Welfare Reform Green Paper DWP Provision Forum Wednesday 3 rd September

2 Identifying the challenges…  80% employment rate  1 million off Incapacity Benefit by 2015  Eradication of child poverty by 2020  Provide equality for disabled people by 2025

3 Three key principles for reform… Capability - helping people stay in and return to work Control - giving disabled people choice and control over services Contribution - modernising the benefit system The changes proposed will be undertaken with three key principles in mind:

4 The direction…  Support with responsibility  Personalisation  Simplification  Devolution ­to individuals ­to local partnerships ­to providers

5 Chapter Seven – Empowerment and devolution – a new way of delivering our services  A ‘triple devolution’ of power to individual customers, local partnerships and providers ­to improve the quality and effectiveness of services by ­bringing together Government programmes ­giving customers increased powers to choose providers ­giving providers greater freedom to innovate through a new ‘Right to Bid’ process ­ giving a bigger role to local partnerships in developing, monitoring and letting contracts

6 Devolution/localisation (1)  Green Paper sets out three potential levels of devolution:  Level 1: local partners having active involvement in DWP commissioning processes.  Level 2: co-commissioning and joint investment planning.  Level 3: full joint commissioning in some areas, and devolution of some funding decisions in others.

7 Devolution/localisation (2)  Potentially major implications for providers and commissioners.  Work underway to establish how the three tiers might operate in practice, which services comprise the ‘national spine’ and what is flexible locally.  Strong links with Integrated Employment and Skills agenda and early work on co- commissioning trials in West Midlands, Manchester, Glasgow etc.

8 Consultation Questions on Devolution:  What would the processes around contributing to commissioning and performance management look like in a range of different partnership areas?  How might they best be managed to achieve the desired outcomes?  How could a link be made to the AME DEL proposals which seek to reward providers for outcomes out of the benefit savings they achieve?  How effective are current monitoring and evaluation arrangements for City Strategies?

9 ‘Right to Bid’  Green Paper restated DWP intention to implement a ‘right to bid’ process.  aim is to encourage innovative thinking from providers and other organisations about ways to tackle longstanding systemic problems.  we will build a system that is relatively simple to access, but is consistent with the legal and contracting framework in which we operate.  every serious idea will be evaluated and reasons will be given if we do not proceed.  Commitment to have a process in place by the autumn

10 Question 26: Right to Bid  What information would providers need to make the Right to Bid effective?  How would the evaluation process need to work to give providers confidence that their ideas would be evaluated fairly and effectively?  How do we get the balance right between rewarding those who come up with new ideas and the obligation to tender projects?

11 Multi Client Contracts ­Green Paper flags Government’s interest in a single employment programme for both ESA and JSA customers. ­DWP looking to pilot this – potentially in some fND Phase 2 areas – and will want to work with providers on the detail. ­Huge challenges around single conditionality regime, funding models, allocation of resources, safeguards for customers etc. ­potential benefits, particularly around economies of scale, simplification and rationalisation of contracts.

12 Other relevant areas of the Green Paper  Pathways type package of personalised support for IB customers migrating to ESA  Increased back to work support for IB/ESA customers through AtW and Workstep.  AME DEL Pilots – part of the overall IB/ESA package.  ‘Work for Benefit’ proposals for Jobseekers

13 Some additional thoughts from us  Too soon to give a definitive ‘big picture’ at this point, but there are clear implications for the market. No doubt that pace, scale and complexity of commissioning activity will increase.  Very early stages of consultation – so where next, and how best to engage with provider community and communicate that big picture as impact on contracting timelines and procurement exercises becomes clearer?  On specific measures, lots of detail to work through with you and provider community – how best to do that?