Introduction

The aim the Labour government's employment policy is “to ensure a higher proportion of people in work than ever before by 2010” (HM Treasury, 2003, para 4.1). For disabled people, this has been translated into a Public Service Agreement target for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of increasing over the three years from 2003 to 2006 the employment rate of people with disabilities and significantly reducing the difference between this rate and the overall employment rate. The New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) is Labour's main employment programme for people in receipt of a disability or incapacity-related benefit, and, as a member of a ‘family’ of New Deal programmes, is an important component of the government's welfare to work strategy (Stafford, 2003b). It was piloted and then in 2001 extended nationally.

This chapter discusses both the pilot and nationally extended versions of NDDP. It has three main sections. The first part briefly outlines the main features of NDDP, and the second focuses on some of the key findings that have emerged from published evaluations of NDDP. The final section concludes by arguing that a rigorous evaluation of NDDP should be welcomed by those with an interest in helping Incapacity Benefit recipients into employment.

New Deal for Disabled People: an overview

New Deal for Disabled People aims to help people claiming incapacity-related benefits move into sustained employment. For both pilot and national extension versions, participation in the programme is voluntary and is open to anyone claiming a qualifying benefit (see Table 3.1). The programme is delivered by not-for-profit, private and public sector organisations and providers have been encouraged to be innovative so “transforming the way in which the benefits system supports disabled people who want to work” (DWP, 1998, p 3)

Two variants of NDDP were piloted and operated between September 1998 and June 2001:

• • Personal Adviser Service (PAS);

• • Innovative Schemes.

In the 12 PAS pilot areas, a personal adviser assisted people claiming incapacity benefits to find and retain employment. The then Employment Service ran six of the pilots, and the remainder were operated by partnerships of private and voluntary sector organisations.