EDN Analysis of The Work Programme

                                The Single Work Programme Comes to Hackney

For the last few months Hackney’s Economic Development Network has been working to promote the inclusion of the voluntary and community sector in the supply chains of the three contractors delivering the work programme in Hackney. The Single Work Programme (SWP) is the government funded initiative to move people into employment. The SWP is back-funded, meaning that the main payments are made when people move into work and stay in employment for eighteen months or so.

Whilst this set-up is meant to ensure financial incentives for moving people into work and sustaining them there it prevents the pre-work support that people who are long term unemployed so crucially need and without which it won’t be possible for them to find meaningful, sustainable work.
The expertise of the VCS is crucial to enable people to overcome complex barriers and to support them into employment, yet most VCS organisations cannot wait two years to be paid for their services. Some organisations have said that their involvement in the SWP is likely going to end in them closing down. 

We met with all three primes to advocate for the inclusion of the VCS in their delivery chains and to highlight the work of our members who specialise in delivering employability programmes to people who are a long way from the labour market. The primes readily recognised the expertise of the sector (especially if they themselves were new to Hackney), however they often commented that the design of the SWP means that VCS organisations would need either to have their projects and workshops ‘spot purchased’ or take on the risk of waiting for payment for up to two years after delivery. 

Through our work publicising the network and reaching out to the primes, the EDN was able to work closely with Prospects (who are sub-contractors for Seetec) to enable EDN members to propose projects which Prospects could buy for their work programme customers. After receiving proposals from the network Prospects held a meeting for EDN members to discuss how to move forward and to arrange individual meetings. Contracts for these projects are being finalised as this issue goes to print.

Whilst spot purchasing services in a valuable opportunity for the sector to contribute to the SWP it is a contractual arrangement which is usually geared toward short, sharp interventions rather than long term engagement with a client which is often what is needed for people with significant barriers to employment. The EDN hopes that the DWP will adjust the timing of payments in order to finance the provision of crucial pre-employment support and enable the involvement of the VCS expertise.