Current New Deal stops referrals in April 2009?

by Bungle on 29 Oct, 2008 in

In a meeting last week DWP stated that they will not be referring any new starts for our existing New Deal contract after April.

Has anyone else been informed of this?

The consequences of such a premature halt would be catastrophic on all manner of levels. There would be a 5 month hole in provision, possibly longer if DWP fails to get the new providers in place for October 2009. Surely this in untenable in the current economic climate?

Providers may be forced to make staff redundant only to have to recruit two months later if successful with FND tendering. More chaos!

by Daniel on 29 Oct, 2008

Hi Bungle,
That does sound somewhat wacky. There have been a few instances in the past where programme delivery has basically stopped for a month or two. The funding freeze a couple of years ago and the gap before New Deal started come to mind. The more cynical might suggest that making everyone redundant would be a handy way of avoiding TUPE issues, as was rumoured with the delay on ESF results last year.

All the contract information I've seen so far states that existing contracts end in September 2009. It's possible that they want to run customers through the FND Stage 3 process before they go onto FND provision, and Gateway Stage 3 just happens to be six months long. It'll be interesting to see if any other providers have heard the same.

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That does sound somewhat wacky. There have been a few instances in the past where programme delivery has basically stopped for a month or two. The funding freeze a couple of years ago and the gap before New Deal started come to mind. The more cynical might suggest that making everyone redundant would be a handy way of avoiding TUPE issues, as was rumoured with the delay on ESF results last year.
All the contract information I've seen so far states that existing contracts end in September 2009. It's possible that they want to run customers through the FND Stage 3 process before they go onto FND provision, and Gateway Stage 3 just happens to be six months long. It'll be interesting to see if any other providers have heard the same.

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by Holmwood on 31 Oct, 2008

Haven’t heard that and logically it wouldn’t chime with a growing claimant count (leave all currently registering (bankers!) to moulder for a further 6 months?), would be a political hot potato I’d have thought.

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by Daniel on 5 Nov, 2008

Update - the DWP have confirmed their transition strategy. It appears referrals will stop on Friday 26th June 2009, with contracts finishing in October as FND goes live. What will providers do for cash in the months between these two, I wonder?

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