2 The role of Jobcentre Plus
11. Jobcentre Plus offices around the country
provide a range of services to help people into employment. These
offices are staffed by 9,000 personal advisers who do an impressive
job in helping their customers into work. They work in a challenging
environment which requires them to be well trained and familiar
with the diverse cultures of their customers.[17]
Although the Department for Work and Pensions is investing substantial
amounts in training personal advisers, advisers themselves do
not consider this is sufficient to help them meet the needs of
ethnic minorities. The Department provides training in a variety
of ways, including initial training on diversity, discrimination
and cultural awareness, but accepts that it could do more.[18]
12. To help ethnic minorities into employment
effectively, personal advisers also need to be aware of, and take
into account, examples of good practice. The Department is conscious
of the need to reinforce good practice and disseminate it widely,
and is continuing to refresh the material that it makes available
on its internal intranet site. Personal advisers feel, however,
that time pressures make it difficult for them to utilise fully
the information available. The Department has no plans to allow
more time for personal advisers to access the good practice material
available on its intranet.[19]
13. Personal advisers are also concerned that
they are allocated insufficient time to interview ethnic minorities,
some of whom have multiple barriers to employment and face difficulties
with the English language. The Department's own research has shown
that the ethnic minority client's relationship with personal advisers
is crucial, and there is a need for more and better personal advisers,
as well as increased access to them.
14. Ethnic minorities have a higher rate of economic
inactivity (neither in work nor seeking work) than the overall
population (32% compared with 22%). Inactivity is particularly
concentrated amongst certain ethnic groups, with nearly half of
working age Bangladeshis and Pakistanis being inactive (Figure
3).[20]
15. Outreach activities by Jobcentre Plus working
with voluntary organisations have an important role to play in
bringing the hardest to reach section of the ethnic minority community
closer to the labour market. Where appropriate outreach is not
undertaken, there is a risk of losing the relationships that Jobcentre
Plus has developed with community and voluntary sector organisations.
The Ethnic Minority Outreach initiative included activities to
reach the economically inactive, but ended in 2006. Since then,
outreach has been at the discretion of local Jobcentre Plus offices,
some of which have comprehensive programmes, while others have
done very little.[21]
This local discretion is intended by the Department for Work and
Pensions to put decision-making, resources and control into the
hands of local partnerships in key areas where there are very
high proportions of both workless and ethnic minority workless
people. This is so that they can tailor outreach programmes to
the needs of those communities. The Department acknowledges that
a number of outreach programmes have now been discontinued, but
contends that outreach activities are continuing through local
programmes, and that the relationships with voluntary and community
sector organisations remain.[22]
Figure 3: Employment and inactivity rates by ethnic group
 Note:
Inactivity rate for 'Other Black' is not available
Source: C&AG's Report, Figure 4
16. In 2006, Jobcentre Plus introduced Job Outcome
Targets, to provide a more comprehensive measure of its interventions
in moving people into work. The targets prioritise job outcomes
from those who face the greatest labour market barriers. There
are five priority groups, ranging from jobless lone parents and
disabled benefit claimants in Priority Group 1, to employed customers
in Priority Group 5. Nearly half of non-employed ethnic minorities,
however, fall into Priority Group 4 where there are only limited
incentives for Jobcentre Plus to help them into employment (Figure
4). The Department considers this to be an effective target
structure, although Jobcentre Plus personal advisers feel disincentivised
by it, because they can no longer follow the progress of their
customers and see the results of their work. In addition, it takes
Jobcentre Plus six months to provide performance data on the number
of people helped into work.[23]
The Department considers, however, that the benefit of the Job
Outcome Target over its predecessor is that it encourages personal
advisers to focus attention on people who are furthest from the
labour market.
Figure 4: Ethnic minority makeup of the five Job Outcome Target groups
Note: Percentages are of the total
ethnic minorities unemployed or economically inactive Numbers
for priority group customers are as at 2004. Since 2004 the harder
to help customers have moved from Priority Group 4 to 2. As these
groups cannot be easily quantified the Department cannot provide
updated data.
Source: C&AG's Report, Figure 19
17. Jobcentre Plus's surveys of employers indicate
that around three-quarters are broadly satisfied with the overall
performance of Jobcentre Plus. However, 45% of employers are not
satisfied with the quality of candidates provided by Jobcentre
Plus for job vacancies. The Department is now looking to move
to a different relationship with employers through the local employment
partnership initiative, forging longer-term strategic relationships
with employers, and asking employers to work with Jobcentre Plus,
particularly regarding its priority groups.[24]
18. Following a national customer satisfaction
survey in 2005, the Department commissioned a pilot survey on
the satisfaction of ethnic minority customers. This showed few
significant variations in satisfaction of ethnic minority customers
with the service received, though some gave lower performance
ratings to almost all aspects of service than their white counterparts.
Staff attitudes were the most common cause for complaint. More
recently, a new national survey showed that ethnic minorities
were more likely to have perceived an improvement in the service
provided by Jobcentre Plus.
17 Q 65; C&AG's Report, para 2 Back
18
Qq 64, 74-76; C&AG's Report, para 3.16 Back
19
Q 64; C&AG's Report, para 3.20 Back
20
C&AG's Report, para 1.11 Back
21
Q 8; C&AG's Report, para 3.5-3.6 Back
22
Qq 15, 17-18 Back
23
Q 19; C&1AG's Report, paras 3.13-3.15 Back
24
Q 60; C&AG's Report, para 3.1 Back
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