| NDYP outcomes
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| 1. | Just over 215,000 NDYP participants have found work, and 162,000 young people have obtained jobs which lasted for more than 13 weeks. Of these, 139,000 were sustained, unsubsidised jobs (paragraph 3).
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| The cost of NDYP outcomes |
| 2. | The Minister told us that the average cost of each job outcome was just under £4,000. We note that the average cost of unsubsidised, sustained jobs, which NDYP participants would not have obtained without the help of the programme, will be much higher than £4,000 (paragraph 4).
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| 3. | We welcome the Government's commitment to achieving value for money in the NDYP programme This is a complex area and one in which independent analysis is essential. We look forward therefore to the further assessment of the macroeconomic impact of the programme by NIESR and to the National Audit Office (NAO) value for money study of NDYP (paragraph 4).
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| 4. | We expect that the NAO's forthcoming value for money assessment of NDYP will want to examine the reasons for the inflexible nature of the contracts under which the private sector led NDYP Units of Delivery have operated and the cost of this inflexibility (paragraph 5).
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| The sustainability of jobs obtained through NDYP
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| 5. | We are concerned by the relatively high level of moves into unsustained jobs and this is an issue that we will return to in our inquiry into NDYP (paragraph 6).
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| Changes to the design of NDYP
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| 6. | We welcome the Government's commitment to improving the provision in the Gateway. In our inquiry into recruiting unemployed people we will be examining the role of intermediaries in strengthening this provision (paragraph 7).
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| Assisting the most disadvantaged people
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| 7. | Future developments of NDYP must be aimed at improving its performance in helping the most disadvantaged participants and participants from non-white ethnic minority groups to obtain sustained jobs (paragraph 8).
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| Delivering enhanced numeracy and literacy
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| 8. | We welcome the Minister's personal commitment to ensuring that nobody leaves NDYP illiterate or innumerate. We also welcome the use of additional funds to enhance the Gateway programme and to help train personal advisers in the identification of basic skills gaps (paragraph 9).
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| Full-time Education and Training (FTET) Option
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| 9. | We recommend that the Government should publish data on the number of moves into jobs from the FTET option that are sustained for more than 13 weeks and for more than 26 weeks (paragraph 11).
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| Environmental Task Force (ETF) Option
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| 10. | We welcome the Government's recognition that intermediate labour markets have been effective in increasing the proportion of young people going into work and we look forward to their increased use in the options stage of NDYP (paragraph 12).
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| Follow-through |
| 11. | Changes to the follow-through stage of the New Deal must take into account the need to provide a fresh approach for those clients for whom the follow-through was ineffective the first time around. We welcome the Minister's indication that proposals have been forwarded to the Treasury to increase the involvement of personal advisers in the follow-through stage of NDYP (paragraph 13).
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| Leavers to unknown destinations
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| 12. | We welcome the Minister's announcement that forthcoming survey data of leavers to unknown destinations will include details of job duration (paragraph 14).
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| The involvement of public sector employers
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| 13. | In our first report on the New Deal we welcomed the inclusion of public sector employers in the subsidised employment option of NDYP and in a subsequent report on the New Deal Pathfinders we highlighted the lack of engagement with NDYP by the public sector and some of the reasons for this outcome. We are very disappointed that, almost two years on, the public sector has not proved more willing to offer job opportunities to NDYP participants. We welcome the Government's commitment to improving the performance of the public sector, and we urge the Government to bring forward plans to explain how its expectations of raising, from 1.2 per cent to 2 per cent, the percentage of employees across the Civil Service who are recruited from NDYP shall be met (paragraph 16).
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| The performance of the private sector-led NDYP Units of Delivery
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| 14. | The Government has announced that it intends to publish a qualitative study of the 10 private sector-led NDYP Units of Delivery which involved "interviews with key players about how the New Deal is being delivered". Although we welcome this announcement, in our view, a full evaluation of the private sector-led Units of Delivery should be undertaken and published, which compares the performance of the private sector-led Units of Delivery with the performance of the other NDYP Units of Delivery. It would be useful to have such an evaluation in the public domain before the completion of the new contracting round (paragraph 17).
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| Personal Advisers |
| 15. | We welcome the Minister's commitment to improving the career opportunities for personal advisers. Firm proposals to achieve this aim should be brought forward at the earliest opportunity and we recommend that the Government should consider introducing reduction in turnover targets for those areas where turnover is particularly high. In addition, we recommend that the Government should publish every year turnover rates for each Jobcentre (paragraph 18).
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| The evaluation of NDYP |
| 16. | We commend the Government for instituting such a comprehensive programme of evaluation. We recommend that summaries of the research reports should be posted on the New Deal web-site (paragraph 19).
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