The NCVO has published new research showing that seven in ten charity subcontractors on the Work Programme fear their contracts are at risk of failing before the contract ends.
The report The Work Programme – perceptions and experiences of the voluntary sector, provides the strongest evidence yet that the much-maligned Work Programme is not working for the sector or for unemployed people.
Just under half of the 98 respondents – representing around a quarter of the 400-odd voluntary sector bodies involved in the Work Programme - said their contract could fail within the next six months and another quarter thought it could fail before the end of the contract.
Of these 71 charities who feared for the sustainability of their contract, 33 have not yet received any client referrals from their prime contractor and the other 47 said the volume of referrals received has been significantly lower than they anticipated.
Some 29 of the charities surveyed said they believed their prime contractor was keeping customers for themselves even though those customers would benefit more from the specialist help offered by the charity. And most primes are not sharing performance data with their subcontractors.
Almost half of the charities confirmed they were subsidising their delivery of the Programme from their reserves.
The NCVO is calling on the government to investigate why so many contracts are at risk of failing.
Labour suggests ‘commissioning boards’
Publication of the research has come just as Labour’s David Miliband (pictured) used a Labour conference fringe event to hint at how a Labour government would approach welfare-to-work policy.
Speaking at the event hosted by Acevo and City & Guilds, Miliband, who chairs Acevo’s Commission on Youth Unemployment, said the exclusion of charities’ specialise expertise from the Work Programme was “perverse” and suggested that voluntary sector bodies should join forces with local authorities and employers to devise ways to tackle youth unemployment at a local level.
He said: “Local councils, employers and the voluntary sector should come together to form sort of commissioning boards and say ‘if we pool our efforts how will we make a difference locally’.”
Miliband also argued that it was time to step up the political pressure on the issue as there “is not yet a sense of national crisis”. This is despite the fact there are currently over one million young unemployed people in Britain, the cost of which to the Treasury is estimated to be £28bn in 2012 once the price of unemployment, lost output and the long-term impact on young people have been taken into account.
St Mungo's, Single Homeless Project and Red Kite Learning have all withdrawn from contracts associated with the Work Programme in recent months, and Red Kite Learning has folded altogether.
With reporting by Becky Slack
