Delivering the Jobcentre Plus vision : qualitative research with staff and customers (Phase 3)

Jobcentre Plus is a key part of the Government’s strategy for welfare reform. It brings together the services of the Employment Service (ES) and the Benefits Agency (BA) to provide a single point of delivery for jobs, benefits advice and support for people of working age. In October 2001, 56 Jobcentre Plus Pathfinder offices and associated contact centres were established in 17 clusters across the UK, offering a fully integrated work and benefits service. The aim of the Pathfinder offices was to lead the way in demonstrating the new service, culture and organisation of Jobcentre Plus. Representing the second stage of the national implementation of Jobcentre Plus’ ‘day two’ offices were planned to roll-out between April 2002 and March 2003 across twenty-four districts (some of which included Pathfinder offices). Further offices are planned to open over the next three years and the network will be complete by 2006. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) commissioned the Labour Market Research Partnership (led by ECOTEC Research & Consulting Ltd) and the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough University to conduct a qualitative evaluation of Jobcentre Plus. The overall purpose of the research was to assess the extent to which Pathfinder and day two offices were delivering the Jobcentre Plus vision. This report presents the findings of qualitative research conducted with staff and customers in Jobcentre Plus offices. It builds on earlier research to show the progress achieved by Pathfinder offices over the last year and includes an assessment of delivery within the new, day two offices. First Contact

Understanding resources in later life: views and experiences of older people

This report explores how older people plan, use and value the resources available to them. Increasing life expectancy means that resources in later life have to be planned and managed over longer periods. Resources in this project include health, social contacts, community and neighbourhood resources, housing and transport, as well as money. The research explores access to these resources, their importance in older people’s lives, and how they interact. Different types of planning for retirement and the factors that infl uence plans and outcomes are described. People’s thoughts about, and plans for, the future are also explored. Finally, the implications of the fi ndings for government policy and for future research are refl ected on. A qualitative longitudinal approach was used, to interview a panel of 91 respondents aged 65 to 84 to investigate the consequences of changes in circumstances in later life. This report is based on the fi rst wave of interviews. It is of interest to policymakers, practitioners and academics involved in provision for people in later life

New Deal for Disabled People: second synthesis report - interim findings from the evaluation

The New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) is the major employment programme available to people claiming incapacity-related benefits, and is an important part of the Government’s welfare-to-work strategy. NDDP is a voluntary programme that provides a national network of Job Brokers to help people with health conditions and disabilities move into sustained employment. The evaluation design incorporates a longitudinal dimension, and this report presents selected findings from the evaluation. It covers developments up to and including spring 2004, and synthesises findings from fieldwork with NDDP participants, employers, members of the eligible population, those delivering the programme (notably staff from Job Brokers and Jobcentre Plus offices), and from administrative data. There are two recurrent themes running through this report: first, continuity and change in the programme, the institutions delivering NDDP and in respondents’ views and experiences; and secondly, identifying ‘what works’ in terms of securing job entries and sustainable employment. For findings covered in both synthesis reports, Chapter 2 maps the extent to which there has been continuity and change for selective aspects of NDDP. As might be expected there are some aspects of NDDP that are unchanged. However, there is also evidence of change and progression – for example, of improved relationships between Job Brokers and Jobcentre Plus locally

Measuring resources in later life: a review of the data

This report explores the needs of people in later life, including expenditure, health, social networks, services, housing and neighbourhood, as well as income. The Government is currently planning and initiating policies for a future in which increasing numbers of older people, living longer, will require more resources. This report uses existing data to examine the needs of people over 65. It investigates how patterns of resource use change over time, both for individual older people as they move through later life and for different generations of older people. The report will be of interest to policymakers, practitioners and academics involved in provision for people in later life

New deal for disabled people national extension: findings from the first wave of qualitative research with clients, job brokers and jobcentre plus staff

The New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) was introduced in 1998 and 1999 as a series of pilots designed to evaluate services based on the use of personal advisers to help disabled people move into or stay in paid employment. The pilots were wound up in 2001 and superseded by what is known as the ‘national extension’ of NDDP, the aim of which is to ‘support and test innovative ways of helping people on Incapacity Benefits move from economic inactivity into sustained employment’ (DSS, ES, DfEE research specification, April, 2001). Services under the national extension are provided by a network of around 60 ‘Job Broker’ organisations including voluntary and other not-for-profit bodies, commercial companies, government agencies and other public sector organisations. This report presents findings from a first wave of qualitative research carried out in 2002 which forms part of a larger programme of work aimed at providing the Department for Work and Pensions with a comprehensive evaluation of the NDDP extension. The overall aim of the qualitative research is to explore the organisation, operation and impacts of the Job Broker service from the perspective of all key stakeholders, including users and providers of Job Broker services, and staff of Jobcentre Plus offices. Specifically, the research was designed to produce data on the following: • factors affecting participation in the Job Broker programme • clients’ understanding and experiences of NDDP • the role and operation of Job Brokers • the role and operation of the Jobcentre Plus staff who can provide people with information about Job Broker services. A research design was adopted that aimed to gather data using a range of qualitative research techniques from key actors associated with 18 Job Broker services operating in 15 specific geographical areas. The first wave of data collection was carried out in the Summer/Autumn of 2002; a second wave is planned for 2003. The report is organised into three main parts. Part I (Chapters 2 to 5) presents findings from the Job Broker and Jobcentre Plus staff research. In Part II (Chapters 6 to 9), the client perspective is presented. Part III (Chapter 10) provides an overall summary of the emerging issues

Experiencing Jobcentre Plus Pathfinders : overview of early evaluation evidence

Jobcentre Plus is a key part of the Government's strategy for welfare reform. It brings together the services of the Employment Service and parts of the Benefits Agency to provide a single point of delivery for jobs, benefits advice and support for people of working age. In the process, it aims to provide a work focus to the benefit system for everyone using the service. The first 56 Jobcentre Plus Pathfinder offices, established in October 2001, built upon the ONE service, which from June 1999 had piloted the integration of benefit claiming and work placement/job seeking for all claimants in 12 areas of Britain. A programme of evaluation accompanied the launch of the Jobcentre Plus Pathfinders. This work was designed to provide an early assessment of the Pathfinders, to identify good practice and inform the continuous improvement and future roll out of the service. This overview report has two principal aims. First, it brings together and reports the key findings of qualitative and quantitative evaluations of Jobcentre Plus services at Pathfinder sites that were carried out from October 2001 to May 2002. This was a period during which the implementation of Jobcentre Plus was obstructed by industrial action, a factor that needs to be taken into account when assessing early performance. The findings of this research are then related to comparable research on ONE. Second, it charts the changes made in the provision of Jobcentre Plus since its inception and identifies how Jobcentre Plus has progressed from the ONE service from which it developed

New Deal for Disabled People: third synthesis report - key findings from the evaluation

The New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) is the major national employment programme available to people claiming incapacity-related benefits, and it is an important part of the Government's welfare to work strategy. NDDP is a voluntary programme that provides a national network of Job Brokers to help people with health conditions and disabilities move into sustained employment. This synthesis report highlights key findings from a large-scale, comprehensive and multi-method evaluation of NDDP. It covers the programme over the period July 2001 to November 2006 and is based on all of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published evaluation reports on NDDP as well as analysis of administrative data using the DWP NDDP database. The findings also include a wealth of information pertaining to more general issues around employment of disabled people, beyond the NDDP programme itself, and are therefore of substantial interest to future policy development in this area