Government has embraced the concept of personal advisers providing individually tailored advice and support to benefit claimants. Recent years have witnessed a move towards such personalised support not just in its flagship New Deals but also in the mandatory ‘work-focused interview’ regime for new claimants. In the latter, there has been a pronounced shift towards specialist advisers working with claimants of incapacity benefits while there has been no special focus on people with health problems or impairments in the mainstream New Deals. The move towards specialism is contrary to the position of the government's advisory committee for disabled people in employment and training that specialist provision labels people as different and in need of special handling (ACDET, 2001) and in opposition to the principles underpinning the EC's mainstreaming policy.

This chapter examines the research evidence to consider the case for specialist advisers. It draws on the views and experiences reported by incapacity benefits claimants and personal advisers involved in the work-focused interview process and by participants and advisers in the New Deal programmes. Views on process are insufficient evidence from which to reach conclusions on the comparative effectiveness of specialist and mainstream approaches, and thus where evidence is available the outcomes of programmes are taken into account in weighing the arguments.

Jobcentre Plus and deployment of personal advisers

Jobcentre Plus is a central plank of the government's strategy for welfare reform. It provides a single point of delivery for jobs and benefits support for people of working-age. Its formation brought together within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) the former Employment Service and the parts of the former Benefits Agency that dealt with social security benefits for people of working-age, both agencies previously having been under the auspices of separate departments. Jobcentre Plus ‘Pathfinder’ offices were established between October 2001 and January 2002 in 56 sites. The second stage of rollout began in October 2002, and national coverage will be complete by end 2006.

The central delivery feature is the work-focused interview (WFI) that intends that people making fresh claims for working-age benefits should consider work as an option. This, of course, has long been the case for unemployed claimants of Jobseeker's Allowance but in the integrated Jobcentre Plus offices new and repeat claimants of so-called inactive benefits are required to take part in a WFI with a personal adviser as a condition of receiving benefit.