Flexible New Deal is now live and delivering across half the country, but it's become evident that lots of people don't know what this means. Therefore, for your enlightenment and edification, we have put together a brief guide of the differences between the old and new support regimes for job seekers. Note that this guide does not include Support for Newly Unemployed Professionals, Programme Centres, or the Young Person's Guarantee. They all have an impact, but we're discussing New Deal in this article.
We've broken down the changes between the two systems into two chunks. The first is the overall process, and the second is how delivery works. Although the structural changes are more obvious, the how is probably more important for customers.
What's happened to the structure?
As the diagram below makes clear, almost every stage of claiming Jobseekers' Allowance has changed compared to the previous system. Support starts much earlier, ramps up gradually through a number of stages, and gives providers a much longer time to do their thing with customers.
So what's the difference, really?
The differences between New Deal and FND go beyond skin deep. They are built on fundamentally different approaches, which should become immediately evident to anyone undergoing the new delivery regime. Some of the changes include:
- Flexible hours and content - FND Providers can deliver services to meet customer needs, without worrying about government diktats on what to deliver, or when and how. There is no minimum hours requirement, as long as the provider delivers at least 4 weeks of work experience to each customer sometime during their first year on the programme. This is known as the 'black box' approach, and is entirely different to the New Deal approach of laying down how many hours customers should attend, what they should be taught, and requiring a sheaf of forms to prove that it all took place
- Looking for long term job outcomes - Providers are no longer paid for each job start. Instead, they're paid when someone enters work and then stays in it for a few months. Under New Deal, there was a strong incentive for providers to push customers into any job going so the outcome fee could be claimed. Now, providers will have to find more sustainable employment and provide some level of support to customers to make sure they stay in work
- Personalised support - It follows from the previous two points that customers should be dealt with more individually, having their specific needs identified and met, rather than sitting in a big room full of other attendees with a couple of knackered computers and some newspapers. In this sense it will be more like Employment Zones than the original New Deal. Having said that, the sheer volume of customers and the extremely tight targets and finances mean that some providers may have to deal with customers in bulk
- Long term support - Instead of a 13 week programme, providers get to spend a year or more with each customer. This gives them time to get to know customers, build rapport, and move them gradually toward work readiness
- Creaming and parking - Although payment on long term job outcomes is firmly in place, there is no mechanism for paying more money for customers that are harder to help. This means that providers have a clear incentive to 'park' customers who would be expensive to help, providing a minimal service while focusing their energies on those who can get jobs without too much support
- Prime contracting - Providers now have bigger, longer contracts and an array of subcontractors to support them in delivery. This may not have much immediate effect on customers, but the hope is that it will increase the availability of specialist support and make delivery more efficient
