Brent 460 925 St. Helens 230 465 erAshfield 130 265 Barrow 80 160 Greenwich 450 895 Hounslow 230 560 Swanse 130 350 FuE Lothian 80 170 Coventry 440 875 Sutton 220 390 aOxford 130 245 Hunt’shir 80 175 Barnet 440 795 Redcar 220 395 N 130 230 eSt Albans 80 130 Dudley 430 735 ClevNorth ampt 220 475 SomerHavant 130 210 Bracknell 80 160 Fife 410 825 Blackpool 220 400 Harlow 130 250 FKettering Forest 80 160 Wandsworth 410 675 Stoke 220 575 York 120 230 Cannock 80 170 Islington 400 800 Slough 210 375 Highlan 120 265 CNewc 80 185 Redbridge 400 815 Plymouth 210 430 dStevena 120 210 LymCarlisle 80 135 Sunderland 390 735 Dundee 210 380 geCrawley 110 220 Worthing 80 165 Luton 370 625 CityN 210 430 Shepwa 110 215 S 80 165 Sefton 360 665 TynesideTendring 200 340 yBroxbo 110 230 AyrshireChar’woo 80 200 Wakefield 360 670 Bedford 200 350 urneAb’deen 110 255 dWyre For 80 175 Knowsley 340 585 Stockport 200 420 CityBurnley 110 215 Bolsover 80 160 NewcastleTy 340 610 E Ayrshire 200 345 Gt 110 245 Eastbour 80 160 Doncaster 340 680 Renfrewsh 200 400 YarmLincoln 110 200 neMansfield 80 210 Rotherham 340 620 Chester 200 445 Amb 110 225 Worceste 80 170 Edinburgh 330 715 Central 190 370 ValFlintshir 110 235 rChesterf’l 80 185 South 330 555 BedHalton 180 365 eWaven ’ 110 215 dReigate 80 160 TynesideBromley 330 630 Telford 180 390 yCarm art 110 290 N Herts 80 160 South Lanarks 330 675 Cheshire 180 365 Dacoru 110 245 Gedling 80 170 Bexley 310 515 EaSwindon 180 365 Torfaen 110 215 Angus 80 175 Westminster 310 530 Newport 180 395 Erewas 110 240 Horsham 80 100 Havering 310 570 Thanet 180 350 hBourne 110 260 Tonbridg 70 140 Wirral 310 725 East 180 435 mouthDum 100 200 eWatford 70 145 Hillingdon 310 585 RidingColchester 170 305 GalInv’ clyd 100 205 E Herts 70 145 Camden 310 570 Warrington 170 295 eScarbor 100 190 Pendle 70 140 Basildon 310 500 Solihull 170 335 oughChelt ’a 100 175 Richmon 70 165 m d

30 Local authorities are sorted according to total Work Programme attachments to July 2012

WP JSA WP att JSA WP att JSA LA WP att JSA att to Jul to Jul Jul to Jul Jul to Jul Jul LA LA LA Jul 201 2012 201 2012 201 2012 201 2012 1 1 1 1 Selby 70 135 Sevenoak 60 115 Tamworth 40 110 Surrey Hth 30 75

NW Leics 70 120 sNE Derbs 50 120 Tandridge 40 80 S Hams 30 65 Sedgemoor 70 150 Babergh 50 100 Tewkesbu 40 100 Harboroug 30 60 Chorley 70 120 Cambridge 50 125 ryMendip 40 95 hDerbyshire 30 65 Castle Point 70 135 W Lindsey 50 110 Elmbridge 40 95 DalesS 30 110 Wellingboroug 70 160 Teignbridg 50 135 Tunb 40 105 SomersetRushcliffe 30 90 hRedditch 70 170 eLichfield 50 115 WellsS Ribble 40 120 Stroud 30 105 Midlothian 70 145 S 50 170 Rossendal 40 90 Uttlesford 30 75 Conwy 70 175 KestevenHarrogate 50 135 eS Holland 40 125 Stratford 20 70 Perth Kinross 70 160 Taunton 50 115 Stafford 40 100 Mid 20 75 Eastleigh 70 130 DeaneWarwick 50 155 Monm’shir 40 80 SuffolkS 20 50 Scottish 70 135 St 50 120 eSuffolk 40 100 LakelandRyedale 20 40 BordersPoole 70 165 EdmundS Staffs 50 125 CoastalS Cambs 40 130 N Warks 20 60 Powys 70 130 Guildford 50 125 Vale 40 90 Malvern 20 65 Cherwell 70 150 Brentwood 50 95 WHrseMaldon 40 80 HillsWincheste 20 60 Wycombe 70 180 Aberd’shir 50 190 Hambleton 40 80 rMid Devon 20 70 Argyll and 70 115 eWokingha 50 100 Rugby 40 120 Craven 20 60 ButeCorby 60 140 mRochford 50 95 Woking 30 90 S Bucks 20 55 Forest of Dean 60 115 N Norfolk 50 110 Runnymed 30 75 W Devon 20 45 E Northamps 60 120 High Peak 50 115 eN Devon 30 75 East 20 40 Hyndburn 60 155 N 50 95 Mole 30 50 DorsetS 20 60 Pembrokeshir 60 140 KestevenCopeland 50 105 ValleyMelton 30 55 NothantsBromsgrov 20 85 eSpelthorne 60 120 Adur 50 85 Fylde 30 60 eOadby 20 80 Gwynedd 60 145 S Ox’shire 50 100 Epsom Ew 30 65 WigW Oxshire 20 70 Aylesbury 60 150 Hinckley 50 125 Test 30 90 W Dorset 10 35 ValeWelwyn Hat 60 150 andBroadland 50 105 ValleyChiltern 30 75 W Som 10 30 E 60 125 BosworthChichester 50 105 E Staffs 30 120 Ribble Val 10 25 Dunbart’shireNew Forest 60 135 Stirling 50 110 Torridge 30 70 Eilean Siar 10 20 Wyre 60 115 Staff 40 85 Wealden 30 95 Rutland 10 25 Hertsmere 60 170 MoorsE Cambs 40 95 East 30 75 N Dorset 10 45 E 60 105 S Derbs 40 90 DevonCeredigion 30 55 Eden 10 30 RenfrewshireThree Rivers 60 125 Moray 40 95 For Heath 30 70 Weymouth 10 40 Lewes 60 110 Waverley 40 85 Daventry 30 85 Purbeck 10 40 Isle of 60 140 Wychavon 40 140 Mid 30 80 Shetlands 0 10 AngleseyDenbighshire 60 150 Blaby 40 100 SussexHart 30 55 Orkney Is 0 10 Newark Sherw 60 150 S Norfolk 40 120 Richm’shir 30 60 Is Scilly 0 0 Boston 60 100 Fareham 40 85 eCotswold 30 65 Christchur 0 35 Canterbury 60 160 Exeter 40 130 East 30 85 chCity 0 0 Hamps London

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Gingerbread is registered in England and Wales as the National Council for One Parent Families, a company limited by guarantee, no. 402748, and a charity, no. 230750.