New Deal for Disabled People: early implementation
A hard copy of this report summary can be obtained by contacting Paul Noakes [E-Mail: Paul.Noakes@dwp.gsi.gov.uk] or by writing to him at the 'Social Research Division, Department for Work and Pensions, 4th Floor, Adelphi, 1-11 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6HT'.
Research Report No. 106
By Sue Arthur, Anne Corden, Anne Green, Jane Lewis, Julia Loumidis, Roy Sainsbury, Bruce Stafford, Patricia Thornton and Robert Walker
This report presents the interim findings of the evaluation of the New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) Personal Adviser Service pilot. The aims of the evaluation are to assess how well the NDDP Personal Adviser Service helps people find, or remain in work, and to advise about what is effective in the programme and what is not. The report draws on research conducted during the first year of the pilot including: depth interviews with clients, Personal Advisers, and employers; a survey of clients and non-participants and labour market studies. Research is ongoing and further findings will be published in the future.
The main findings were
- An active Personal Adviser Service had been established in each pilot area, and much has been achieved. There was evidence that take-up and awareness of the service could be increased.
- About a third of clients reported a mental health condition as their main health problem, and the same proportion had been out of the labour market for 5 years or more. Clients differ in terms of their motivation and readiness for work.
- High levels of satisfaction were recorded among clients though not all clients felt they were part of an ongoing programme of action. Clients appreciated the opportunity to discuss their employment prospects with experts, and welcomed the access to training, work experience and other services made available throughout the service.
- Communications between Personal Advisers were generally good, though sometimes clients felt frustrated when they thought they had received inadequate benefits advice or the options suggested were unsuitable.
- Employers said they required specialist advice, financial support, in work support and opportunities for work trials from the Personal Adviser Service. There were different views about whether these needs were met and about satisfaction with the service, though those who had contact with it were generally keen to continue to be involved.
Introduction
The New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) is part of a programme of new Government initiatives aimed at helping people move into or remain in work. The NDDP is targeted specifically at people with disabilities, particularly those receiving benefits on the grounds of incapacity for work. The Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) and the Department of Social Security (DSS) are jointly responsible for NDDP in conjunction with their respective executive agencies, the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency. The DSS is managing the evaluation on behalf of both the DSS and the DfEE.
The New Deal for Disabled People Personal Adviser Service pilots began in September/October 1998 and is to run for two years. The Personal Adviser Service aims both to assist disabled people and those with a long-standing illness who want to work to do so, and to help those who are already in work to retain their employment. Through local partnership, the Personal Adviser Service also seeks to promote the abilities of disabled people and to extend the range of services available to them.
The design of the evaluation is pluralistic and involves quantitative and qualitative elements. The main elements of the evaluation included in the interim report are as follows:
- site visits to the Employment Service pilots (between December 1998 and February 1999) and to the partnership pilots (during July and August 1999);
- two group discussions with Personal Advisers (March 1999) and 12 in-depth discussions (held between mid-April and mid-May 1999);
- depth interviews with clients;
- in-depth interviews with 30 representatives of a range of businesses and organisations (held during April and May 1999); and
- a survey of 450 participants in the Personal Advisory Service and of 380 people with a long standing illness or disability who had not yet approached the Service (non-participants). The fieldwork was conducted over the period April to September 1999.
- local labour market studies.
The research is continuing and it is emphasised that the findings reported here are preliminary and relate only to the first 10 months of the pilot. Accordingly, certain issues raised in the report, such as take-up and staff training may have improved or been satisfactorily addressed. For the most part the findings focus on the experience of the six pilot areas run by the Employment Service and which were established first.
The report covers a range of topics including: organisation and operation of the Personal Adviser Service; survey of participants and non-participants; the work of the Personal Advisers; the views and experiences of clients; the views and experiences of employers and reflections on early implementation.
Organisation and operation of the Personal Adviser Service
“Pilot workloads”. Employment Service pilot areas were visited five months after the launch of the scheme at which point they were still in the process of being established. At that time three of the six areas reported very high workloads whilst the remainder appeared not to have reached full capacity.
“Advising the Personal Adviser Service.” Most pilot managers had established a steering or advisory group. Overall, these groups had performed a useful and valuable role. However, a few managers were ambivalent about the usefulness of their steering or advisory group and some had changed the membership because of a perceived lack of support.
“Mapping service provision.” The amount of mapping of service provision completed varied between the six Employment Service pilot areas. Some pilots had begun exploring available services before the launch of the Personal Adviser Service whilst others had done little before the scheme became operational.
“Training of Personal Advisers”. Personal Advisers were generally appreciative of their training, although some gaps were identified, particularly in relation to Information Technology, mental health issues and benefits advice.
“Re-emphasising policy objectives”. Many respondents said that at around Christmas 1998 they noted an increase in the importance attached to employment outcomes for the Personal Adviser Service. Many Personal Advisers expressed feelings of concern about this perceived shift in focus away from intermediate outcomes, and towards employment ones.
“Occupational Psychologists and administrative staff”. Occupational Psychologists were available in all areas and, in addition to conducting psychometric tests and employment assessments, offered mentoring and advice to Personal Advisers. Administrative staff were often described as the first point of contact for clients but their duties could range from making appointments and answering clients’ questions to checking eligibility for the Service.
“Links with the Benefits Agency and Employment Service”. In the pilot areas relations between the Benefits Agency and Employment Service were generally positive, especially for those located in Employment Service buildings. However, some Personal Advisers felt that contact with the Benefits Agency had triggered some reviews of their clients’ benefit entitlement.
“Developing service provision.” Staff identified two important reasons for marketing the Service: to ensure client referrals and to establish links with service providers. Pilots varied in the number of providers and organisations involved in the Service. Interaction with providers could range from those who had pledged support to those who had provided work placements, offered training, employment and supported employment opportunities. Interviews with service providers in the Employment Service pilots suggested few referrals had been made to them from the Personal Adviser Service. A shortage of provisions for people with learning difficulties and mental health problems was identified.
“Key service providers’ perceptions of the Personal Adviser Service. ”Overall, the key service providers interviewed concluded that the Personal Adviser Service offered a valuable service to people with impairments or long-term illnesses. However, some worried that the focus on work outcomes and the shortness of the pilot would be counterproductive.
Survey of participants and non-participants
“Health and employment characteristics.” Participants were on average younger and better qualified than non-participants, and more likely to have a partner in paid work and access to transport. A third of participants were aged 50 or older (compared with 52 per cent of non-participants) and 41 per cent were aged under 40.
Participants had typically had their impairment or health problem for less time than non-participants and had consequently not been without work and on benefit for as long. Forty-seven per cent of participants had been receiving a qualifying benefit for at least three years compared with 60 per cent of non-participants. Thirty-two per cent of participants reported a mental health condition as the main health problem, 21 per cent a problem with their back, eighteen per cent some other form of muscular-skeletal impairment and eight per cent circulatory problems. The remaining 21 per cent had a range of other health conditions and impairments.
Participants were more likely ever to have worked and more were actively seeking work. Ninety-six per cent had worked at some time although half had not done so for at least three years. Ten per cent were already, or still, in work at the time of the research interview. Nineteen per cent had undertaken voluntary work while on benefit and six per cent had engaged in therapeutic work compared with six and three per cent of non-participants.
Non-invited participants were somewhat younger and better educated than those who had replied to the letter, although they tended to have had a health condition or impairment and to have been on benefit for longer.
“Attachment to work”. More participants than non-participants wanted to work and felt able to do so, and fewer needed concessions, help and support. Sixty-three per cent of participants believed that they would be able to engage in paid work, 53 per cent wanted to work immediately and 39 per cent said that they would want to in future. Seventy seven per cent of non-participants reported that they were unable to do any paid work and 50 per cent, compared with only eight per cent of participants, said that they would never work.
Seventy-nine per cent of participants felt that their health condition or impairment meant that they would need more than 20 days off sick each year, 73 per cent said that they would have to have several breaks a day, 42 per cent would need someone to help at work and 22 per cent required special equipment to be provided.
The reasons why participants sought work included financial ones (60 per cent mentioned these), escaping boredom (38 per cent), improving esteem and self-sufficiency (30 per cent) and striving for normalcy (19 per cent).
“Experience of the Personal Adviser Service.” After some prompting, 56 per cent of non-participants appeared to be aware of the Personal Adviser Service, and about two-thirds of these recalled receiving the letter of invitation. Non-invited participants tended to hear about the Service through the media and via Jobcentre staff.
The reasons given for not responding to the letter were primarily health related, but six per cent did not see the scheme as applicable, four per cent said that they had insufficient information and a similar number said that they did not trust the system or the New Deals.
Not surprisingly the most common reason for approaching the Service was to seek help to return to work, but 20 per cent wanted help to acquire training and seven per cent more benefit(s). Three per cent thought attendance was compulsory.
Although 80 per cent could recall discussing the type of work that they could do with their Personal Adviser, 54 per cent could not remember discussing methods of job-search and 51per cent any special work requirements.
“Activities undertaken by clients.” Sixty per cent of invited clients and 52 per cent of uninvited ones had begun or increased job-search after meeting with their Personal Adviser; 21 per cent of the former group and 26 per cent of the latter had started or applied for training. Sixteen per cent had started work.
The work of the Personal Advisers
“Job satisfaction amongst the Personal Advisers and Personal Adviser Service Teams. ”Personal Advisers were committed to working with the client group in a client-centred approach. Job satisfaction came from working with motivated people taking part voluntarily, the holistic approach and personal relationships in one-to-one working.
“Reaching, receiving and selecting clients.” Local pilot projects took standard approaches to local publicity. Some Advisers felt the invitation letter could be improved. Personal Advisers tended to characterise clients at first interview according to motivation and readiness for work:
- people seeking reassurance about benefit status
- severely ill, disabled or disadvantaged people with social care needs
- people not considering work but who might have some potential for work iv. people motivated to work but uncertain about work goals and not job-readyv. people who were job-ready or almost job-ready
- people coming with a clear, work-related aim or specific requests for help.
Group iv above was generally considered to be the most appropriate target group, and some Advisers were reluctantly turning away some clients in group iii. They were ambivalent about the appropriateness of the Service for people in groups v and vi.
“Working with clients: the initial interviews.”The number of initial interviews offered to a client before case loading varied within and across projects. Personal Advisers often had little prior information about people and the first interview typically lasted just under one hour. The aim was to reassure clients about benefits, to put them at ease and to begin to build up trust. The Service and benefit provisions were typically described in general terms and little was offered to clients in the way of written materials.
“Working with clients: vocational and health assessment. ”Few clients had particular jobs in mind, and Personal Advisers explored their ideas and interests. When Personal Advisers perceived mismatches between clients’ aspirations and what was ‘realistic’ they might steer clients in different directions, or sometimes support them in learning from unsuccessful attempts to try work.
Identifying health status could be a difficult and lengthy process. There was little evidence that Advisers sought input from health professionals to help with vocational guidance, or sought advice from ergonomic experts. Overall, Personal Advisers seemed not to be included in local circles of health and social care professionals.
“Working with clients: the way forward. ”Personal Advisers were expected to agree a progress plan with clients joining the official caseload. Some Advisers perceived this as an administrative chore; others felt it was useful, both to the client and for their own work, and practice varied accordingly.
Personal Advisers sometimes arranged voluntary work placements and provided ongoing support. External providers contracted to the Employment Service or Training and Enterprise Council usually provided work preparation courses. Finding time to support clients in voluntary work and work preparation was a growing problem in some projects.
“The move to paid employment. ”Personal Advisers identified a number of structural and institutional barriers for clients ready to take up paid work. Local job opportunities often did not suit their clients’ needs and some clients were unable or unwilling to travel to work. Some clients rejected the ‘disabled’ label, constraining the help Personal Advisers were able to give. Also some employers were not sympathetic to employing disabled people. Personal Advisers also perceived obstacles in the structure and operation of the benefits system.
The views and experiences of clients
“Contacting the Service. ”Clients had found out about the Personal Adviser Service in different ways, including through the Benefits Agency invitation letter. There were no major criticisms of the letter and people had known that getting in touch was voluntary. Making contact with the scheme generally appeared to have been straightforward. Awareness of the nature of the scheme appeared to have been low before making contact, and had remained low for some clients, sometimes causing confusion about what they were eligible for or what help they could ask for.
People had approached the Personal Adviser Service with different aims, ranging from the fairly vague to the quite specific. Clients did not express a high level of anxiety or concern at approaching the scheme, although some had considerable concern about returning to work more generally, particularly about the impact on their benefits. “ ”Where people had been offered a choice of venue and had been able to talk to the Adviser in a private room, this had been appreciated.
“Experience of the Service”. Clients on the whole did not appear to have a strong sense of being involved in a planning process and there was little recall of any written progress plan. Some clients were pleased if this meant that they did not feel pressurised, but others felt frustrated, particularly if they felt things were not progressing as they wished.
Where clients anticipated ongoing contact with the Personal Adviser, this was either in a mentor role or as a resource for specific information. Where clients felt future contact was unlikely this was because either:
- they had received the help they required or had decided not to move towards work or
- they felt that the Service they had received was inappropriate or unsuitable, or had been told that what they wanted was not available.
“Clients’ evaluation of the Service. ”Most said that the Personal Adviser Service had made some positive difference. They perceived the Service as helpful when it:
- raised their confidence or self-esteem as when their Adviser had a real grasp of the everyday effects of an impairment or a medical condition;
- opened new options which appeared or proved useful;
- enabled access to something already identified as necessary; or
- intervened to prevent or divert something perceived as unhelpful.
Less positive experiences had arisen where clients felt that options suggested or set up by the Personal Adviser were inappropriate or unsuitable, or where they had not been granted funding for a desired training course. Clients were frustrated where they felt that they had received inadequate benefits advice. Some clients felt that the Personal Adviser had limited knowledge of their specialist work area, or that using the Service might stigmatise them in employers’ eyes.
The views and experiences of employers
“Employers’ approaches to employing disabled people.” The study identified two broad groups of employers. The first had a strong commitment to employing disabled people. They were mostly larger organisations with specialist support departments and access to external sources of support. The second group did not have the same active commitment to employing disabled people, but said they did not discriminate. They generally had little experience of employing disabled people or specialist support, either internally or externally.
Both groups identified a range of issues involved in employing disabled people, which tended to be seen as problems or barriers by employers in the second group and as challenges by those in the first. Some were concerned that impairments might conspire to limit the productivity of disabled people and that there could be difficulties relating to the working environment, raising issues about both safety and access. Their views seemed sometimes to be influenced by limited experience, and narrow definition, of disability. Some respondents found it difficult to envisage the type of support or adjustments that could make a post accessible. Employers were also concerned about financial costs, and employing disabled people was generally seen to involve uncertainty and risk.
Employers sought or received different types of help from the Service including:
- help with understanding whether a participant and post were well matched;
- whether any particular help or support was needed;
- access to or support for equipment and training; wage subsidies or other payments and other in-work support.
There were different views about whether needs were met and about satisfaction with the Service.
“Expectations of the Personal Adviser Service”. Employers differed in their ability to identify the needs they had of the Personal Adviser and what it might be able to provide. Some also saw shortcomings in the Service. Some found it administratively cumbersome; others spoke of Advisers who had been insufficiently proactive, inadequately informed about disability and who failed fully to investigate the needs of employer and employee. Despite this, employers who had had contact with the Personal Adviser Service were generally keen to continue to be involved. Some felt their contact had widened their understanding of disability; others had begun to notify the Service of vacancies as they arose, or saw the Service as a potential source of information and advice about disability. In one or two cases, however, employers were more cautious about future involvement.
Employers also discussed sometimes conflicting, suggestions as to how the Service should be publicised. Some, for example, saw written material as most useful; others said that they would prefer a meeting with the Personal Adviser team. Similarly, some wanted general information about the scheme or publicity, which challenges unhelpful stereotypes about disabled people; others thought that an approach relating to a specific participant who would fit well within their organisation would be more useful. Some wondered why they had not yet been approached about taking on participants. They sometimes saw themselves as having “‘signed up’” to the New Deal for Disabled People, and there was some confusion with other New Deal programmes.
Reflections on early implementation
“Set up and uptake.” Although at the time of the research the pilots were still at an early stage, an active Personal Adviser Service had been established in each pilot area. Although there was some variation in administration between pilot areas, radical innovation is not yet evident. With certain reservations, high levels of satisfaction were recorded among clients.
However, uptake of the Personal Adviser Service was running at about three per cent of those sent an invitation letter, though almost as many again came forward in other ways. While perhaps lower than anticipated, the fact that very large numbers of non-participants did not expect ever to work suggests that the Personal Adviser Service is reaching a far higher proportion of disabled people who are able and want to work. Increased uptake will require targeting potential clients when they are most receptive which may suggest exploiting routine contacts with the Benefits Agency and other welfare agencies.
“Perspectives on the Personal Adviser Service.” There is evidence that the Personal Adviser Service is not yet salient among disabled people or employers and that the association with the other New Deals may not always be helpful. The quality of the interaction between Personal Advisers and their clients is the key to the overall success of the Personal Adviser Service. While generally good, communication was sometimes poor. The need for Personal Advisers to be able to mediate disagreements with clients is critical. Additional training needs were identified which included the effects of illness and impairment, benefits advice and outreach to ethnic minorities. Personal Advisers’ relationships with employers are particularly complex with employers demanding specialist advice, financial support, in-work support and opportunities for work-trials while not always understanding the needs of disabled people.
It is important to determine whether the initiative, if implemented nationally, is to continue to promote local innovation and a holistic approach to casework, and how it should encourage employers to adopt good employment practices. Particularly important is the extent to which the Personal Advisers are to be actively engaged in service provision, rather than adopt a co-ordination role.
Relevant publications
E Grundy, D Ahlburg, M Ali, E Breeze & A Sloggett (1999) “Disability in Great Britain: Results of the 1996/1997 Disability Follow-Up to the Family Resources Survey” (Department of Social Security Research Report No.94), Leeds:CDS
R Dorsett, L Finlayson, R Ford, A Marsh, M White and G Zarb (1998) “Leaving Incapacity Benefit” (Department of Social Security Research Report No.86), Leeds:CDS
G Zarb, N Jackson & P Taylor (1996) “Helping Disabled Workers ”(Department of Social Security Research Report No.57), London: TSO
K Rowlingson & R Berthoud (1996) “Disability, Benefits and Employment ”(Department of Social Security Research Report No.54), London: TSO
R Sainsbury, M Hirst & D Lawton (1995) “Evaluation of Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance ”(Department of Social Security Research Report No.41), London: HMSO.
A Hedges & A Thomas (1994) “Making a Claim for Disability Benefits” (Department of Social Security Research Report No.27), London: HMSO.
B Erens & D Ghate (1993) “Invalidity Benefit. A longitudinal survey of new recipients ”(Department of Social Security Research Report No.20), London: HMSO.
S Lonsdale, C Lessof & G Ferris (1993) “Invalidity Benefit. A survey of recipients ”(Department of Social Security Research Report No.19), London: HMSO.
A Matthews & P Truscott (1990) “Disability, Household Income and Expenditure ”(Department of Social Security Research Report No.2), London: HMSO.