Work Programme Evaluation

In 2011, the UK government launched the Work Programme, a major new active labour market initiative replacing a multitude of previous welfare-to-work initiatives. It goes further than any previous such programmes in contracting out the delivery of support for workless jobseekers to a variety of private and not-for-profit providers, under an innovative payment-by-results funding regime, which adopts a ‘black box’ approach, under which the government no longer prescribes the nature of the support to be provided.

IES carried out a multi-stranded evaluation of the Work Programme, including an evaluation of the approach to commissioning the Programme (through prime providers and sub-contractors) and an evaluation of the programme itself, through quantitative and qualitative research methods. The research was conducted by a consortium led by IES and completed in 2015.

Project details

Client	Department for Work and Pensions
Year	2011
IES contact	Nigel Meager
Research partners	National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR), Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU), Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (Inclusion), GfK NOP Social Research