News: MPs back our calls for DWP to publish performance data

Yesterday, the Public Accounts Committee published the report of its inquiry on Restart, the Government’s scheme to support long-term unemployed people. 

We submitted joint written evidence with John Penrose MP, the Government’s former anti-corruption champion, outlining the need for more robust performance data about the scheme, to support transparency and evaluation. 

We are pleased to see the Committee has made several recommendations calling for better data.

About Restart

In 2021, the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) launched the £2.6 billion Restart scheme, designed to help long-term unemployed people return into work via personalised support from third-party providers.

The Committee’s report found the scheme has cost significantly more per person than anticipated, and will help fewer people. This is partly because the economy has been stronger than expected, but also partly due to a lack of data: DWP “did not know enough about its claimants to predict how many would actually go onto the scheme”. 

Recommendations

The Committee’s report makes several recommendations about improving transparency and monitoring data.

In particular, it recommends that DWP should start to collect data on the performance of individual providers. Currently, DWP only collects regular management information on the 12 contract areas where providers are based, rather than on the 77 providers themselves.

As a result, the MPs warn that DWP does not have a clear understanding of how individual providers perform. The report recommends that it should collate more data on how providers are performing, to increase transparency and competition.

The Committee also calls for clearer overall reporting and evaluation of the scheme: 

The Department should detail in its Treasury Minute response the information it plans to make public about the Restart scheme… This response should ensure that stakeholders, academics, parliament, and the public can regularly obtain details about how Restart is performing, can make informed comment about how the Department can build upon its contracting and management, and can peer review the evaluation of the scheme.

What next? 

We’re glad the Committee has taken the need for better performance data on Restart. As reported by the Spectator, we’ve teamed up with organisations including the Centre for Policy Studies, Campaign for Freedom of Information, Spotlight on Corruption and others, to ask for more data on this and other employment support schemes. 

As our briefing on the topic points out, however, there’s further to go. We think the DWP should explore publishing data about Restart customer satisfaction and complaint levels, scheme exits, and the ethnicity, disability and education level of claimants. This data should be low-cost to produce and, as argued by the Committee, is essential to support the design of future schemes. 

We hope DWP takes heed of the Committee’s recommendations, and we look forward to its response. 

Read our written evidence, full briefing, and the Committee’s report.