Pushed to the edge: community involvement with the Work Programme

On 1 April 2011, Employment Minister Chris Grayling announced that 300 voluntary organisations will be involved in the delivery of a new nationwide programme to tackle unemployment.

The Work Programme is to replace the myriad of existing welfare and unemployment schemes and is the latest step in the government’s reform of the welfare system.

The Department for Work and Pensions have described the Work Programme as a massive boost for the Big Society.

Eighteen prime contractors will be responsible for designing and managing the Work Programme. These organisations will then sub-contract regionally-based organisations to deliver each programme. Community organisations were expected to play an active role either as prime or sub contractor in the Work Programme due to their experience and expertise in delivering unemployment schemes in the past.

However many of our members who have applied both successfully and unsuccessfully to deliver the programme have raised concerns that this is not happening in reality.

Locality has produced ‘Pushed to the Edge’ a short report on the Work Programme to highlight our members’ experiences and to raise the concerns that we share with our members around the delivery of the programme.