Less than half of charities and social enterprises will not seek to be involved in future Department for Work and Pension programmes compared to 61 per cent of private and public sector organisations, finds a new report on the Work Programme.
The Centre for Social and Economic Inclusion conducted the report on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and interviewed 40 private sector, 15 public sector and 65 voluntary and community sector organisations involved in the Work Programme.
It found that while 60 per cent of voluntary sector and community organisations and social enterprise intended to remain involvement in the government’s Work Programme, less than half (43 per cent) say they will seek to be involved in future DWP programmes compared to two-thirds (61 per cent) of private and public sector organisations.
Responding to the findings, Social Enterprise UK’s chief executive Peter Holbrook, said:
“It’s imperative that the government takes action to remedy the issues raised in this report about the Work Programme’s payment by results commissioning model. On paper, payment by results promises much but in practice it is proving to be problematic and is failing those further from the labour market who need support to get back to work. The £5bn programme, funded by the taxpayer, is not working. Until the problems are fixed we remain concerned about the roll out of this approach in other public sector markets, especially in probation.
“Social enterprises will be forced to walk away if the programmes and contracts are designed in such a way that makes their involvement impossible.
"Complex tiers of supply chains can mean that the world often looks very different from the perspective of central government and large private providers to that of people and social enterprises working away on the ground. The lesson of the financial services and food processing sectors is that complexity and the dominance of a handful of too-big-to-fail providers must not let us lose sight of serving people's needs."
