Flexible New Deal is designed to be easily abused. One of these problems which have not been realised yet is all Flexible New Deal provider staff will be Employment Officers.
An Employment Officer is delegated certain Secretary of State powers. An Employment Officer is someone who signs you on (although will be given a job title around Customer Service) or an NDPA (New Deal Personal Adviser) who are employees for the Government. Up until now with exception of Pathways 2 Work, New Deal provider employees were just that. People employed in the private sector without any special powers.
Under Flexible New Deal those delivering the programmes will effectively be the same rank as someone at a Jobcentre. It kind of raises concerns why the Government outsources courses to the private sector.
At current... using this example, if you had a target of applying for 20 jobs a day and you applied for just 17 (although your jobseeker agreement states far less per week) your New Deal provider would get you exited for not actively participating. You will then get referred to a decision maker whom could only sanction you for 2 weeks. 2 week fixed sanction.
With this new system in the same situation the jobseeker would be directly referred to a decision maker by the provider (not the Jobcentre) for up to a 26 week sanction. This is not fixed sanction like New Deal, someone really could get 6 months!
EMPLOYMENT OFFICER STATUS
171. The Explanatory Memorandum (EM) to the regulations relating to Flexible New Deal explained that provider staff will be given "Employment Officer" status. Already used in the provider-led Pathways to Work areas, this status will allow providers to raise doubts with Decision Makers if a customer fails to apply for notified vacancies (subject to a variable sanction of up to 26 weeks). Before any sanction decision is taken, the customer will have the opportunity to present evidence of good cause to the Decision Maker. The EM says that Jobcentre Plus Contract Managers and local Jobcentre Plus Managers will monitor the number of sanction referrals they receive to ensure that potential issues are resolved and identified quickly and to confirm that providers are using their Employment Officer status properly and that they do not, for example, use the sanction element of JSA to stop working with customers they do not want to deal with. The Social Security Advisory Committee has raised concerns that the extension of Employment Officer status to provider staff gives significant authority to providers over customers.
172. We recommend that DWP ensure providers' staff are given sufficient training to ensure that they understand their Employment Officer status and their responsibilities within it. It is important that different providers operate the system consistently and fairly and that appropriate, standardised training will be required to facilitate this. We call on the DWP to clarify these responsibilities and their limits in connection with the use of sanctions.