Herpreet Kaur Grewal,
Regeneration & Renewal,
31 October 2008
Large contractors commissioned to help the long-term unemployed into jobs are squeezing out smaller providers in local areas, according to early findings in a government-commissioned review.
Stephen Houghton, leader of Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council and a
member of a government-appointed team set up to look into how to tackle
unemployment, told Regeneration & Renewal that the Government's changes
to procurement practices are "making it more difficult for local
authorities to find smaller providers" to carry out services.
Under new welfare-to-work reforms, private and third sector agencies are
commissioned and paid by results to get the long-term unemployed into
jobs. "Prime contractors" - essentially big management firms - bid for
large-scale Department for Work and Pensions contracts, and then
contract delivery down to smaller, more specialist organisations.
But Houghton said that small, local groups with links to the most
disadvantaged and hard-to-reach communities are being squeezed out.
He added that councils are beginning to use the Working Neighbourhoods
Fund (WNF) to fund back-to-work schemes. But he said that, as it has
only been live for six months, it would be "more useful to look at it in
12 months".
The team is looking at how 12 local authority areas are spending the
WNF. The interim report will be given to ministers in the "next few
weeks", said Houghton.
- See News, p3.
