The ending of FND to make way for the Work Programme

10 June 2010

Providers were unsurprised to hear today that the government is to terminate FND1 contracts in a year's time, despite this representing less than two years of the contracts' original five year lives. Whilst this will cause some understandable edginess, this development was well trailed by the Conservatives' plans to create a new comprehensive programme – the Work Programme.

Graham Hoyle, chief executive of the Association of Learning Providers, said, “The key will be the extent to which successful FND1 contractors remain in pole position to carry on developing their support for the unemployed, something that new minister, Lord Freud, has indicated will be the case. It would certainly be hard to argue why providers who had successfully bid for FND1 were not suitable to deliver the coalition's new version, unless of course any had not been able to cope with the current opportunities".

ALP chairman, Martin Dunford, stressed, “The next year must be used wisely by the Department, not only to design the new programme in detail, but to work out exactly how providers can best deliver. This exercise must be undertaken with the influential input of providers themselves, through their representative bodies, an approach which was promised only this week by a succession of DWP presenters at their annual 'Suppliers Conference'."

The DWP is allowing for the possibility of a single commissioning point for providers which should allow them to package other support such as training. ALP first recommended the creation of a single procurement agency for the employment and skills departments, and maybe others, in a policy document dated January 2008, so naturally we will be pleased if the DWP proposal is fully realised. This will better enable providers to offer unemployed people skills training to increase their chances of securing sustainable employment.