Notice to Providers

27 January 2009

Evidencing Job Outcome Claims in Contracted Employment Programmes

We wrote to you on 22 May 2008 to advise you of changes/standardisation in evidence requirements across contracted employment programmes.

Unfortunately, since this letter was issued we have become increasingly aware of some inconsistencies in its application which has caused some confusion in our provider community. Separately, we have also had representation from a handful of providers asking if other things can be included in the list of acceptable evidence.

You may already know that Alan Cave (WWEG Delivery Director) recently agreed to a joint piece of work between DWP and providers/provider representatives, the scope of which is ‘to look at what process changes could be identified which, by cutting across unnecessary bureaucracy would enable providers to achieve higher performance without exposing them or DWP to unacceptable risk’.

I do not wish to pre-empt the outcome of this joint review so the purpose of this note is to clarify the principles behind our existing policy instructions and make clear what the Department will and won’t accept in terms of supporting evidence. Any changes which may come about as part of the review will be communicated in due course.

Background

Around 6 months ago, the WWEG Delivery Board agreed three job outcome definitions to be used with the commencement of FND and for all subsequent programmes in the future. These are:

• Employment of 16 hours per week or more expected to last 13 weeks and started within 6 weeks of leaving provision; or
• Continuous employment of 16 hours per week or more lasting 13 weeks and started within 6 weeks of leaving provision; and
• Sustained employment of 16 hours per week or more for at least 26 weeks out of a period of 30 weeks.

As programmes are developed, the expectation is that for performance monitoring and payment purposes the third (sustained) outcome will be mandatory but that each programme will also have a choice of one of the two shorter job outcomes to use alongside it.

Until such time as this arrangement is rolled out across programmes, we have existing programmes using a hybrid of these standard definitions which will continue for the life of the current contracts. As an example Pathways to Work contracts capture short job outcomes that are 8 hours or more; similarly Pathways also captures sustained job outcomes but the qualifying criteria is slightly different. We also acknowledge that some programmes still have a 13 week tracking period and this has been recently reintroduced in New Deals and Programme Centres.

Evidencing claims

An important part of measuring provider performance is to ensure we get the supporting evidence requirements right, not least to balance the risk of paying for inappropriate outcomes against the effort required in establishing appropriate levels of control.

For the purpose of evidencing claims from providers, DWP will, broadly speaking apply two different approaches – either an off-benefit check which is performed by the Department and used as a proxy for the individual being in work and/or evidence that is supplied by the provider.

An off-benefit check can only be performed on individuals who were on benefit prior to entering provision and where the job outcome definition used means that the individual has already been in work for a pre-determined period of time. In other words, this evidence option would be used for the second and third job outcome definitions. Providers may use whatever processes/systems they deem necessary to satisfy themselves of the validity of their claim prior to submitting it and they will only need to have available the evidence detailed in DWP guidance should the individual not be on benefit prior to starting on the programme or if the off-benefit check should fail. In these circumstances, providers can therefore choose whether they always collect evidence that DWP deems acceptable to support payment or only as and when it’s needed. Where the check is done pre-payment (e.g. Pathways), payment would be withheld until such time as the alternative evidence was produced; where payment has already been made (e.g. EZs), recovery would be made if the evidence is not produced within the required timescales. In both instances, claims can be resubmitted should providers subsequently secure acceptable alternative evidence.

An off-benefit check cannot be performed where someone enters a job that is ‘expected to last’ and this is where current policy dictates that providers will be expected to supply the evidence. This note focuses on what evidence is deemed to be acceptable where the provider is expected to supply it.

In developing these evidence requirements, we take account of the criteria used by the National Audit Office in assessing evidence and adapt it to DWP business. These criteria are:

• Written statements as opposed to oral evidence;
• Independently validated - i.e. obtained from an independent source. This is why employer verification templates require less supporting evidence than information provided by participants;
• Restricted to official access - which is why we accept only official supporting employer documentation (letterheads, business cards, etc.) as opposed to that which might be easily accessible to members of the public (menus, till receipts, etc.);
• Cost of acquiring the evidence - although this is a consideration when deciding evidence requirements, the cost would not outweigh the need to collect it; and
• Usefulness or purpose - i.e. if what is collected doesn’t demonstrate it meets the intended purpose it will be worthless regardless of the amount collected. In this case, the intended purpose is the job outcome and that means that the evidence collected must support all aspects of the job outcome definition, i.e. that the participant is in work, that it’s more than the minimum hours (8 or 16 depending on the programme) and that it is expected to last 13 weeks or more.

We are aware that there have been debates over the past few weeks in terms of what constitutes acceptable evidence – these debates have been highlighted by inconsistent application within DWP and led to some confusion within the provider community.

The annex attached to this letter hopefully clarifies those areas that have caused confusion and also provides additional examples of evidence that we would deem acceptable. I am sure you will appreciate that it is very difficult to document guidance that is all encompassing so, by setting out the principles and providing some examples this may help everyone to understand why we accept certain things and not others.

We will be issuing a similar communication to colleagues within DWP and hope this will avoid a repeat of the confusion we’ve recently faced. Because a lot of the confusion has been caused by internal inconsistencies, Alan Cave has agreed that DWP will not recover any payments already made from issue of the last evidence note on 22 May, where a local precedent may have been established, e.g. evidence has already been accepted by a regional payment team.

We expect all providers to comply with these revised instructions with immediate effect. However, in order to allow outcomes that may currently be being processed, we will continue any with local precedents for December and January claims. We would expect anything claimed beyond that date to be fully supported by the appropriate evidence and reserve the right to either reject payment (in the case of Pathways/ESF) or recover where this is found not to be the case.

If you have any queries regarding this note, particularly if you are unable to comply with its content please discuss with your contract manager in the first instance. If you have any questions about specific claims in the future, please discuss with your respective FAM/Payment Manager in the first instance.

Gwen Short
Provider Funding/Payment & Assurance Policy Team Leader