So I got directed to a post on Left Foot Forward, which describes itself as “Evidence Based Blogging” to much hilarity from many commentators. The first thing I saw grabbed my attention:

Cuts of £290 million from the Future Jobs Fund, which provides paid employment for unemployed young people. The cut will mean a loss of 94,000 jobs for 18-24 year olds facing long-term unemployment.

I decided to go look at what the FJF was all about. Turns out the Government pays organisations minimum wage for apprentices (£95 a week) so that people who’ve been unemployed for 12 months who are between 18-25 years old can get a temporary job. Organisations that want a ‘free’ employee have to ‘bid’ to the Government. They don’t offer cash. Instead they make a promise about how great it’ll be for the people they take on.

The Government has decided to cut this program, describing it as ‘ineffective’. Existing commitments will be honoured but no further ‘bids’ will be taken. Left Foot Forward describes this as ‘cutting 94,000′ jobs.

I looked at who’d been winning the bids and mostly they’re quangos, charities, councils and other NGOs. In other words, it’s proven to be a very effective way for the public sector to boost their numbers without requiring additional funding. The private sector, by contrast, has shown little interest.

The costs associated with employing someone are not limited to just wages. There’s training, mentoring, software licences, uniforms, desks, chairs, equipment and everything else. For a private sector company with workers already sitting idle, this scheme is simply a drain on resources.

But what about for the people who get these temporary jobs? How does it work out for them?

I followed the ’94,000 jobs’ link and found this:

Evidence tells us that this type of demand-led labour market scheme is the most effective means to prevent long-term unemployment when vacancies are limited.

That’s quite a bold statement! So I followed the ‘evidence’ link to find out where it’s supported and found it linked to… well… Left Foot Forward again, where they write:

There is a strong evidence base to show that the Future Jobs Fund model is the best available to prevent long-term worklessness and unemployment setting in – participants in job guarantee schemes have a better chance of moving into future work.

Crikey. Getting pissed off now. But, finally, this link leads to a PDF, a report written by Professor Paul Gregg, who was New Labour’s Go To Professor for academic support for welfare reform. The report itself, rather than being an out and out academic support of the arguments put forward by the ‘Evidence Based Bloggers’, is actually rather nuanced.

In fact it begins by pointing out that across the world virtually every single attempt by Governments to pay organisations to take people on for the sheer hell of it are NOT effective, that they do not materially impact long term unemployment and worse still they actually cause people to remain on benefits longer and reduce or stop job seeking activities.

It continues, attempting to understand these failures and then reframes the debate in terms of ‘well, if you HAVE to have a scheme like this, what version of it might have the best chance of success, or, at least, the minimum chance of not making things worse?’

I quote the conclusion of the report:

The evidence base present here suggests that increasing the focus on employer engagement, job search and search support will improve the chances of success for this programme…. But will it out perform the Flexible New Deal, which only has job search and support elements? This is not easy to answer definitively but, as shown with intelligent design around securing the next step into work, there is a reasonable chance.

Ignoring the rather weasel worded references to ‘chance’ – in academic terms almost entirely fluffy, useless language that tells us nothing other than, “dunno. My guess is… maybe”. Not exactly the devastating ‘evidence’ that I was looking for, truth being told.
So in other words, when Left Foot Forward say,

Evidence tells us that this type of demand-led labour market scheme is the most effective means to prevent long-term unemployment when vacancies are limited.

They are being deceptive or wrong. The evidence does NOT say that. When they say,

There is a strong evidence base to show that the Future Jobs Fund model is the best available to prevent long-term worklessness and unemployment setting in

… they’re neglecting to mention that ‘best available’ is only by comparison to every other project of this type which, historically, have caused more harm and damage than they’ve solved. That, again, is somewhat deceptive. The ‘evidence’ they’ve linked to does not support their argument at all.
Then again, anyone especially surprised?