The Work Programme

In 2011, the UK government launched the Work Programme as its flagship scheme, 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 jobseekers to a variety of private and not-for-profit providers, under a payment-by-results model. The programme uses a ‘black box’ approach under which the government no longer prescribes the nature of the support to be provided and providers decide their own interventions. NIESR is carrying out a full and in-depth evaluation of the programme with a consortium of other research organisations - the Institute for Employment Studies, the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York, the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion and GFK.