Active case management is the second prong of the Government’s Welfare-to-work
strategy. The first reduced direct tax levels and thresholds and provided wage
supplements through Family Credit (later Working Families Tax Credits) that
will help to ‘make work pay’. More recently, those who have had greatest
difficulty in returning to work have been the subject of various New Deal programmes.
Central to New Deal is the role of the Personal Advisor. Under a new scheme
called ONE, Personal Advisors were made available to new JSA, Income
Support and Incapacity Benefit applicants rather than those who had spent at
least six months out of work. The early stages of the ONE programme invited
new applicants to see a Personal Advisor in just four trial areas. Then a second
stage began in April 2000 and extended the scheme to eight more areas. New applicants
are now required to see their assigned PA at least once.
Each of the four first stage areas and eight second stage areas was matched to another area which did not participate in the ONE pilot schemes. Research is being carried out in all 24 areas, including:
The aim of the surveys will be to detect any effects of ONE on the rate at which new entrants to claimant unemployment seek and find new jobs.
PSI is a member of a consortium carrying out the ONE Evaluation, which is the largest research project undertaken for DSS. The other members are the Social Survey Division of the Office for National Statistics, the British Market Research Bureau and the Tavistock Institute.
Publications
Green, H. Connolly, H., Marsh A., and Bryson, A. (2001) The Longer- term Effects of Voluntary Participation in ONE, Department for Work and Pensions, Research Report Number 149