Exploring the Change of Frequency in the Jobseekers Signing Regime; Do Weekly Work Search Review Meetings Result In Improved Employment Outcomes? Mark Langdon and Simon Clay Department for Work and Pensions 10 September

2 What we aim to cover An evidence summary on the impact of the Fortnightly Work Search Reviews (WRS). An overview of a trial with JSA claimants comparing the impact of two JSA signing regimes and; An overview of the early analysis.

3 What does DWP do? “The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. As the UK’s biggest public service department it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to over 22 million claimants and customers” Our priorities are: helping to reduce poverty and improve social justice helping people to find and stay in work enabling disabled people to fulfil their potential helping people save more for their retirement through workplace pensions and making the State Pension simpler and fairer recognising the importance of family in providing the foundation of every child’s life improving services to the public by providing value for money and reducing fraud and error Working Age Benefits costs the Tax Payer £24.6bn Of which £5.3bn is JSA (Unemployment Benefit) 2013/4 financial statement

e=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRxqFQoTCJSo-Z2358cCFWmd2wodduAEWg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk &psig=AFQjCNFXwDptO2AtH1YXXa7ZxcrFEXc2Iw&ust= g The fortnightly WSR has been a core component of the UK Government Active Labour Market policy for many years… 4 But it has transformed from this… … to this…

The Jobcentre Plus support offer is effective, supporting many claimants into work. June The majority of claimants leave JSA within 13 weeks. The Fortnightly WSR is a key component of that support in those early weeks… 5

6 Different variations of the JSA signing regime were trialled. These trials and their finding are summarised as follows: Exemption of ‘signing’ for the first 13 weeks, with a random call-in for the first 11 weeks of the JSA claim. Participants spending an additional 6.1 days on JSA. Exemption of ‘signing’ for the first 7 weeks, with a random call-in for the first 5 weeks of the JSA claim. This led to participants spending an additional 5.8 days on JSA. Fortnightly telephone ‘signing’, with a random call-in for the first 13 weeks of the JSA claim. This led to participants spending an additional 6.6 days on JSA. A shortened WSR, but still at fortnightly frequency No significant impact was observed. Group signing, but still at fortnightly frequency No significant impact was observed but the sample sizes were small. Previous Research on the Work Search Review… a series of experiments (2005-6)

7 People will stay on JSA for longer if there is no ‘Signing’ Regime The impact was larger for men than it was for women The duration of the WSR did not matter Rather, it is the face to face element of the WSR that leads to more rapid benefit exit So what did this show…

8 From April % of JSA Caseload will have Weekly WSRs Work Coach (WC) discretion will determine which Claimants undertake Weekly WSRs The number of the Weekly WSR is also at the discretion of the WC JCP Offices are funded and resourced to ensure the capacity to deliver Weekly WSRs for 50% of JSA Claimants An new trial to test the impact of the change A new policy… a new opportunity

Does increasing the frequency of the Work Search Review increase the JSA benefit off-flow rate? The Trial…Addressing two key questions What Works for Whom? Which claimants are most likely to be helped by weekly and fortnightly Work Search Review meetings? 9

The Trial… JCP OFFICES 27 across UK Eligible Population: Those individuals making a new Claim for Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) Target Sample Size 27,000 (Achieved 26,006) Recruitment between 22 nd September 14 and 19 th Feb 15. Refusal Rate For Survey Completion: 10% Excluded from the trial; Work Programme Returners Those with history of non-compliance with the JSA regime Those exempt from fortnightly signing Not considered to be capably of providing informed consent 10

The Trial Process… New JSA Claimant Interview with JCP Work Coach Interview Conducted as normal – about 2/3 through the Work Coach introduces the survey data collection tool (requests claimant to consent to complete the survey and allow data matching with DWP Administrative data Claimant Agrees - completes the survey Work Coach completes their questions in the survey Claimant Declines the survey Random Allocation Algorithm informs the Work Coach of the claimants Signing Regime Survey Tool automatically encrypts and s the record of Claimant consent, the survey data and the trial arm allocation. (All records are then automatically deleted from the Work Coaches IT system) Intervention Group Claimant undertakes weekly signing for a block of 13 weeks Control Group Claimant undertakes Fortnightly signing for a block of 13 weeks 11

An overview of the survey tool ExclusionsConsent Claimant questions Advisor questions Assignment In general, all new claimants to JSA were included. Where claimants must be excluded; Those escaping domestic violence Those who are not able to give informed consent, or; Those, who would be required to attend a JCP office on a more frequent basis – in line with Business As Usual practice. We collected informed consent from claimants to collect information from them for research purposes WC read the statement to the claimant and ask whether they agree to this. Those who do not consent are still part of the trial but won’t have data collected about them. A response must be given for all questions, but the claimant may opt for ‘prefer not to answer’ WC read out the question to the claimant, and then the claimant fill in their answer WC then turn their screens away from the claimant to answer their questions confidentially Once all questions answered, the tool assigns the claimant to Weekly or Fortnightly WSR for 13 weeks. It ed data to the analytical team. Advisers then inform the claimant of the frequency by which they will need to attend the JCP office. 12

13 The Trial Management… The Trial Team undertook the following… Developed the Guidance Notes for JCP Staff Identified a SPOC for each site – and set up an induction day for them. On site training for all 27 offices Performance Dashboard - weekly Weekly SPOC meetings to feedback on performance, deal with issues and questions and to share experiences Each site visited, at least once, during live running. Observed the process in action to ensure compliance with the trial design. Feedback to sites on individual Work Coach performance A trial Newsletter ed to all Work Coaches and Managers involved in the Trial Semi-formal interviews with staff

The Analysis 14

Achieved Sample Size 15 Weekly Signing Fortnightly signing Claims12,72413,282 Claimants12,19712,647 The total sample size was 26,006 claims to JSA made by 24,844 claimants (some of whom made two or more claims in the trial period). Claimants were put into the weekly signing or fortnightly signing groups depending on whether the last three digits of their National Insurance Number (NINO) were between 000 and 499 or between 500 and 999.

Analysis 16 The effects of weekly signing …To see whether weekly signing has an effect on the time spent on benefit, a straightforward technique is to plot the percentage of claimants still on benefit as a function of the number of days after their claim.

Does signing regime have an effect on time on benefit?

…yes – about four days less on benefit on average Does signing regime have an effect on time on benefit?

So what does this mean? 19 By around two weeks the percentage of the weekly signing group still on benefit is around 2 percentage points lower than those in the fortnightly signing group. This difference is statistically significant from around a week after claim, but there was no statistically significant difference before the claim. From this we can conclude that there was no significant difference between the benefit-related behaviour of the weekly and fortnightly signing groups before their claim, and that weekly signing has a significant effect on reducing the time spent on benefit compared to fortnightly signing.

Sub Group Analysis – which claimants respond most positively to weekly WSR’s 20 Variables that appear to have an effect % of time spent in employment % time spent on benefit living arrangements (particularly partners) Disability Early Analysis – treat with caution

Conclusion 21 At this point, results should only be considered preliminary because there has not been enough time for all claimants to flow off benefit. Weekly signing appears to produce a reduction in time on benefit of four days for the population at large. It is possible to choose a segment of around half the sample for whom the reduction in time on benefit is six days. We are continuing to work on the segmentation model.

22 Thanks for your attention