SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. We would recommend the government give
serious thought to future delivery opportunities such as one stop
shops (paragraph 3).
2. We believe there are great potential benefits
to both the community and the government to be obtained from such
an approach (paragraph 4).
The nature of the pilots
3. While not appropriate for everybody, we
recommend that Ministers should consult with organisations such
as the Prince's Trust to ensure that self-employment is offered
as a real option for clients under ONE (paragraph 7).
4. We commend the Government on the ONE initiative,
which we welcome as a big step towards a more integrated, efficient
and customer-focused service (paragraph 11).
The choice of pilot areas
5. We understand the reasons why the present
pilot areas were chosen, but the Government will need to bear
in mind during the evaluation the fact that the pilot areas are
not fully representative of the country as a whole (paragraph
16).
6. We recommend that, even at this late stage,
the Government should give consideration to adding a pilot area
which covers a predominantly London Area or Northern City geographical
type (paragraph 16).
Impact on core services
7. We recommend that the Government should
publish its strategy for developing relationships with employers
and improving the range and quality of vacancies, particularly
in the context of the new client groups being targeted by ONE
(paragraph 18).
Compulsion
8. We conclude that ONE interviews offer positive
advantages to all those claiming benefits. We take the view that
the requirement to attend an interview is not onerous in itself;
but the element of compulsion may well be necessary to bring along
those people who are demoralised, isolated, or lacking in confidence,
in order to connect them to the help and encouragement which is
available (paragraph 21).
9. We welcome Government assurances that compulsion
will not extend beyond a work-focused interview for people claiming
benefits other than Jobseeker's Allowance (paragraph 22).
10. We recommend that the invitation to attend
a ONE interview should be positive in tone rather than threatening,
and should make clear that, in the case of people claiming benefits
other than Jobseeker's Allowance, the choice of whether to act
on the advice and information given in the ONE interview is theirs
(paragraph 22).
11. We recommend that, in addition to repeat
invitations to attend an interview, an attempt should be made
by ONE staff to establish personal contact with a person facing
loss of benefit, either by telephone or a home visit, before the
claim is ended or benefit is reduced (paragraph 24).
Exemption and deferrals
12. We recommend that during the period of
the pilots there should be continuous monitoring of decisions
on exemptions and deferrals both to inform on-going training of
staff and to develop a model of best practice which can be used
by all the pilot areas and which can form the basis for national
guidelines on exemptions and deferrals in any national roll-out
(paragraph 29).
13. The quality of the ONE service should
be judged, among other things, on the quality of the decisions
taken on exemptions and deferrals, and on the follow-up action
taken when a person fails to attend an interview. We recommend
that research should be carried out on the quality and consistency
of decisions in these areas, including an analysis of the impact
of the decisions made on the clients affected (paragraph 30).
The provision of benefits advice
14. In order to make the most use of the advice
and information they are given, we recommend that clients should
be given a written summary of the work-related and benefits advice
offered during an interview (paragraph 33).
Recruitment
15. We recommend that the Government should
move as soon as possible to common terms and conditions of service
for all ONE advisers. Ministers should also consider the implications
of the different structure of rewards and incentives for staff
in the voluntary and private sector organisations that may be
engaged in the ONE Service under the second variant (paragraph
35).
16. We agree with the "generic"
role being given to ONE advisers, but we draw attention to the
onus this puts on the Departments and Agencies to offer in-depth
training and continuing support to advisers to meet the special
needs of their clients (paragraph 36).
17. We recommend that, during the life of
the pilots, special effort should be made to encourage the recruitment
of personal advisers with knowledge of disabilities. All advisers
should receive adequate disability awareness training. We also
recommend that the Government should monitor the impact of ONE
on the work of Disability Employment Advisers to ensure that an
adequate number of staff is in place (paragraph 37).
Partnership working and the role of local authorities
18. We are disappointed that organisations
dependent on public funds (including local authorities) have been
excluded from tendering for the private and voluntary sector pilots
(paragraph 42).
19. We recommend that a local authority led
pilot should be introduced, where local authorities are given
the opportunity to bid for the pilot being located in their area
(paragraph 42).
20. We consider that the full participation
of local authorities in the pilots is essential for their success.
The ONE pilots are a central Government initiative, designed to
test out new ways of delivering Government services with a view
to national implementation. The Government should therefore ensure
that the core costs of local authorities involved in the ONE pilots
are fully met. Full participation by local authorities in the
pilots should not be constrained by a lack of adequate resources,
and the extra costs should not fall on local council tax payers
in the pilot areas (paragraph 43).
The importance of IT improvements
21. The Government is right to move cautiously
in developing new (and expensive) IT systems. Nevertheless, if
ONE is to work well on a national basis, a commitment to substantial
investment in IT will be needed to make the vision of a more integrated
service for the public a reality. We recommend that the Government
should also give attention to future methods of client access,
including the potential that media such as digital television
offer for interactive, electronic access to a range of Government
services, including the ONE Service (paragraph 45).
The scope of the start-up meeting
22. If the start-up meeting is to be seen
as anything more than a reception service, we are concerned that
insufficient time may have been allocated for the interviews and
that problems with daily scheduling may occur (paragraph 46).
The role of personal advisers
23. We would welcome a wide remit for ONE
personal advisers—the extent to which they are able to assess
their clients' needs and offer a wide range of advice and support
to help clients meet those needs will be central to the success
of ONE. In our view, they will only be able to do so if their
caseloads are not overloaded (paragraph 48).
24. It will be important to ensure that the
teams are composed in such a way that the full range of relevant
expert knowledge, whether benefit or labour market related, is
displayed (paragraph 49).
25. We recommend that the Government should
ensure that local user groups are actively involved in developing
specialised training for personal advisers and, where appropriate,
delivering that training (paragraph 50).
26. We recommend that, in the light of these
concerns, personal advisers from each team should receive specialist
training on how to provide a sensitive and effective service for
clients with mental health problems (paragraph 51).
27. We welcome the development of a diagnostic
tool for use in the New Deal Gateway and recommend that, once
established, it should be made available for use by ONE advisers
(paragraph 52).
28. We welcome the fact that personal advisers
will be able to provide ongoing support for clients moving into
work, and we recommend that eventually this should go beyond the
initial stages of settling into a job and focus on improving the
job retention and job progression of clients who remain on in-work
benefits (paragraph 53)
29. It will be important to ensure that, while
ONE remains a client-focused service, it does not become too client-led.
We welcome the fact that clients will be able to ask for additional
meetings with their personal advisers, but advisers must have
the autonomy to balance the demands placed on their time and resources
by all their clients (paragraph 54).
30. We recommend that the pilots should be
used to consider the possibility of developing a suite of Gateway-style
options for non-JSA clients, based on the needs identified through
the adviser meetings, for use in any national roll-out (paragraph
55).
Call Centres
31. The Government has told us that a residual
start-up service will be offered face-to-face for those clients
who cannot or will not use the telephone, and we believe that
it is important that this service be maintained. Clients who would
benefit from a face-to-face start-up meeting must not be coerced
or cajoled into using the telephone in the call centre pilots
when, for whatever reason, they would prefer not to (paragraph
56).
32. We welcome the intention to recruit start-up
advisers who are fluent in languages other than English and we
believe that these staff should be properly rewarded for this
work and receive appropriate training on how to operate as intermediaries,
if they are to work as interpreters as well as advisers (paragraph
57).
33. We recommend that ONE should follow Benefits
Agency best practice guidance in the use of interpreters (paragraph
57).
34. It will be important for ONE staff to
reflect the ethnic makeup of the communities with which they are
working, and also that all staff should receive training to reflect
the language and cultural needs of an ethnically diverse community
(paragraph 58).
35. We believe that the need for start-up
interviews to be conducted by advisers from outside the client's
area should be avoided wherever possible (paragraph 59).
The private and voluntary sector variant
36. We are concerned that the number of bidders
invited to submit bids in the pilot areas has diminished and that
the choice of bids may therefore become limited. We do not believe
that contracts should be awarded unless bidders can satisfactorily
demonstrate that they can add value to the basic ONE model (paragraph
60).
37. We welcome the opportunity to evaluate
the contribution that the private and voluntary sector could make
to ONE, but we believe that, in the absence of any initial expectations
about the level of service they will be able to provide, or indeed
the nature of that service, proper evaluation of the private and
voluntary sector will be all the more important (paragraph 61).
38. We believe that a proper evaluation of
private and voluntary sector involvement in ONE should take into
account the level of public sector resources invested in bringing
the private sector up to speed on the delivery of services in
which it has hitherto had only limited involvement (paragraph
61).
39. We recommend that decisions on bids by
private and voluntary sector organisations should be taken as
close to the local level as is practical and consistent with financial
accountability (paragraph 61).
40. We recommend that, once the private and
voluntary sector contracts have been awarded, the Government should
publish full details of all the bids that were shortlisted (paragraph
62).
41. Given the level of concern that has been
expressed, we would urge the Government to proceed with caution
on the issue of output-related funding. Any incentive scheme for
private and voluntary sector providers must take into account
the full range of clients and the full range of useful outcomes.
We also recommend that the Government should evaluate the impact
of output-related funding on the experiences of all sub-sectors
of the client group (paragraph 63).
The evaluation process
42. We recommend that the evaluation process
should make every effort to assess the impact of ONE on the most
deprived areas within the pilots (paragraph 67).
43. If ONE is to be a valuable initiative
for all of the targeted client groups, it will be important to
develop criteria for measuring the progress an individual makes
in getting in touch with the labour market which are more relevant
than simple job placements (paragraph 68).
44. We recommend that the Government should
publish the clear measures which it intends to use in assessing
the reduction in people's detachment from the labour market (paragraph
68).
45. We recommend that as part of the evaluation
process independent benefit checks should be carried out on a
selection of ONE participants to identify the quality of the benefits
information and advice which they have been given and to identify
the effect of ONE on the take-up of benefits (paragraph 70).
46. We recommend that the Government publish
the measures by which it intends to evaluate the success of ONE
advisers in assisting people who are not able to work towards
greater independence (paragraph 71).
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