A fool and their money are easily parted. The problem is, it’s our money!

So, the Milburn Review is delayed. No surprise. But what is he going to say that’s so alarming? That we need to spend significantly more money?

He’s already said we spent £1 on trying to help someone into work for every £25 of benefits paid.

That’s not the scary bit.

The real problem is the fact that DWP do not measure the performance of the programmes job centres buy directly or that they refer jobseekers to.

DWP consistently refuse to publish transparent performance data, despite the National Audit Office, Public Accounts Committee and Work and Pensions Select Committee directing them to do so.

Job centres should and could be able to buy high-quality programmes, understand why it has worked, repeat it, scale it and tell other job centres but that categorically doesn’t happen.

That’s where there is huge waste but also where the solutions are, but DWP cannot bring itself to act and nobody in the entire organisation takes responsibility.

The Country Needs To Face Facts

Nothing has changed under Labour around this. Ministers were made aware before the election but have not acted. Private Office seemingly ensures nothing gets to them now, including Written Parliamentary Questions and MPs’ letters highlighting serious failings and concerns.

The quality of a lot of provision (programmes) is poor. It’s a waste of time and money and doesn’t help most people into work. Milburn has already said as much.

Job centres have some data which will show this but with some effort, could also gather significantly more.

Nobody is taking this seriously, despite the benefits bill being so out of control.

Commercials (procurement) have put the fifth person in charge of this since 2025.

To avoid Einstein’s definition of insanity you need to do something different but that means change and there are people in the corporate centre and regions, some of whom have been there for 30 to 40 years plus, who don’t want to change.

Part of that resistance is refusing to sit down with high-quality providers such as Recro, who have proven solutions which all job centres could and should be buying.

So Why Aren’t They?

Under the procurement process they have to use, DPS2 (Dynamic Purchasing System), job centres are told they cannot take track record into account as it would be against fair and open competition. This is not true, but nobody in the country has ever challenged it, except seemingly me!

That’s why we’ve got this problem and until ministers get a grip, which no minister has even attempted to do since 2009 when I founded Recro, the problems will only continue.

I’ve started asking work coaches what they have seen that works and get the reply, honestly? Nothing.

Now what Recro does, does work and I can tell you more about what we do to be so successful.

Many of our programmes get 50%, 80%, sometimes 100% into work but it seems that there are some people in DWP who have made it their business to resist solutions.

You can’t ask for more money when you’re behaving like this.

The fact that it was ever thus and nobody has attempted to sort it shows the extent of the change needed.

And nobody in their right mind would pour money into such a broken system. Or would they?

ENDS