Is it mandatory to use Health and Work Programme Provider's in-house job search engines?

The request was partially successful.

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

Some providers of the Jobcentre Plus Work Programme and other workfare schemes have used in-house job search engines such as Aptem (formerly MyWorkSearch) and Avanta Jobs. Apparently these were not mandatory and a claimant could refuse to use them without incurring a sanction.

With respect to the new Work and Health Programme starting autumn 2017:

1. Please provide the information you hold that explains if there any in-house job search engines which claimants may be asked to use on this scheme and if so what are they called and which provider uses which.

2. Please provide the information you hold that explains whether it is mandatory (in the sense of a doubt being raised against the claimant if they refuse to use them) for a claimant to use any of these in-house job search engines and if so which ones and with which provider.

3. If usage of these in-house job search engines is mandatory please supply all the information you hold that explains why they are mandatory.

4. If the in-house job search engines are not mandatory please supply all the information you hold that explains why they are not mandatory.

5. Can a provider mandate a claimant to use Universal Jobmatch (UJM) for the purpose of job searching and/or providing job search evidence with that provider:
a) where the claimant is not registered with UJM
b) where the claimant is registered with UJM
Again, please provide the information you hold that justifies your responses.

Yours faithfully,

Ron Hub

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DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

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Please see the attached reply to your Freedom of Information request
 
Yours sincerely
 
DWP Strategy Freedom of Information Team

Dear DWP Strategy Freedom of Information,

Thank you for your response.

1. Even though the specifics of the providers' in-house job search engines may not be known yet I believe you should still be able to provide information relating to my points 2, 3 and 4 as the information should not be specific to exactly which job search engine a provider may be using. Please provide that information.

2. Where you have stated:
"In respect of your request 5a, I can confirm that the current policy is WHP providers will not be
able to mandate a long term unemployed participant to create a profile and public CV in
Universal Jobmatch (UJM) where the participant had not done so already. "

Please provide the source of information that you based this reply on, as I requested.

Yours sincerely,

Ron Hub

DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request.

FoI Reference: 4375

You can expect a reply by 8th November 2017 unless we need to come back to you to clarify your request or the balance of the public interest test needs to be considered.

If you have any queries about this letter please contact us quoting the reference number above.

Yours sincerely

DWP Strategy FoI Team
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DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

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Please see the attached reply to your Internal Review 515

Please accept our apologies as we originally incorrectly labelled this as Freedom of Information request 4375

Yours sincerely
 
DWP Strategy Freedom of Information Team

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S. Gwilliam left an annotation ()

Odd that the DWP say the W&HP provider guidance is exempt from disclosure, especially since they have previously made draft versions available in reply to previous FoI's.
(I have PDF copies on my laptop that were downloaded from the Bravo portal).

Not to worry, you can find draft copies of the H&WP guidance to download yourself here:
https://mrfrankzola.wordpress.com/2017/0...