Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): I welcome Brendan McCann, head of new employment team; Mrs Angela Whiteside, quality improvement adviser; and Mr Kieran Ennis, contract management branch. You are very welcome; good morning. It is over to you.

Mr Brendan McCann (Department for Employment and Learning): Thank you for the invite to present to you on the implementation of and the progress made by Steps 2 Success providers. We want to cover three areas with you today. I will give a quick recap on the implementation and go live, my colleague Kieran Ennis will speak on contract management arrangements from go live, and Angela Whiteside will speak on quality management arrangements, which she is leading on in the Department.

You may remember that Steps 2 Success contracts went live on 8 July 2014. They were awarded to Ingeus, Reed in Partnership and EOS. Each of the providers came to the Committee in the autumn and gave a presentation on their offering. So, you had a chance to hear their proposals at first hand.

Where go live is concerned, they had 90 days from 8 July to get the service up and running. That proved to be very challenging for the contractors and the Department, but the programme went live on the expected date of 20 October. Clients have been referred since that date in a controlled way through the stocks and flows plan. Kieran will be able to update you on the numbers that have been referred since 20 October. Implementation takes place over a period of six months on the stocks and flows plan, so it will effectively not be until May/June that steady state will be achieved. In that process, we invite the individual who hits their eligibility date for Steps 2 Success to come into our offices. They go through an interview with the employment service adviser and are told about the programme so that they have information and know what to expect. It is not just a simple referral by letter in which people are told to turn up. I know that the Committee had asked previously that there be some process so that people would be informed in advance of what they could expect and of the standards of service that they could expect to receive.

I will hand you to my colleague Kieran, who can talk to you about the contract management arrangements for Steps 2 Success.

Mr Kieran Ennis (Department for Employment and Learning): Good morning. One of the big changes in DEL's approach to contract management through provider organisations and lead contractors is the focus that we have on performance. In the case of Steps 2 Success, the contract management started on 8 July. As soon as the contract went live, the contract management team was on the ground working on and developing documentation. One of the key documents that were developed during the implementation activity was a record of controls. That document was developed and used to give the project board the assurance that the provider organisations were in a fit state of readiness to go live. It was a very detailed document, and it was based on the contract that had been agreed with the provider organisations. It covered a large range of different areas, including the premises where all the providers were delivering from. That, obviously, was very important. In some cases, there are new premises, and there are also existing premises, and, unusually with this, some of the providers are delivering from the likes of further education colleges, which is not always the case. The key thing for us was to make sure that the premises were secured, were fitted out, had the licences in place, had leases agreed, were fit for purpose and complied with health and safety. All the provider organisations are asked to submit information to support that, which they all did.

One of the next key things was the people. The key personnel had been recruited. Staff had been trained, and they were ready to deliver right across the supply chain. As you are probably aware, all the lead contractor organisations are using local subcontractors. We sought the lead contractors to give us the assurance that their supply chain was ready to deliver. The other big development issue for them was IT systems and processes to support the delivery of the new programme. Again, they were requested to demonstrate that they had been tested and were fully operational for the go-live date.

Another key thing for us was that the subcontracts were in place for all the local delivery organisations. One of the key things for us was that the Department's code of conduct that the lead contractors are subject to was included in the subcontracts. All the documentation required was reviewed and signed off. The lead contractors gave us all an assurance that everything was in order before they went live. We were then able to give the project board the assurance that they were in the correct state of readiness to go live, which they did on 18 October.

The next element, and the big focus of my daily work, is the performance management of the provider organisations. The slide in our presentation says that that is risk based. Essentially, the risk is assessed on a regular basis. Where we find problems with any of the activities that the contractors are delivering, more scrutiny is applied. If there is any evidence of poor performance, we tackle it by working with them on a regular basis. I will come on to how we do that, if you like. From the start of the live operations, we have been monitoring the progress and meeting them. Again, I will come to that structure.

One of the key things that we have that maybe has not been available in previous programmes is a significant amount of management information from provider organisations and our systems that allows us to monitor progress, especially during the implementation phase, when we were referring a significant number of cases across to them. It also allows us to monitor how they were dealing with and handling them and how quickly they were attaching them to the programme. We have information on that.

The data that we have seen to date is what we describe as indicative data. A lot of the data required for the programme has to be validated and has to go through statistics and research, as well as to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), so we need to have a clear view and an official stamp on some of that documentation. We have indicative data that we use and have been using since the start of the contract to manage the providers. The providers also have a lot of information in their space that allows us to see how their individual subcontractors are performing, how they are performing and how they are delivering on a day-to-day basis. The main efforts that we made in the early phase of delivery were about ensuring that the organisation was able to smoothly refer customers across into the provider space.

As Brendan said, that was done by our staff in the employment service. They saw every individual before referring them, so they knew what was going on and what to expect. The local areas worked with the lead contractors on a stocks and flow plan and a referral plan to try to manage that as best they could. That was reasonably successful.

The Committee has probably heard before about the key performance indicators that the Department will use to judge the performance of the provider organisations. There are essentially five of those. One of the key ones is job entry, which measures how many of the participants are getting into jobs. Obviously, that is a key outcome for us. Another is sustained employment, which is a very important issue for us, enabling us to monitor not only whether people have got a job but whether they have been able to sustain it. When the providers get someone into a job, they are obliged to support that person in work as well, which it is important to maintain. The third one is the 12-month sustainment target, which, again, is very important for us. The fourth one is more my area, if you like. It is that the organisations comply with the terms of the contract and deliver their obligations. Contract management is heavily focused on ensuring that, where there are obligations, the providers deliver. The other key performance indicator is around the quality of the service, and Angela will come to that later.

We have a slide that starts to give you some of the information on the programme. It shows the number of people who have actually been referred across by the Department. You will see the three contract lots: Reed, which is for region 3; Ingeus, which is lot 1; and EOS, which is lot 2. They have all received in excess of 6,000 people. Ingeus has received the most, while EOS has received somewhat less.

The next set of slides provides some information. The referrals by client category demonstrate the number of cases by participant group. We can see the categories of jobseeker's allowance (JSA) for the 18 to 24 age group and JSA for the 25-plus age group. To date, we have more referrals in the system than was originally forecast. We are six months into the programme, and the number for JSA in the 18 to 24 age group is around what we expected, so we have already reached the level. The big change from the forecast is in JSA for the 25-plus age group. In the employment and support allowance work-related activity group category (ESA WRAG) , you will see that there are three referrals and think that that is a very small number. That number should actually be zero. Those numbers have been picked up by our IT systems, but they are incorrectly reported. There are zero ESA WRAG customers — people who have been assessed for ESA and found to be there. The next category is early entry. That is on target, if you like. It is around what we expected. In the voluntary category, the number is a bit lower than we expected.

The slides are not in colour in many of the presentations so the next slide is quite difficult to read, but I will try to explain what it is trying to demonstrate. The white line goes up past the 25,000 mark, and that is the forecast for the volume of referrals over time. The black line below it shows what the actual out-turn was, and the two lower lines show what we expected the profile of the referrals to be as they moved across to the provider organisations. If you look at the darker line, you can see the actual number of referrals. You will see that, in December, referrals peaked at over 5,000. That was over 5,000 referrals to all three lead contractors in the month of December. The number started to come down, and it has now tailed off and is moving into the steady state of the contract, where the stock cases are now referred. We are moving into what we refer to as the "flow"; that is, the cases that become eligible owing to the length of time the people have been on benefit.

The next slide refers to contract management, which I am tasked with. In this contract, we have a formal monthly meeting with each contractor. That has been in place from the start. The purpose of the meeting is to have a formal record of the activities of the providers and our interactions with them; to look at performance; to review risks; and to deal with issues and change control. The meetings are formally minuted, and the documentation becomes part of the record for the contract. When the auditors come, those are the sorts of things that they are going to be looking for.

The meeting is attended by the lead contractors, quality branch and employment service colleagues who interact daily with the lead contractor organisations. It is chaired by the relevant contract manager. The meeting gives providers the opportunity to report their performance, positive and negative. It gives us an early warning of any problems that might be coming up, which is important, and any challenges that contractors are having with delivery.

The meetings give us a lot of management information in their space: how they are dealing with our referrals; the indicative numbers for how many people may be moving into work; and how many have been attached to the programme. The contractors also report on their internal staffing. We like to see from them monthly how many staff they have on the ground and how many are leaving or being recruited. That gives us an indication of their available resource for dealing with the business that we give them.

As well as normal contract management activity, we have a team of compliance officers, who are out regularly. Every time that a claim is submitted to the Department for payment, we send out our compliance officers, who do post-payment checks on the documentation that is required. Their job is to identify any irregularity. To date, their main focus has been on the high-volume stuff, which is the attachments to date and travel expenses. They take a 20% sample, which, in most cases, is 200 to 400 claims that they need to look at. That is a developing piece of work.

The next phase, as we move into the steady-state operations, is to look at fees for job entries and — this is very important — the service guarantee, focusing on the hours delivered. That is a contractual obligation for providers, and we need to see evidence that they are doing what they have committed to doing.

We do not look at the quality of the service guarantee, but Angela's team does. I will hand over to her now.

Mrs Angela Whiteside (Department for Employment and Learning): I lead a team of quality assessors, who are responsible for the quality of delivery, as Kieran and Brendan said. Kieran outlined what his team does, which is monitoring how much and how well contractors meet targets for delivery of the service guarantee and attachments. My team is responsible for going in and observing at first hand. Yes, the attachments are happening, but is that initial interview, in which the attachment is completed, effective in accurately assessing each individual's needs and commencing the planning process for that individual on the journey that is Steps 2 Success to ensure that his or her needs are met throughout the programme?

My quality team was established in December. It is a new role for the Department. The previous time that I was here, I talked about the process that we intended to use. We are using an internal team, because it is with agreement from our Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI), which would normally perform the role. We identified that, because this is not prescriptive in training and other delivery content, it was best suited to an internal departmental team. We have, then, three quality assessors, led by me. It is quite an innovation for us, as the function was not performed in the work programme. There was no monitoring of quality of delivery.

We decided that we had to let the contractors bed in. We could not go out and monitor quality in the first couple of weeks. Therefore, our role began in February. We planned to carry out three visits, one to each lead contractor, each of two weeks' duration, to get an initial feel for the quality of provision, both to inform their future development and to give us comfort in the Department about the quality of the work being rolled out.

We developed a set of quality indicators for the programme, and those are the measures by which we assess the quality of each lead contractor's provision. We met the three lead contractors to outline how we would carry out the work. We shared the quality indicators with them, making sure that they understood quite clearly where we were coming from and what we meant by each to ensure a shared understanding of what we were looking for in carrying out our evaluations. We shared the purpose and the process.

Before we commenced any quality evaluation, it was also key that we asked the contractors to do an early self-evaluation of the quality of their provision. That is terribly important, as we need to build their capacity for self-evaluation throughout the contract, because we cannot be with them five days a week as they deliver it. We need to make sure that they can take responsibility for developing the quality of their own provision, and we will confirm that through our evaluations.

As I said, we carried out a two-week visit to each contract area, and I will talk about our early findings from that work. Our work, as I said, was first-hand observation. For example, when someone is being attached to the programme, we sit in and observe the initial interview, subject to the consent of the participant. We observe the nature of the interaction, how well the information is being drawn out from clients and how well it is being used to plan what they need by way of content to allow them to progress towards and into employment. We also sit in on various workshops, or "interventions" as we call them. Those interventions can be workshops, face-to-face interviews, progress interviews or some other kind of in-depth interview. Whatever the nature of the intervention, to use that broad term, we sit in and observe at first hand.

We also review the progression to employment plan (PEP). We have told our lead contracts that we deem it to be a pivotal document. The PEP is vital, because it records the initial assessment of participants, plans their journey, records progress and provides feedback. We evaluated over 300 of them in our first round of work, so we have a very robust evidence base assembled already. Obviously, and terribly importantly, we talk to participants. We make sure that we get an opportunity to carry out one-to-one interviews with them, and we talk to the providers and senior management about their plans and challenges to date.

At the end of each two-week period, we gave detailed feedback to each lead contractor. We visited the supply chains and carried out the same process for supply chain members, but this is a lead contractor-led provision, which means that the feedback goes to the lead contractor, as we hold it responsible for the quality throughout the contract area. We then held a further meeting with all three organisations to disseminate the findings across the entire provision. They reported to us that they found that extremely useful, because, even though an area that we highlighted for improvement might not have occurred in their contract area, it is important that they learn from one another, from the good practice but also about areas for improvement.

I will give a high-level summary of the strengths that we identified while we were out. We found that they were all operating from well-established and welcoming premises that participants enjoyed going into. We found the referral process to be very smooth, which meant that initial engagement was carried out without delay. We had very positive feedback from participants at various stages of the programme, albeit all at a quite early stage.

I should have said that our first two-week evaluation focused on the engagement and the workshops, because it was still early on in the programme. We found that to be a timely engagement and that there was a very positive ethos in the organisations. All participants reported to us that they found it a very welcoming environment to come into. They were very positive about their experience and felt supported. There was also a very wide variety of workshops available to meet various client needs. As I said, we sampled the nature of those and found that a wide range of specialist support had either been identified or implemented to meet a huge range of client needs, from addiction to physical disability, or whatever. Specialist support was either fully embedded or well on the way to being developed.

There were areas that we wanted to see further improvement in. We will always be pushing for more individualised support to meet individual client needs. On occasion, we saw a bit of a one-size-fits-all approach, but that is something that we felt important to highlight to providers so that they could embed their provision and quality to have that more tailored support for meeting individual needs.

We highlighted the fact that we want to see improvement in the PEPs. Almost all providers have very sophisticated IT systems, as Kieran referred to, and a lot of the information is being retained on them, but we felt it important that the PEP document be the one that goes home with the participants. We wanted to see clearer identification of the actions that were going to be carried out for participants and greater feedback on the impact of each action to help plan for the future activities to give each participant a feeling of how they were progressing.

The role of Kieran and his colleagues is to look at whether the providers are meeting the terms of the service guarantee that he referred to and whether they are meeting the number of hours of face-to-face engagement that they are required to do with each client. We do not want that to be just a tick-box exercise; we want to make sure that what is being done as part of the service guarantee is focused on meeting the needs of and the barriers for each individual. We do not want to see the service guarantee just being met; we want to see the quality of what is being delivered as part of that guarantee being very focused on individual need.

After that first round, the lead contractors were asked to submit an improvement plan for how they would take forward the main findings that we left with them. We have received those improvement plans, which form the basis of phase 2 of our next round of quality evaluations, which commenced this week. We have a team out again with another provider for a more in-depth evaluation. As I said, the supply chain was part of the focus of the first round, but this is a much longer activity that we are embarking on with each lead contractor, and all members of the supply chain will be visited. It will be more in-depth, and the big focus this time will be on progression.

Internally, we have worked out a methodology for how we will monitor progression for individuals, and we have shared with the lead contractors that that is a big focus now. For some individuals, progression may be rapid, depending on the nature of the barriers that they present with. For others, progression may be more incremental, but we want to see positive progression, not just workshops for the sake of meeting the service guarantee but workshops, or other interventions, that are focused on individual need.

At the end of that round of activities, which will take a considerable time, the findings will be shared with the contractors. We work very closely with our departmental colleagues, keeping contract and programme management very informed at all stages of the work. Towards the end of the year, we hope to publish a report on each and to grade the provision.

Mr B McCann: I hope that that reassures members that the contract and quality arrangements in the Department are robust and that it offers an indication of the work already carried out. I am happy to take any questions that Committee members may have.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Thanks, Brendan. I do not wish to sound critical about your presentation. It concerned the process. However, there was not a lot of hard evidence to suggest to me that the programme has been a success, or has been working, in the six months that it has been up and running. I understand the processes that you have been using and the visits that you have made. I understand what you are measuring, but I see from a slide that you are clearly falling well below your target numbers for your Steps 2 Work referral flow. Figures in the presentation show that the gap between your cumulative forecast and cumulative actuals is getting larger. Your presentation did not resolve or even address that. Angela said that your key findings on strengths and improvement were at a high level. I hoped to see a bit more detail about where the project is at and what we are doing to address the concerns. You may want to answer some of those queries.

Mr B McCann: We had pointed out to the Committee that it takes time to gather the information for the statistics and performance indicators, particularly those on job entry and job sustainment. The first cohort that joined the programme in 2014 will not come off it until October 2015. We will not have published statistics from NISRA on the number of leavers finding work until spring of 2016.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Has no one entered a job yet?

Mr B McCann: We know from providers, but we must treat their information with caution. We can use it as indicative information, but the Department cannot publish it or refer to it, because it has not been validated by our formal processes, which are carried out by NISRA. I am happy to share with you the management information that is available. I am happy to write to you with that information, but the caveat must be applied that it has not been validated by the Department. We have to wait until the statistics come from NISRA before we can say with certainty what is happening with job entries.

That is not unusual with an employment programme. Steps to Work went live in September 2008, and the first statistical bulletin on it was published by NISRA in September 2010. It takes some time for statisticians to get the data, collate it and make sure that it is clean and reliable. Unfortunately, we have to live with that. We cannot —

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Brendan, you will be aware that this process has been in front of the Committee before. We wanted reassurance that it was working and that numbers were coming through. I do not think that any member is holding you to providing clean statistical data that has been through the entire NISRA process. We want indications of progress. You were quite happy to present your Steps 2 Success referral flow graph, behind which there must surely be more data that could have been supplied. Those are the sorts of indicators that I would have been happy to be told about.

Mr B McCann: Do you want to see the numbers referred and attached to the programme to show performance in each contract area?

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Members want some reassurance.

Mr B McCann: OK. I am happy to share figures with you. Kieran can refer to them now, if that would be helpful, or we can send them to you. We are happy to do either.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): How much information are we talking about, Kieran? Is it something that we can go through easily?

Mr Ennis: I have three small tables in front of me. The information currently gives the number of customers that we have referred and the number that have attached to the programme.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): If you can go through that briefly, yes. To be honest, Brendan, it would have been handy to have those three small tables as part of the presentation.

Mr B McCann: Noted, Chair.

Mr Ennis: I did them only this morning. I apply a caveat to some of the figures, as, I have to say, they change every day. People are referred every day and people are attached every day. This is the indicative management information that we get from the Department's systems. We are showing that, at 30 April, there were 22,861 individuals referred to the programme and 18,790 attached to the programme. I can break that down by contractor, if you want.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Is that much different from your pie chart?

Mr Ennis: The pie chart is up until 20 April.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): There is probably not a big percentage difference.

Mr Ennis: There is not a major difference. Look at Reed, for example, where there were 6,254 referrals. At 30 April, Reed had 6,376. I also have information for the lots. Lot 1 is the greater Belfast area, where the lead contractor is Ingeus. At 30 April, it had 8,729 referrals, and 6,297 were attached to the programme. At 30 April, EOS, which is region 2 — the north of the Province — had 7,756 referrals and 6,743 attached. Finally, Reed, which is region 3, running from Kilkeel to Enniskillen, had, as I said, 6,376 referrals at 30 April. It had 5,750 attached at that date.

The other information that I have relates to the different participant groups: the JSA 18 to 24 age group; the JSA 25-plus age group; the early entries; and the voluntaries.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): It was to get some indication of the number referrals against the number of attachments. Ingeus is the one for which there is probably the biggest difference, with 1,500 unattached. Where are they in the system at the minute?

Mr B McCann: Some of those individuals will be receiving letters from Ingeus to encourage them to attach. It is obviously in the contractor's interest to attach, because no attachment fee is paid until individuals are attached to the programme. They will still be coming into our jobs and benefits offices. We have put a process in place whereby people will be reminded that they are now eligible for Steps 2 Success and that they need to engage with Ingeus, and so on. Therefore, we work through a process to try to make sure that both parties encourage the individuals to attach to the programme and to get the help that they need.

The numbers are quite large, Chair. I think that it is significant that around 19,000 people have attached to the programme in its first six months. In the first six months of Steps to Work, the number attached was around 10,000. Therefore, I think that the new providers that have come in, set up their supply chain and worked with new processes have achieved something quite significant in attaching that number. I see that as a success in its own right. Others may differ.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Brendan, you may not have the figures, but how much will each of the lead organisations have been paid to date for those?

Mr B McCann: The total that has gone out by way of attachment fee is just over £10 million.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): That is pro rata across —

Mr B McCann: It is in accordance with their attachment rates. Perhaps Ingeus is not getting the income that it had hoped for because it is not attaching at the rate that it might have expected. There is a driver in the financial model for individuals to be attached.

Ms Lo: Between 3,000 and 5,000 are not attached. Do you look into the reason for that?

Mr B McCann: Yes, we do. We try to analyse whether those individuals have moved to another benefit. Sometimes, when JSA customers get a letter saying that they are now obliged to go on to a mandatory programme, either Steps to Work or Steps 2 Success, they decide that, because of health reasons, they should claim ESA rather than JSA. There is no conditionality attached to ESA, so they are not obliged to go on the programme. There will be dropouts as people move on to other benefits, decide to take a part-time job or whatever. A number of factors come into play at that point.

Ms McGahan: Thank you for your presentation. It is very high-level stuff. One of the complaints that I get from unemployed graduates in my constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone — I think that Reed looks after that — is that there are no job opportunities in the area for them. They do not need encouragement to work. They want to work, but the job opportunities are not there. How does this programme address unemployed graduates in Fermanagh and South Tyrone?

Mr B McCann: It is not a job creation programme. The programme's objective is to prepare people for work, to give them the skills to compete and to help them to identify where there may be opportunities. Work is done with individuals to identify where there are opportunities that they could avail themselves of, be that in Fermanagh and South Tyrone or elsewhere. Reed takes into account individuals' educational qualifications and their job goals.

Ms McGahan: I am very clear that it is not a job creation programme, but it is there to tackle the nub of the problem, which is to get people into work. I am saying that there are no jobs.

Mr B McCann: That makes it hard for the contractor as well. In that case, we are talking about labour mobility issues and encouraging people to think about where jobs might be available and how they could avail themselves of them.

Ms McGahan: You have not really answered my question.

My second point is about childcare for someone on the Steps 2 Success/Steps to Work programme. How is the Department addressing the issue of childcare for someone who enters your programme?

Mr B McCann: This is a non-prescriptive programme. When individuals work with the providers, their circumstances are considered, and their childcare needs and so on are assessed at the time. If it is decided that they need provision that extends to 30 hours or more, and they are full-time, they can claim for childcare provision. Childcare should not be a barrier. We hope that it is not a barrier and that it is being dealt with sympathetically by the lead contractors.

Ms McGahan: Can you provide any more information on the provision of childcare by the contractor, especially in a rural constituency such as Fermanagh and South Tyrone?

Mr B McCann: What, in particular, would you —

Ms McGahan: It is just a generic question, Brendan, because it is an issue for someone who wants to go into work.

Mr B McCann: We would have to ask the providers, but it might be helpful if you could give me an example of the type of issue that might be a barrier so that I can frame my question accordingly. I am happy to take it offline, Bronwyn.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): In your presentation, the assessment of need and barriers to work are listed as areas that require improvement. You could follow up on that directly with all your suppliers rather than Bronwyn having to give you an individual example. Bronwyn is trying to get at the situation across the programme. Is that fair enough, Bronwyn?

Ms McGahan: That is fine.

Mr Buchanan: Your presentation states that, at the very start, when the programme went live, a number of premises were not ready. What implications did that have for the uptake of the programme and the making of referrals?

Mr Ennis: There was nothing to stop referrals being made. The only impact was a possible knock-on delay in people attaching to the programme. There were some issues with Armstrong, as I recall, which is part of the Ingeus supply chain. It had problems sourcing premises in its area. We included in the contract a requirement that the providers had to be in an area that was reasonably close to their referring office. There were challenges for some providers in getting suitable premises for the delivery of these services. Every provider has a different model and needs different office space.

The other challenge that Ingeus faced was training and the transfer of staff from Steps to Work providers to Steps 2 Success. Some members of staff did not transfer until the start date of the contract, so a training window was required. We were able to make referrals, but Ingeus was not able to start attaching people until November. However, premises were available: as soon as people needed to come in, temporary premises were made available. Then, when everyone was trained and ready to go, Ingeus was able to bring staff into the temporary premises. The knock-on impact was that the premises were, perhaps, not as big as required, so it was not able to see people as quickly as it would have liked to, but those issues have been resolved.

Mr Buchanan: You talked about a number of the key performance indicators that you use. It appears, from listening to your presentation, that, although the programme has been running for only eight months, you have been monitoring the performance indicators quite intensively. How are the providers measuring up?

Mr Ennis: I went through the key performance indicators earlier. The number one key performance indicator is job entry. We have already had a conversation about statistics and data. I do not want to dance around it, but they are getting people into jobs. The first few months of any of these relationships are always quite difficult. I see their focus now moving from attachment to job entry, and I expect to see a ramping up in job entry. Some providers are being quite innovative in how they try to get people closer to the labour market and into jobs. The real challenge that they had was attachment, and they are now moving to job entry, after which comes sustainment.

Job entry has challenges, too. For us, it is not enough for providers to get people into a job; they have to be able to evidence that by providing us with the documentation that we need to validate and assure ourselves that individuals have moved into employment and come off benefit. There is a reasonably long lag between somebody going into a job, the providers being able to evidence it and us being able to check everything that we need to check and say that it is definitely a viable job according to our contractual arrangements.

Mr Buchanan: So, you are saying that it will be some time yet before you will know whether your key performance indicators are being met.

Mr Ennis: Absolutely.

Mr Buchanan: OK. Your presentation shows the numbers for the three companies. Do you have any further breakdown? Do you know how many suffer from a learning or physical disability?

Mr Ennis: I do not have any of that information. The vast majority have been JSA customers. I will go back to the referrals: a number of customers have gone across to the programme as what is described as "early entry". I do not have a breakdown, but, if an employment service adviser identifies someone who they believe has more challenges than other people, they can choose to send them across early. I know that the providers are working with all sorts of organisations. They have people in their supply chain for specialist provision and the assessment of individuals with particular needs. We expected that the individuals in that category were most likely to be ESA customers, but no ESA work-related activity group customers have gone across. I do not have the detail of that.

Mr Buchanan: My final question is on the dropout. Some have been referred, others have attachments and others are somewhere in between. Did any drop out because of travel difficulties in rural areas?

Mr Ennis: I am not aware of any. We do a lot of compliance work on travelling expenses. There is a process in the contract for travelling expenses to be paid to customers who are involved in the programme. We enable that through the contract. The providers pay the individuals and claim that back from us. We do not see the daily detail of something like that, but I am not aware of any instances of people having difficulty engaging with the programme due to travel difficulties.

Ms Lo: I have two questions, one for Kieran and one for Angela. After six months, each provider reached a referral rate of about 30%: Reed referred 28%, Ingeus 38%; and EOS 34%. Do you expect more people to be referred in the next six months?

Mr Ennis: Absolutely. We spoke earlier about stock customers. Many were people who, when Steps to Work ended, there was nowhere to refer them to, so there was a build-up of customers who had to go on to the new programme. Other cases may have been involved as well. Every month, we have people who are on the JSA register. After a certain time, which depends on their age, if they are still on the register, they will be referred: for example, for somebody aged from 18 to 24, it will be after nine months. So, there is a natural progression depending on which category someone is in and how long they have been on the programme. This is off the top of my head, so it may not be wholly accurate, but somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 people a month will be referred through the natural flow. That is across the three contractors, and it will break down differently depending on the area. You would expect higher numbers for Ingeus and EOS, and a smaller number for Reed.

Ms Lo: There is, for the first six months, quite a gap between actual referrals and cumulative actuals.

Mr Ennis: That graph is a bit confusing. I have a good excuse: unfortunately, I did not put the slides together; I had to stand in for someone.

Ms Lo: It is a big difference: between 5,000 and 6,000.

Mr Ennis: When we were doing the procurement exercise, the three forecasts in the contract were high, middle and low. The high forecast was about 28,000 across the programme. Six months in, we are at 22,000. I honestly believe that we will be at the higher end of that forecast and may even be above it. We are making good progress and are well ahead of where we expected to be. The challenges are the volumes being referred and getting people into work. By the end of the year, we will be able to give you more definitive figures.

Mr B McCann: It must also be taken into account that the register is falling, which we factored into our high, medium and low forecasts. It has fallen slightly more than anticipated, but we are happy with the number being referred in the process. Adhering to a referral process has produced a good outcome for providers and departmental staff.

Ms Lo: Thank you. Angela, you mentioned interviewing participants. That is, as you said, a very good way of assessing the programme quality and the satisfaction of participants. What is your methodology? Do you use samples? How often do you do it? Do you go out and talk to a certain percentage of people?

Mrs Whiteside: During the first two-week evaluation, we talked to whomever we could find in the various offices. We did not have a plan or strategy for getting access to more people. Whoever was there on the day, we talked to them. We talked to as many as we could, and I can get you the number, if you are interested. During this longer evaluation, we will take a more formulaic approach, looking at customer satisfaction feedback to the providers and what they are doing when issues arise.

Ms Lo: So, they fill in a satisfaction form, which you then get.

Mrs Whiteside: We want to find out how robust their procedures are for capturing customer satisfaction, what the level of customer satisfaction is, what customers are saying and what providers are doing when there are issues.

Ms Lo: I am a little sceptical about the self-evaluation form.

Mrs Whiteside: We never abdicate to self-evaluation. At the same time, if we are to leave them with areas for improvement, we have to make sure that, in the interim between our visits, they are actually able to address those areas and monitor progress. So, they need to be able to self-evaluate, but we would never abdicate to that.

Mr Irwin: It is encouraging that so many — almost 19,000 — are already attached to the programme. You said, I think, that £10 million has already been paid to contractors. My homework could be wrong, but that is approximately £500 per person.

Mr B McCann: The attachment fee is about £480.

Mr Irwin: I was not that far out.

Mr B McCann: Your maths skills are still up to scratch.

Mr Ennis: It varies by participant group, so it depends on the volume in each of the groups that are referred.

Mr Irwin: Obviously, contractors are paid according to delivery.

Mr B McCann: They are paid a fee when a person attaches. The next payment is when that person gets a job. After that, it will depend on how long a person sustains the job. The next fee for a JSA 25-plus normally kicks in at six months, then another at nine months and another at 12 months. As people progress through the programme, the pressure is on to get more and more people into work; otherwise, they will be financially challenged.

Mr Irwin: That is good. It encourages them.

Mr B McCann: Absolutely. There has been a risk transfer: if they do not get the target people into work, by our calculations they will not make money on the programme. Each of the contractors said when they appeared before the Committee that they were confident that they would be able to meet the targets, but it is a challenge, and the risk sits with them.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Brendan, when the contractors were before us, we provided each of them with a research paper and asked them for comment. None has yet replied. Will you follow that up?

Mr B McCann: I will indeed, Chair. That must have slipped through the cracks. Apologies for that. I was not aware that they had not come back to you, but we will follow that up and ask them to respond, if possible, by the end of the first week in June.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): That will be fine. Thank you. Under the heading "Next Steps" in your presentation, your last point is:

When will that be available to the Committee?

Mr B McCann: The first year ends in October, so we are probably looking at December or January for the published report. We have a review board that sits internally and looks at performance against all the key performance indicators — quality and compliance in contract management. The board will see the report first and then approve its release. The Minister will also sign it off, and I will be happy to share it with you then.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): You are happy enough to come back and present on that.

Mr B McCann: Absolutely.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Brendan and Kieran, thank you very much for your time.