Minimum Standards don’t have to preclude personalisation

Sean William’s view is one that I respect, although I would like to explore some of the assumptions behind his argument that it must be ‘Black Box’ or nothing when it comes to replacing Work Programme. Sean argues against types of ‘Minimum Standard’ different to potential new types now possible to introduce. Personally, I believe that there is a need to introduce some type of Minimum Standard in a way that further personalizes services; especially for people with health conditions and disabilities.

Even if it is more a common misconception than a reality that Work Programme providers are bent on ‘creaming and parking’ jobseekers, it is undeniable that ESA participants are broadly not being served in a way that optimizes their chances of sustainable employment. While 12.1% of ESA new claimants get a job-outcome within two years, which is above DWP’s expectation of 10%, this is still well below the 25.3% achieved for the whole programme. And the equivalent figure for ex-Incapacity Benefit ESA participants is 4.5%, which isn’t good enough. Plus, people with a disability (15.9%) and those aged 50+ (14.2%) are the least successful at getting a job. Minimum Standards offer part of a package of solutions (including a smarter funding model). Otherwise, too many people with health-impairments will be left behind and the Government’s promise to halve the disability gap will be a hollow one.

Can’t ‘Minimum Standards’ be taken from pre-agreed options?

In Sean’s description, the old ‘Minimum Standards’ were “dreamt up in Whitehall by people who had never met a long-term unemployed person based on an a priori thought experiment about the sort of things that would probably help unemployed people into work.” I understand Sean’s point. This type was fixed, rigid, not always helpful and sometimes even counter-productive. But while it is true that the ‘Black Box’ approach to commissioning Work Programme was ground-breaking (and a positive departure from previously very prescribed programme-specifications), circumstances are now different. We can now apply learning from Work Programme and other important programmes that were just conceptual at the time of its commissioning. I’m thinking especially of the pioneering DWP Families programme, which innovatively introduced a suite of ‘Progression Measures’ to help people move closer to the labour market. These were interventions ranging from basic or vocational skills training, to anger-management, to healthy eating courses to name just a selection. The point I’m getting to isn’t that these interventions themselves were effective at addressing work-barriers (which they were), but that they were chosen from an extensive suite of options and delivered sequentially. Participant and advisor could choose which (minimum of three) interventions to complete and in what order; creating a highly-personalized Progression Route.

So what does this have to do with ‘Minimum Standards’?

Well, there is perhaps a transferable principle here; of facilitating and empowering personalized options in a flexible way. ‘Progression Measures’ pioneered under DWP Families were clearly defined. So why couldn’t we introduce a suite of options from which ‘Minimum Standards’ could be defined and delivered? Perhaps we could call them ‘Agreed Interventions’ of which there would be a minimum number required to meet a combined ‘Minimum Standard’. If this suite of options was smart and extensive enough then scope for personalization would be improved, not restricted. It could even allow new and innovative ones to be dynamically proposed, presented and (if approved by DWP) introduced during the programme’s evolution. A new programme could specify delivery of at least three ‘Agreed Interventions’ (or however many decided optimum) selected by the jobseeker and advisor together. These might include Recognised Therapies, Supported Employment, Access to Work, Employer Engagement Activity and so on. If a smarter funding mechanism were aligned to this type of (cumulative)’Minimum Standard’ then flexible, innovative, and responsive delivery could be powerfully incentivised.

This new type of ‘Minimum Standard’ would achieve the best of both worlds; transparently addressing parking, while personalizing services even more than Work Programme is currently able.

These are the personal views of Mark Cosens MA MIEP (@MarkCosens) who works for Inspire 2 Independence(i2i). Read i2i’s latest report on DWP Future Commissioning here