If you’ve seen the film Das Boot, about a German U-boat, you’ll remember what happens when they did an emergency dive. Alarms going off, crew scrambling everywhere and sheer panic.
Why does this spring to mind when I think of skills moving into the Department for Work and Pensions? Well, if skills didn’t have enough challenges, inserting it into the DWP risks sinking the market quickly.
Historically, employability and skills funding has been like oil and water; the two don’t mix. That doesn’t help employers, jobseekers or learners.
Research shows most employers hire for attitude and train for skill. Putting responsibility under one roof may seem like the best way to achieve this – but let me provide a reality check.
The DWP has a huge budget, skills will be a fraction of that, and there are flashing red lights from what has happened to employability, especially for SMEs.
The arrival in 2021 of DPS2 (Dynamic Purchasing System), which Jobcentres can use to fill unmet needs, has been a disaster. That’s because if a Jobcentre manages to find a programme that works really well, they can’t repeat it. They have to buy on price.
Contract awards are updated quarterly on Contract Finder so competitors can see what the winning price was. So they bid below that, often significantly lowballing. The Jobcentre ends up with poor-quality provision which they know won’t deliver, but it’s that or nothing.
The DWP’s inability to course correct on this cannot be allowed to happen with skills.
When I met Debbie Abrahams MP, chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, and gave her evidence of how the DWP has failed to learn from, replicate and scale Jobcentre programmes, she agreed it undermines ministers’ priorities.
Problems are compounded by the DWP’s lack of transparency about the performance of its employment support programmes, as requested by her predecessor, Sir Stephen Timms and the National Audit Office.
Mel Stride’s response when he was secretary of state to a transparency campaign led by the then MP John Penrose, was the DWP didn’t need to measure performance and he didn’t see why they should. He also said using past performance as part of the criteria to evaluate bids from suppliers would “not be legally compliant with current procurement regulations”.
Alarmingly, Labour haven’t changed that, even though I suggested they should request full transparency during their access talks with civil servants prior to the election.
The lack of training for Jobcentre staff to write specifications means they guess at what is needed, often unintentionally precluding proven solutions. They get conflicting guidance about whether they can speak to other regions about best practice, or speak to providers about their challenges.
The DWP’s insistence that knowing a provider’s performance would compromise fair and open competition is an interpretation of procurement law unique to them.
They have predictably created a race to the bottom where a provider can write a great bid, low ball on price and win the work, even when they don’t have the expertise or capability to deliver it. This is inevitable if performance isn’t taken into account.
Whilst some DWP regions may like to address that, they are powerless.
Does quality matter?
Quality matters and has to be measurable, but the current modus operandi means it isn’t. Ofsted and the sector have worked hard to raise standards but the DWP’s current approach will reverse that. Skills England will say what?
I’ve spoken to work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden about the need for public sector reform to achieve growth, and how DWP employment support is the place to start.
The way through this, as I discussed with Darren Jones (now chief secretary to the prime minister) earlier in the year, is a facilitated amnesty. Rather than allow civil servants to issue eloquent brush offs, McFadden and colleagues need to go looking for problems, call some of this poor practice out, and shift the intent of the organisation.
McFadden has already said the DWP is there to help get people into work, which means getting the best from skills, not ruining the sector. Hopefully we can say ‘all aboard’, rather than ‘abandon ship’.
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