Synopsis: |
Jobcentre Plus, an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions, is the government agency with responsibility for supporting people of working age from welfare into work. It employs 9,300 personal advisers who conducted 10.8 million jobseeker interviews in 2005-06 at a salary cost of GBP 238 million. Advisers offer different levels of support depending on client needs and their role is important for achieving the Government's long-term aim of reaching more harder-to-help clients to enter employment (particularly those on incapacity benefit). This NAO report, "Delivering Effective Services Through Personal Advisers (HC 24)", examines the use of personal advisers by Jobcentre Plus, including whether they are effective in helping people into work; whether they are deployed and managed effectively; and how the business processes and systems that support their work can be made more efficient to improve productivity.Overall, the report finds evidence that personal advisers have had a positive impact in raising customers' confidence and job-seeking skills, and independent research suggests the use of personal advisers is associated with greater numbers of people coming off benefits. The OECD has found significant improvements in unemployment levels in the UK and other countries with similar policies related closely to the adoption of active job-seeking measures such as those organised through personal advisers. The amount of time spent advising customers is judged crucial to their effectiveness and the report makes a number of recommendations to further improve productivity, including reducing time spent on paperwork and sharing good practice to secure higher attendance rates of customers at interviews. |