Reforming the Supported placement Scheme to Promote Career Development and Access for People with Greater Support Needs
By: Section 11. Introduction1.1 The Supported Placement Scheme (SPS), formerly the Sheltered Placement Scheme, is a scheme run by the Employment Services of the Department for Education and Employment to help people with disabilities obtain real jobs. The scheme recognises that both workers and their employers might need help and encouragement of various kinds so that the worker can be as productive as possible. Contracting organisations receive referrals from the Disability Employment Advisors and place them with host companies, and can offer a subsidy to the company to help overcome any reduced productivity they may experience. The host or the contractor may be the legal employer of the supported employee. In 1996-97 nearly 23,000 people were supported through the government's Supported Employment Programme, mainly through workshop places, but 8760 through the SPS part of the programme. This represented an average of 8191 full-time equivalent individuals in work through the scheme at any one time. The average cost to the taxpayer of an SPS place across local authority or voluntary host agencies was £4658 in 1995-96. There is, of course, a goal that as many workers as possible will graduate from the scheme, moving away from wage subsidy and into open employment. In 1996-97 only 2.4% made the move into open employment. 2. Critique of the current system2.1 With so few people achieving open employment through the SPS scheme, and with demand far outstripping current supply of places, the scheme is regarded by many, including the Employment Services 'own Disability Employment Advisors, as being static and of little practical use to them. An SPS place has fallen out of many DEA's thoughts as an option for their clients as enquiries to contractors are usually met with the response of "We're full" or,"We've run out of money". We believe that a combination of the contractual arrangement, the way contracts are managed by the contractor and how contractors are monitored by SEPACS, are major factors contributing to the stagnation of the SPS scheme. Contractual arrangements 2.2 The Supported Employment contract between the Employment Services and the contractor promotes economic disincentives which almost inevitably ensure that the scheme is permanently full but produces little throughput into open employment. While not universally true, it is common for contractors to have both a community and a workshop arm to their operation and for both elements of the scheme to be managed under a single contract. 2.3 It is legitimate for any surpluses from one element of the contract to be transferred to defray costs incurred by the second element, should the need arise. It is almost universally true that workshops within the programme operate at a loss and the community based elements generate substantial surpluses. The common response of most contractors under these circumstances has been to use surpluses from the community based operation to aid their ailing workshops, giving up opportunities to re-invest in the community programme. 2.4 The outcomes of this are obvious. Often, one or two staff are left to meet the needs of a large number of community based clients and employers, requiring quick and easy solutions to be found to problems that occur. Funds that could be used to upgrade the level of support available through the community based SPS programme are legitimately diverted at source under the contract. The quality of the community scheme and the progression of clients into open employment are compromised as a result . The underpinning of workshop deficits with surpluses from the community based arm reduces the incentive to reform the workshop into a more economically viable operation. 2.5 SPS contracts specify a particular number of clients. Returns are made to Employment Services and the amount of payment received by the contractor is based on these numbers. Should returns over the contract period show that fewer than the agreed number are placed on average, the contractor will have their funding reduced. 2.6 If all supported workers moved into open employment tomorrow,the income of the contractors would fall to zero over night; a worrying prospect for any organisation. While progression, especially into open employment, should be the ultimate measure of success for any contractor, success can be equated with loss of income, and the fear of this can lead to people who are ready to move from SPS into open employment being kept within the subsidised programme. The pressure to maintain numbers, and thus income, inside the SPS programme pervades the whole culture of the programme. 2.7 In the past, the task of assessing and profiling the client and finding an employer was that of the Disability Employment Advisor. It is arguable that this has not in reality been the case for some time, and that currently these core functions rest firmly on the shoulders of the contractor. It is also true that the contractor first receives a grant for the client on the point of entry into employment. This means that profiling and job finding, vital and sometimes very time consuming and challenging parts of the supported employment process, are not directly paid for. 2.8 If a scheme is well managed it is possible to generate surpluses to cover these activities but, as we have argued, it is probable that any such surplus will be used to cover losses in the workshop arm of the organisation. The lack of direct funding is a further disincentive to contractors getting involved in profiling and job finding for open employment. It is easier and cheaper for the contractor to concentrate on keeping the SPS programme full instead. 2.9 Although there are many budget headings on which surpluses can be used legitimately within the contract, only one is commonly used- "a) Funding extra places". Most contractors wish to try their best for clients and many have made the decision that it is good to help more people than has been contracted for. 2.10 At first glance this seems laudable. However, the outcome of this "more is better" principle is that more people become locked into the SPS programme, rather than progressing to open employment. Additional numbers provide a safety net to ensure that the programme is always full , but over subscribing also contributes to eating up any extra money that might have been used to provide additional support for progression to open employment. 2.11 The joint management of contracts can obscure the true costs of administration and the cross funding of workshop losses. SEPACs have probably unwittingly contributed to this problem, contractors perceive them as rewarding organisations which deliver over their contracted numbers by preferentially awarding them additional or redistributed places that become available. 2.12 There is a rule in the contract stating that, should a person move into open employment for more than twelve months, they cannot return onto the SPS programme. Where people have moved into the open market, it has been because of intervention from a contractor who has helped develop training programmes, job descriptions and accommodations to match their clients skills and needs. 2.13 If, in the future, the client is forced to find a new job, for whatever reason, it is highly likely that they would need the services of the contractor again. The twelve month rule seems to imply that open employment cures disability, but as we know this is not true. What is true is that most contractors would like to be recognised as caring deeply for their clients and would not wish to, in their view, expose them to risk. The twelve month rule tends to put contractors off moving clients into open employment in case they should fall into unemployment in the future, and be unable to access their help. Once again the result is to maximise the number who stay on the SPS programme and for the contracted places to remain full. Monitoring of contracts 2.14 SEPACS is responsible for monitoring contract compliance,and in our view the way this is approached can best be described as "with a light touch". Of course good faith will always necessarily be the basis upon which professionals work, but SEPACS currently seems to lack the executive powers they need in order to monitor contractors effectively. The current contract states that the contractor must produce accounts to the satisfaction of SEPACS to show how monies are spent. 2.15 SEPACS has no authority to ask for the complete funding picture of an organisation. It is, therefore, possible for some costs to be charged to the SPS budget, even though some of these may have been met from other sources. This could result in surpluses being recouped by the parent organisation, rather than being re-used for other allowable purposes that might enhance service quality and progression to open employment. 2.16 SEPACS also seems to have few powers to require evidence to be presented on productivity rates of individuals funded through SPS, upon which judgement of progression is based. It is difficult for SEPACS to judge if contractors are doing their best to progress each client to their full potential. 2.17 SEPACS seems to be primarily concerned with contractors "comingin within budget" from year to year, rather than with the overall costs of support for each individual. The yearly return does ask how long people have been on the SPS programme, but not how much it has cost to keep them there. It is possible for a client to be on the SPS programme for many years without there being any requirement to justify why they have remained there for so long. 2.18 There is again a perception among contractors that SEPACS will reward those who can make savings on a yearly basis, even if many thousands of pounds have been spent on wage support for a client who might not require it. 2.19 An additional factor is the choice available in the arrangements on whether the contractor, or the host, becomes the legal employer of the worker. The need to keep the contract up to numbers, and arguments that contractors can offer better pensions and benefits, appears to result in larger contractors such as REMPLOY and County Councils always choosing to be the legal employer. This leaves the host company with little or no legal responsibilities to the employee and can mean that the employee can be summarily dismissed as the arrangement has no more weight than a voluntary placement, the worker having no legal redress. 2.20 This arrangement can again contribute to the scheme having low throughput. The contractor will be the person's current employer, and will often find it difficult to envisage an employee moving into open employment if they themselves do not have a job for him in their organisation. 2.21 Contractors appear loath to open a discussion with the host firm about taking the worker on as their own employee, for fear that this might put the current placement arrangement at risk. Efforts to increase worker productivity rates towards the subsidy ceiling of 80% are likely to be avoided as this might again threaten the stability of the placement and put at risk full occupancy in relation to the contract. 2.22 Although contract guidance states that an agreement must be made between the contractor and the host firm, and does provide a long list of items to be included in such an agreement, quality standards and productivity targets for the job are not mentioned. 2.23 In a training regime it is impossible to judge if training has been successfully completed without such information. In these circumstances training can, and sometimes does, go on for ever. Similarly, without hard data it is impossible to judge the performance of a supported worker at any given time, and without this it is difficult to see how an appropriate level productivity subsidy can be agreed for the placement, or how subsidy costs might be tapered off over time. 2.24 The dominant form of support offered by contractors has been wage support with a bi-yearly monitoring meeting. A belief has grown that wage support is the only support available to, or desired by, employers. Since the SPS arm is generally under resourced for the reasons set out above, it usually is the only response available, resulting in little progression to open employment. 2.25 The rules surrounding SPS state that monitoring of the worker in the work place should happen at least bi-yearly, but no guidance is provided on how productivity rate should be based. Economic forces make it likely that the employer will not report progress for fear of effecting subsidies. The contractor will not wish to review productivity rates too closely for fear of losing the placement and triggering expensive profiling and job finding. The result of this is little increase in productivity rates, and again, little throughput from the scheme. 2.26 SEPACS monitoring approaches are not intrusive, and it is likely that missed opportunities for development will not be detected. SEPACS should be able to insist that information from monitoring meetings, the date they took place, hours worked, hourly pay and productivity rates, be set out in a table so that change is easy to detect. 2.27 Many of the people using the SPS programme are not the most challenging to services. DEAs have generally not referred people with the most severe learning disabilities to contractors and the full utilisation of the wage subsidy with people who have mild and moderate disabilities has meant that many others who may have a far greater requirement for long-term support never get referred and do not receive a service. 3 The way forward3.1 Despite what may seem a gloomy picture, there are many very positive aspects to the Supported Placement Scheme. In a meeting at Barrowmore Industries on the 9th June 97, which included representatives from the local PACT, SEPACS and Barrowmore Supported Employment, the following list was produced summarising what the scheme can do well, if it is run well:
3.2 Other factors influencing quality are the items of allowable expenditure in the contract. The contract states, "Contractors wishing to use surplus funds shall be allowed to do so only for the following purposes:
3.3 Far from being a bad scheme that will inevitably fail, SPS has the potential to be an excellent supported employment programme. Far from needing replacing, we believe that modifications to it scontractual and monitoring arrangements and better management from contractors could transform it. 3.4 In this paper we recommend modifications that will change the culture of SPS from "income protection" to one that seeks to implement all the positive aspects listed at the Barrowmore meeting through utilising the list of allowable spending in the contract, thereby improving the probability of progression to open employment and still providing income to contractors. No longer should success be equated with loss of income and financial threat to contractors. |
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