Well-being and Work Trial — Group Work.

Descriptions

The Department for Work and Pensions (the department) is a major Government Department, formed in 2001 from the former Department for Social Security and parts of the Department for Education and Employment. The department has responsibility for customer delivery and policy formation on all aspects of the Government's Welfare to Work Strategy and Social Security Provision. Further information about the department can be view on our website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions The department supports government priorities through delivery of a range of services via Job-centre plus who play a major role in helping people to find employment and stay in work. It provides services based on individual customers' needs to support employment outcomes, while continuously building on performance, efficiency and value for money for the tax payer. The Government is taking a number of steps to promote well-being and work search. Research has found that claimants who struggle with their job search or work related activity include those with deteriorating health, mental health conditions or are in a post-treatment situation. Jobs II (UK version 2015) is a week-long, facilitated employment intervention. It was developed and tested in the US and shown to have positive effects on job entry, emotional functioning and well-being. The aim of this pilot is to test the performance of the Jobs II Model in the UK labour market, particularly in terms of the influence of job-seeker beliefs, job acquisition and job keeping. These findings will help inform future considerations on what types of support best assist claimants with employment and well-being needs to progress in the labour market. The department is seeking provider(s) who are able to deliver a Group Work programme Jobs II Manual (UK Version 2015). The selected provider(s) will play a critical role both in delivering the Jobs ll manual and collecting the data from participants in order to allow the department to conduct robust evaluation. We expect that the Provider(s) will deliver 3 000 participant starts on the provision over a 12 month period, with an additional month for case loading and final administration. The department expects referrals to start in December 2016. We are looking to award between 1 and 5 contracts. The pilot will cover the following 5 Work Services Directorate Job-centre Districts Avon, Severn and Thames, Durham and Tees Valley, Mercia, Merseyside and Midland Shires. A separate research organisation will be procured to collect evaluation data from participants at 6 and 12 month stages after completion of the intervention. The pilot has an overall budget of 1 100 000 GBP to be split across each of the 5 Contract Package Areas. The funding allocated to each of the Contract Package Areas will reflect the number of courses Providers will be expected to deliver, as set out in the Specification. The services required fall within Schedule 3 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the ‘Regulations’). Therefore, this procurement exercise shall be undertaken in accordance with Section 7 of the Regulations in accordance with the ‘light touch’ regime stipulated therein.