Giving providers freedom to personalise support
How would you simplify what we expect providers to deliver to allow them to personalise the services they offer? Are there any elements of support that providers should deliver regardless of the needs of the customer?
Under the Work Programme, we expect providers to be free to design support based on the needs of individuals and target the right support at the right time – not waste time delivering specified support a person will not benefit from.
We will reduce unnecessary processes and allow providers to concentrate their resources on helping people into work. Are there any specific ways you think we should give providers more freedom?
Are there any services which all customers will need to have access to, at all times?
This discussion is now closed. Thank you to all of you who contributed.
Chronic conditions are often interwoven with other issues (for example life choices made due to the condition such as not living alone or mental health issues such as depression) the condition itself can also be variable according to medications, time of day, activity levels etc.
It is therefore counter-productive to be prescriptive in what constitutes appropriate support or successful outcome. having said that I think without suitable outcome or at least interaction measures in place there is enormous scope for abuse. I myself have M.E. and have been offered CBT as ‘treatment’ even though I am in fact a Psychologist. I cannot imagine what ‘outcome’ might have been reported had i taken up the offer….
There is a great deal of customer expertise that should be taken into account even where the customer does not have the good fortune to be professionally qualified.
The person most abel to asses a person’s needs is the person themselves – providers should act as facilitator’s to a budget that can be used as flexibly as possible to assist the person along their personal journey nearer to the workplace.
A model similar to personal budgets may be the best way of looking to do this. Disability has multiple factors – and effects every person in a very individual way. More joined up thinking between access to work, pemitted work and the providers would make the transitions much smoother.
Above all the outcome must not be hindered by the conditionality attatched. Conditionality used to push someone further than they are ready to go will only result in faliure and waste of resources.
Papworth Trust believes the best way to allow providers to concentrate on helping people into work is to allow providers full flexibility about their services through an outcome based specification. As part of this it is essential that the provider guidance added to contracts includes the same flexibility. Previous experience of delivering employment programmes is that provider guidance has been set too rigidly, limiting innovation and increasing administrative costs for providers. which does not allow the provider to create a personalised programme. There is a danger you simply increase delivery costs without necessarily increasing outcomes.
As a general indicator here are a couple of examples where guidance has either been too prescriptive, or contradictory:
• prescribing when and how a telephone must be answered.
• requiring the use of universal evaluation forms for training courses which do not focus on the individual course being delivered.
We urge the DWP to ensure that prescribed activities for client interaction and the obligations placed on providers are kept to a minimum.
Providers also require support from Jobcentre Plus (JCP) to assist with customer engagement. In the past we have found there has not always been a clear and consistent message on handover, and that the level of service varies depending on which JCP office you are dealing with. In addition, JCP has a tendency to overpromise on what a provider can deliver causing unrealistic expectations, confusion and disappointment to clients. For example, there is a tendency to promise that providers will have access to a variety of training programmes or funding schemes, when in reality this is not the case. This is a major set back, particularly during any initial engagement with clients, where developing trust is essential.
I agree that providers should be given the flexibility they need to get the job done. However, that flexibility comes at a price. If providers want the DWP to shoulder the risk that they might get it wrong, thereby leaving people on benefits for longer and costing the DWP money, then providers need to assume some of the risk themselves.
The best way to transfer some of the risk to the provider is to ensure that providers are rewarded only on the basis of the results they achieve. In other words, providers should only be paid when a claimant enters work, and the payment should be structured so that providers have an incentive to get the claimant the best job they can sustainably do, at the best wage possible, with scope for cost-effective “bonus” payments where a claimant is considered hard to place.
Personalisation is a good idea but it needs to happen within a good quality framework. People with disablities are vulnerable to abuse and their abilities can be wrongly judged by staff who lack the relevant vocational and disablity expertise.
At the Centre for Mental Health (formerly the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health) there was a recent discussion on the quality standards that should underpin the vocational support sector in the field of mental health. Contact Bob Grove for details.
If you do not have such a framework in place everything is going to be down to the personal whim of the adviser. Unskilled staff can wreck an individual’s job hopes.
All that said I am a strong believer in the individual having the right to make key choices about their vocational future. I do not think anyone should be channeled into a job, training or educational course without their say so. In my area – mental health – I am very much attracted to the Indpendent Placement Support model as described by Miles Rinaldi and Rachel Perkins. I think it is important to help the individual to find a job quickly without too long a period of pre-preparation. They will of course need support subsequently but that would be the case whether or not they were working. These people have severe mental health problems.
So in summary have an overall framework for standards within the vocational support sector. Make sure the sector is regulated. Allow individuals the chance to make their own informed decisions about their future and give them any support they require in order to carry on working. Should the individual become ill again provide prompt assistance so that they can take any necessary time off work and help them return when they are ready.
Some people have weird sleep patterns as well as pain and fatigue etc etc, due to their medical condition. The drugs that one takes can make one very woozy in the mornings, unable to do anything until the afternoon; or they may cause intermittant pain etc throughout the day making the person unable to work at intervals. Employers will need to be very creative to organise a job for someone who is only alert for a few hours.
The job will need to be without deadlines because all sorts of medical appointments have also to be fitted around a variable daily timetable. The job will also have to be a ‘proper’ job bcause disabled people have all different levels of intellegence and most will be able to spot a patronising employer who does not really want them in the workplace.
Workplace collegues will need a great deal of training to prepare them to work alongside someone who may not always be reliable (illness, appointments, fatigue). Harassment or discrimination against a disabled person will just increase any mental health issues the disabled person has, and therefore may make their underlying condition worse. Buildings may need adaptation, and this work may need to be funded by someone; who?. Employers will need to be willing to do building extensive work for a person who may only be able to work part-time. How will existing workers and the hierachy react to that?
In voluntry organisations there may not be the management skills to cope with a disability. Volunteers are not often trained and disabled people may need to have a little money spent on them (other staff complain). I once had a volunteering position, but found it very difficult to persuade the manager that I needed to sit down and work at a table rather than work on the floor as everyone else did. So I was causing a problem being the only one who needed a table – this is just one example. I eventually left because an able-bodied volunteer kept asking me to lift heavy things off the floor and move furniture before she came on duty. The manager backed her up. I had noone I could trun to for support, so left. That was a lose/lose situation. What would have happened if it was a paid position and I had no benefits to fall back on?
A disabled person forced out of a job by this type of attitude becomes a depressed disabled person who is less willing to try another organisation incase the upset happens all over again.
“In voluntry organisations there may not be the management skills to cope with a disability. Volunteers are not often trained and disabled people may need to have a little money spent on them (other staff complain). I once had a volunteering position, but found it very difficult to persuade the manager that I needed to sit down and work at a table rather than work on the floor as everyone else did. So I was causing a problem being the only one who needed a table – this is just one example. I eventually left because an able-bodied volunteer kept asking me to lift heavy things off the floor and move furniture before she came on duty. The manager backed her up. I had noone I could trun to for support, so left. That was a lose/lose situation. What would have happened if it was a paid position and I had no benefits to fall back on?”
I’m sorry that your volunteering experience was clearly not a ‘positive’ one, but please don’t portray this as a stereotype of all volunteering, volunteers or volunteer managers. Whilst of course there will be good and bad, I don’t believe that the voluntary sector is any worse than the public or private sector in the way it treats people with a disability. Indeed, in my experience voluntary organisations are more tolerant. However, they may not be able to take advantage of the ‘access to work’ and ‘occupational therapy’ support that would be available to an employer of a disabled person.
I totally agree with you Ricky, I hardly ever sleep due to pain and discomfort and feel quite ill during the day. It takes a lot longer to get going and you have to pace the day and something that would normally take 10 minutes can take up to an hour. The drugs can leave you feeling sick, dizzy, and suffer brain fog and concentration levels are very poor. Where are we the disabled going to find work and a employer who allows us to go for appointments and adjust working hours to suit illness & disabities?.
I am sure that most disabled and long term sick would much rather be doing something useful then be at home, but telling us that going back to work is going to make us healthier is just not true and all the government is trying to do is justify their decision to pick on disabled & long term sick.
It wont matter how much support or lack off you give you will always have people who cannot work and the government medical tests which have been designed to make it appear that disabled & long term sick are capable of doing something is a discrimination in its self. Course we can do something otherwise we would not be alive would we? but to be made to look like we are capable of doing jobs is unreasonable.
I dont know about the rest of the disabled & long term sick, but I am sick of worrying how and what the government is going to do to us and that in its self is causing stress and aniexity, simply it is hard enough to cope with the illness/disablity without having to cope with extra pressure from the government, if you have medical evidence from gp/consultants that should be good enough, if you are not being accessed by medical experts who are trained and have knowledge of your illness/disability and how it effects you how can they judge you on what you can and cannot do, I think they should think again.
This is only an opinion but I would be interested in any other comments on this subject………………….
For some people with long term mental health problems as well as physical problems there should be a scheme whereby they can work part time but still be supported by the benefits system. In this there would be no assumption that just because they can do something then they lose their benefits. For some there should be long term support without a suspicion that if they can do something they can automatically progress onto full time work or lose their benefits.
There is a supported permitted work scheme where people who are supported by professional advisors can work under 16 hrs per week and retain their benefits for some time. This unfortunately is not widely known and it still relies on their being suitable part time jobs available. If anyone is supported by medical staff, IPS workers or some social enterprises they should be given information or can ask the DWP. People are however, still very nervous that they daren’t work or can’t get the right job and that their benefits may be taken away.
I know about the above scheme but it is only available to people on incapacity and not income support. Not sure what the situation will be with ESA. As well it seemed to read as if “in a supported environment” which perhaps seems like day centre conditions or something like that. Many people would want to work perhaps a few hours a week in an outside job and still have the security of benefits. As well with some people who have had life long term mental health problems they have had the scenario of being ill then slowly getting better then becoming very ill again a few years later. They may have reached a period late in life where it would be important to have background security indefinitely. That is, indefinite retentions of benefits which could be reduced but not taken away if there were earnings. Work as well in this sense could also be paced voluntary work.
It works better with with ESA. It’s worth checking with JobCentrePlus. It is intended for real jobs, but there aren’t that many under 16hrs per week. Though I think it is only available to people with the higher rate of ESA due to disability.
People with long term mental health problems, who want to work, need more access to part time work and much more immediate and transparent information about how this will affect their benefits. Directing them or their supporters to a simple online, trustworthy benefit checker that includes supported permitted work and access to online applications would save time and could be very helpful. Supported Permitted Work seems to be a bit of a long winded process and is also too rigid on the (under 16 hours) many p/time options are 16hrs + which rules them out. I think that if people are willing to take up employment they should be given all the help possible and if this results in them being able to stay on benefits for a period of time (I would say at least 3 months and it should be advertised)this would avoid people not trying ‘in case it doesn’t work’I think that if people are willing to take up employment they should be given all the help possible and if this results in them being able to stay on benefits for a period of time (I would say at least 3 months and it should be advertised)this would avoid people not trying ‘in case it doesn’t work’. Surely supporing any people into employment should be supportive and, in the long term, I am sure this would make more sense.
All Work Programmes/Trainers/Providers should employ staff with specialist knowledge/qualifications related to physical/mental disabilities, serious illness, chronic degenerative conditions, constant severe pain and fatigue, problems relating to other people one to one or in groups and behaviour which may be considered bizarre or aggressive by the average person. ‘The sick and disabled’ is a convenient umbrella term but if you want Work Programmes to be succesful many of their employees will need to understand that a client who needs to take morphine on a regular basis may have side effects that will require time out of any daily programme until they feel more alert, less nausious or have a decrease in abdominal pain. Equally a client being treated for schizophrenia, manic depression, OCD may have significant mood changes which alter their behaviour and reactions regardless of their medication. If your intention to ‘help’ most sick and disabled people into some kind of employment is a genuine concern for every aspect of their welfare you need employment providers who won’t fall apart when one of their clients collapses in pain, shouts at someone who isn’t there or smashes the fire alarm because lithium isn’t keeping paranoia or mania at bay. The services of work providers must be subjected to rigorus assessments for the quality of their provision – or will you be looking for cheap and shoddy?
“Are there any elements of support that providers should deliver regardless of the needs of the customer?”
Needs should be addressed.
If there is an “element of support” that is not required, is not a “need”, then why waste time and money on it?
The needs of an unemployed teen who has never worked may share very few elements with an older, trained, experienced graduate.
Tailor each program to the needs of the individual, dont waste more money on irrelevant, non-productive and time consuming elements.
If we are to provide a first class service to individuals with autism there will need to be a certain amount of flexibility to tailor the programme across the range of providers. The rigid nature of some previous programmes (such as Work Preparation) has meant that some individuals are expected to attend group workshops, which does not work for everyone. Flexibility should be passed down from big providers ensuring that smaller and more specialised providers are able to deliver personalised support. We welcome the opportunity for greater personalisation of support, but it will be important to make sure that providers have access to the skills and understanding needed to support clients with autism. People with autism (including Asperger syndrome) may need specific support as a result of their disability, such as help with understanding the social expectations and unwritten rules of the workplace, and in our experience employment support providers may not have the expertise needed to be able to provide appropriate support.
The impending reassessment of IB claimants to move them onto ESA or JSA together with new ESA claimants is going to create two very large groups of claimants (2 million plus) the DWP appears extremely ill-equipped to deal with. These are disabled people accepted into the ESA Work Related Activities group and disabled people rejected for ESA and transferred to JSA. Being put into either group does not mean that they magically become less disabled, or were somehow faking their disability, simply that the ESA categories have been made more restrictive. Having claimed JSA before being transferred to ESA due to the inability of training providers to cope with my disability, I am convinced that the system is not fit for purpose in the case of disabled claimants. I have encountered DEAs who can’t understand why I would want more than a minimum wage job, processes which require me to explain my disability to a different person every time I encounter the DWP, training providers with no understanding of disability or basic privacy and I have yet to come across a DWP or training provider facility which meets basic standards of accessibility such as on-site disabled parking or level access.
Flexibility in dealing with the complex needs of disabled claimants is absolutely vital, but there is no firm foundation of good practice to build on, the system needs a root and branch reworking that ensures disabled claimants meet staff who understand our needs and react to us as individuals, who understand that many of us are capable of much more than minimal wage positions, who understand that we face mass discrimination in recruitment, and who meet with us in accessible premises.
There are to my mind two aspects of ‘personalised support’. One of these aspects has been well addressed by other contributors. However, there is another aspect that is particularly pertinent to people delivering Welfare to Work provision in the more rural (and in the case of Cornwall peripheral) parts of the UK. Many of the programmes of recent years have been centrally concocted and are inherently ‘Urban Centric’ in their design. I’m not saying that we in rural parts necessarily have ‘greater’ challenges to overcome, but we certainly have very ’different’ challenges and this needs to be recognised. By way of example, Cornwall is 84 miles from one end of the county to the other and covers 1,376 square miles. The County, with a population of approximately 500,000 (about the same as a London Borough covering about 10 Square Miles) is made up of a network of market and coastal towns. Only 31% of the population live in towns of over 10,000 inhabitants, compared with four-fifths in England and Wales; there are nine such towns. At the other end of the scale, a little over a fifth of the population live in rural areas and smaller settlements of less than 1,000. A further fifth live in villages of between 1,000 and 2,000 and just over a quarter live in the larger villages and smaller towns with populations between 2,000 and 10,000. Small firms predominate, approximately 46% of Cornish employees worked in small firms with fewer than 25 employees, much more than the 33% in Great Britain as a whole. It is only common sense that a provider is able to tailor their delivery model to meet these challenges.
In response to a job I applied for – Despite 7 months out of work, I’m too old apparently
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“”"”Dear Rob, Many thanks for your email. Unfortunately, the opportunities that were advertised for Virgin Trains are placements offered via a Government Funded Programme called Future Jobs Fund. This programme offers ‘work placements’ for 26 weeks for, predominantly, 18-24 yr olds that have been unemployed for a period of time. These positions are not ‘actual jobs’ and are not recruited to in that way. The eligibility for these roles is dictated to us by the Department of Work and Pensions and we are not allowed to employ anyone on this scheme that does not meet their criteria.”"”"
In 7 months, 207 jobs applied for, not one offer, I still have to wait another 6 months until a tribunal to clear my name. FirstGroup sacked me from my train conductor job for ‘not following rules’ after tackling a knife-wielding passenger found grabbing at a lone female traveller. Fabulous!
I think it’s important to help people to get into the most appropriate work, not simply direct everyone towards NMW jobs on the basis that you have to start somewhere. These jobs aren’t necessarily easier to get, because so many people are going after them. There are lots of people looking for jobs that have skills that can be used in the right jobs.
I think that there needs to be realistic support for people with extra needs, including disabled people, people with child/adult dependents, people with a lack of basic skills etc.
I think that the support to get sick and disabled people back into work needs to tie in with social services, floating support, NHS services such as CPNs and therapists, and Access to Work to provide a comprehensive package, rather than just pushing someone into work and dumping them.
Last year I was attempting to start my own business and found a course to help me do so. My own personal circumstances meant that I could only sustain a part time business but this was not considered and the support and financial incentives that were on offer were subject to me completing targets that I couldn’t realistically achieve. In short I was told that I needed to fit within their “box” or not be able to complete the course.
I had to turn the place down and I am still on benefits, despite me having a “viable” business idea, that I need the support and encouragement from somewhere to turn into a reality.
Rather than setting rigid rules on the structure of the Work Programme, the provider should be given the flexibility to shape their offering to match the needs of each person who is referred to them. Value for money should be ensured by requiring the provider to concisely document what they have done, then having the jobseeker and their Job Centre advisor sign off on it to confirm that the stated support measures were provided and satisfactory. The Work Programme provider should be penalised if:
- either the jobseeker or their Job Centre advisor state that the provider’s efforts are unsatisfactory; and
- the provider’s efforts are confirmed to be unsatisfactory by an independent auditor.
A provider which has too many unsatisfactory verdicts recorded against it by the auditor should lose their Work Programme contract.
I agree with Neil to a certain degree, providers should be given more flexibility to taylor support to and for the individual regardless. As it stands at the moment there is far too much red tape in regards to tapping into resourses and other training providers in regards to accessing specific types of training and or qualification due to the stage they are on in their benefits claim ie stage 4,or they are on a provision that gets funding from one body and providers are not allowed to access other providers who are funded by the same body for training as they class it as cross funding, therefore the customer is discriminated against and can not access what they need to be able to gain employment.
On the Old New Deal if you had a discruntled customer there would be a three way meeting where the job center advisor would come in to the center and discuss the issues raised and we would come to an agreement on how to move forward between the three parties. This would give both parties satisfation that things had been dealt with in a professional and constructive manner and would also be monitored regularly to ensure that things were running smoothly and the customer was happy with the service provided by the training provider.
Now on the other hand of that we also had the prolific employment dodgers people who did not want to work, simply for some because they had never worked, therefore had no skills, other than how to play the system and those who were simply better off living on benefits would request a transfer to a more layed back provider and end up moving from provider to provider through out the duration of their time.These customers would constantly make complaints some of them even false claims, one customer accused me of being racist, he was a white male who did not have the knowledge that my mother was white, as the colour of my skin is black. And i tried everything in my power to encourage and empower this individual back into work, however that did not matter, i could have gave this customer his own busness on a plate and he would have found an excuse as to why he could’nt.
I think that the goverment should also bring back the cash incentive for companies when they employ someone this will encouage both struggling companies and new up and coming companies to begin to grow and help climb out of the curent climate.
Define ‘Provider’ for me.
We accept unemployed young people from SEETEC at our community radio station. We are paid nothing. SEETEC are solely concerned with satisfying numbers. They have taken away the young NEEPS they sent us, forcing them to take unsuitable jobs, and destroying enthusiasm and our unstructured training programmes just to satisfy arbitrary requirements that will do no more than ensure their continued funding.
We’ve had the same problem with prisoners close to release from a local prison. No money for us, and now we feel just like a dumping ground. As a voluntary group it can be discouraging. I measured my productivity helping one young, enthusiastic unemployed man to build web sites – which he’d never tackled before. It fell by 25%. That was a problem, but time and expertise willingly given – but that cannot continue.
We lack funding – yet we have 100 volunteers presenting local community radio 24/7 with plans to open another 10 stations (Internet-based for now). We meet all the requirements of the Big Society. We can provide high-level creative skills training, and we want to employ at least two apprentices – but funding? That tends to go to infrastructure organisations – who have expertise in filling in grant application forms and can achieve very little!
Our volunteer team contains many media professionals – we could not afford to buy their expertise. They want to help others – but their volunteer status can only be pushed so far.
This country needs professional skills training – best provided by professionals, not academics. We have a syllabus in place with Open College Network, a learning centre ready to go, all we want is sufficient encouragement to do what we are good at!
I can sympathise with Trevor’s point of view here, but must plead ‘guilty’ of exactly what he is experiencing with SEETEC. Until Sep 2009 we used to deliver the ‘New Deal for Young People Voluntary Option’. This involved arranging 13 week placements for clients much as described. The funding we received enabled us to give the ‘host’ organisation £10 per client per week to compensate in some small way for the time spent supporting the client. Not a huge sum, but it all adds up. We are now a sub contractor to a ‘Prime’ delivering FND, our role being to facilitate the 4 weeks ‘Mandatory Work Related Activity’ (MWRA) prescribed by the programme. Margins are so tight (indeed since taking on the contract in Oct 09 we have actually LOST £20,000+) there is no way that we can provide any financial support to the placement host as we used to.
Work Placement and Volunteering are vital to the success of any Welfare to Work Programme, but it must be recognised that to do it ‘properly’ there is a significant cost as well as lots of ‘good will’ needed from the placement providers. If the client represents a ‘net loss’ in productivity terms where is their incentive to help.
My experience as someone with chronic and severe, incurable physical illness, but who is also a qualified professional, is that employment service providers need to have a good budget to offer retraining for clients whose physical constraints or disabilities mean they can’t work outside the home any longer.
Secondly, if a provider helps disabled or chronically ill clients into work, they need to go on to provide background support for the duration of their client’s employment. My experience has been that employers can be very unsympathetic when an employee needs a lot of time off for medical appointments and hospital confinement. If people with long-term illnesses are to be required to work, they will need someone there to advocate for them and speak on their behalf if they get into bother with their employers because of their ill-health, and remind the employer of disability discrimination legislation, if necessary.
Employment support providers will have to be willing to work with people in their clients’ own homes if that client has been receiving sickness-related benefits and has difficulty getting out and about because of their illness.
I agree with Kate there would be a continuing requirement for support for chronically ill clients if they are to maintain employment.This support would need to be tailored to meet the employers and clients needs within the current legislation. Anything sort of this would be a short term manipulation of statistics and not fit for purpose
Without wanting to stiffle innovation in the approach taken by providers to support people into work. There will have to be a set of minimum operational standards across the board to ensure that those relying on a service recieve a good level of support. Furthermore to protect vulnerable groups there will also need to be addtional standards and requirements in place.
Supporting people back into work is a partnership between the person looking for work, the Work Support provider and other agencies i.e. Health Service. Good early, continuous and robust assessment of the person looking for work and partner engagement should negate the need for unnecessary interventions/support.
The incentive for those in a work activity related benefit is that they do not suffer a loss of benefit for non-compliance in this activity. This in turn would lead to those looking for work to engage productively in the support into work process.
Complusion aside the sustained benefit of supporting people back into work is that such support provides long term work and thereafter the confidence to be less reliant on the support service should future events require them to seek a new joh for whatever reason. It is therefore important all partners and especially the person in the support structure are all moving in a constructive manner.
It can equally demotivating and demoralising for people finding work if they believe that certain support they are recieving is a “waste of their time” when they see no benefit to there overall ambition and need to get back into work.