Administration costs for Employment Services, including Back to Work and JET 2012 and 2013 (FOI)

​​​Request

On page 38 of the report 'Social Security Department: Minister’s Report and Financial Statements 2013' (R.123/2014) presented to the States on 29 August 2014, Table 22 declares the following costs in respect of ‘Employment Services, including Back to Work and JET’:

1) 2012: £4,843,000
2) 2013: £8,168.000

A note below Table 22 describes these costs as “excluding administration”. However, on page 63 of the same report, below Table 49, which shows Departmental Administration Costs for 2012 and 2013, footnote 15 says: “Staff costs of providing the Back to Work services and Health and Safety Inspectorate are included in the delivery of those services see page 39.”

Therefore supply the total amount of administration costs for ‘Employment Services, including Back to Work and JET’ for both 2012 and 2013, identifying how much of these administration costs comprised staff costs, with, if possible, a breakdown of these administration/staff costs by individual sectors, e.g. Advance to Work, Advance Plus, Long Term Unemployment Unit, Workwise, Workzone, Employer Engagements and Incentives, Projects etc.

Response

It is first necessary to clarify that the Services section of Table 22 on page 38 of the Minister’s Report and Financial Statements 2013 does include some administration costs. The exclusion refers only to the Benefits section of the table, where the costs of administering the benefits are excluded.

The table below gives a breakdown of the expenditure on Employment Services, including Back to Work and JET.

¹Advance to Work and Advance Plus transferred from Education, Sport and Culture in September 2012 and therefore only 4 months of costs are included above for 2012.

Back to Work includes the overall management costs of the service as well as projects such as Hospitality, Jobsfest, Environmental Work Schemes and other one off projects and pilot schemes.

Employer Incentives and other grants include grants relating to Back to Work initiatives, with other Employment Services related grants being shown separately in the table.

Staff costs include all operational and service staff working in Back to Work.

Other costs include employability training and the cost of the purchase of other supplies and services, including marketing, provisions, rents and one-off building works. In addition, an administration recharge is included from other areas of the department which provide services to the whole department including Back to Work, for example contact centre and facilities.