Employment scheme hailed a success after ‘profound’ improvement

The Government’s flagship employment scheme has shown a “profound” improvement over the past year, helping more than 130,000 long-term unemployed into jobs, ministers said yesterday.

The Work Programme, which came under attack after its launch in June 2011, helped 132,000 people find work in the year to March, up from 9,000 in the previous year.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said the figures showed the “growing success” of the scheme, with all jobs achieved before people had completed the full two years on the programme.

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The DWP said the new figures counted only those who have been in work for long periods – six months in most cases, or three months for the hardest to help.

Employment Minister Mark Hoban said: “The Work Programme is helping large numbers of people escape the misery of long-term unemployment and get back into real jobs.

“The improvement in performance over the past year has been profound and the scheme is getting better and better. And because providers are rewarded for success, the Work Programme is designed to give taxpayers a far better deal than previous schemes.”

Critics have attacked the programme for not doing enough to help the long-term unemployed.

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Under the Work Programme, providers from the voluntary, private and public sectors are paid according to results to get people into work, with extra incentives to support the hardest to help.

The DWP said many providers were meeting their contracted levels for helping claimants, but some were “lagging behind”. Improvement notices have been issued for 12 contracts, with providers facing losing their contract if they do not show “significant” changes.

Just 8.5 per cent of those who started the Work Programme in June 2011 completed at least three months of work in their first year, increasing “dramatically” to 13.4 per cent for more recent recruits who joined in March of this year. For 18 to 24-year-old jobseeker’s allowance claimants, just under a third found jobs in the second year of the programme.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne said: “Three years into the parliament and nearly nine out of 10 people on this flagship programme have been failed. Worse of all, the Government missed every single one of its minimum targets.”