Awareness of NDDP

Amongst members of the eligible population, participants’ and employers’ levels of awareness of NDDP partly reflect the marketing of NDDP. The three main methods adopted for increasing public awareness of NDDP were:

• national marketing;

• Job Brokers’ advertising and promotional campaigns; and

• indirect and other sources – through other organisations (such as health and social services), media reporting or friends and relatives (see also Lewis et al., 2005:31-32).

National marketing by the DWP included: direct mailshots (that included a leaflet) to eligible benefit claimants, leaflets in Jobcentre Plus, a national helpline, a website and awareness-raising and training amongst Jobcentre Plus staff. In addition, members of the eligible population living in a district with an integrated local Jobcentre Plus office had to attend a mandatory WFI, at which they should have been told about NDDP. Furthermore, around April 2002, letters were sent to people who were doing therapeutic work informing them of the introduction of the Permitted Work rules, and these letters also mentioned NDDP.12

12 _{Therapeutic work was work with limited hours and pay that people on disability} benefits could do provided they had their doctor’s approval. This was replaced by Permitted Work, for which doctor’s approval is not needed. Permitted Work is also for limited hours and pay, and in many cases is time-limited (see Dewson et al., 2005a).

Job Brokers were also expected to market their services to the eligible population. In their bids, the successful Job Brokers proposed a wide range of marketing strategies; most expected to advertise their services and use different outreach methods with marketing materials made available in different formats to suit the client group. In practice, most Job Brokers distributed promotional literature at local Jobcentre Plus offices because it was seen as a cost-effective method for marketing the programme and their services (McDonald et al., 2004:12). Some Job Brokers actively promoted their services with Jobcentre Plus staff, setting up liaison meetings and meeting staff face-to-face; some operated from within a local Jobcentre Plus office (Corden et al., 2003:22). Also seen as cost-effective and often used was distributing promotional literature at community centres and voluntary and disability organisations.

Other organisations as well as families and friends could also help raise public awareness of NDDP and of local Job Brokers (Corden et al., 2003:21). For example, some participants, particularly those with mental health conditions, had been referred or directed towards a specific Job Broker by a professional such as a community psychiatric nurse, psychiatrist, occupational therapist or social worker. Eligible population

The Survey of the Eligible Population provides a measure of the eligible population’s level of awareness of NDDP and/or local Job Brokers. Across the three waves of interviewing (around September 2002, May/June 2003 and February/March 2004) there is some consistency in overall levels of awareness (Pires et al., 2006:55) (see Figure 2.3).13 _{Overall, just over half of the eligible population were aware of NDDP} and/or local Job Brokers. However, these figures mask changes in the eligible population’s awareness of NDDP and Job Brokers. Over the three waves of survey interviewing, the eligible population’s awareness of (only) NDDP decreased (Pires et al., 2006:50), but this was countered by an increase in their awareness of local Job Brokers (Pires et al., 2006:54). This probably reflects a shift in the focus of marketing from the national level to more local Job Broker initiatives (Pires et al., 2006:55). Analysis of the three types of claimant for wave 3 suggests that those more likely to be aware of NDDP and/or Job Brokers were those with qualifications (Pires et al., 2006:50), those looking or expecting to work in the future and those who had worked five to nine years ago (Pires et al., 2006:53). Longer-term claimants with a mental health condition were less likely to be aware of a local Job Broker (Pires et al., 2006:53).

The qualitative research with participants shows that prior to coming into direct contact with the Job Broker service or registering for the programme, participants generally had relatively low levels of awareness about NDDP (Corden et al., 2003:59). Some had not heard of the programme at all, whilst others did not distinguish it from other New Deal programmes, or had not thought the programme of relevance to 13 _{Note for the longer-term recipients group, the wave 1 and wave 2 samples were} taken from the same claim period, but wave 3 uses a later claim period (see Section 1.2.2).

them because of the use of the term ‘disability’, which they typically thought only applied to people with severe physical disabilities, and not those who were just ‘sick’ or in poor health.

Figure 2.3 Awareness of NDDP and/or Job Brokers amongst eligible population 2002/04

Job Brokers staff also thought that the branding of NDDP was unfortunate and that the use of the term ‘disability’ could have deterred some people from registering on the programme (Corden et al., 2003:20-21; Lewis et al., 2005:32). Indeed, many Job Brokers used their own brand name for the service funded under NDDP, such as the name of the organisation. Moreover, some Job Broker staff believed that levels of awareness amongst the eligible population would have been higher if the national publicity campaign had been more extensive. There was a view that more national advertising and publicity would have increased take-up of the programme. However, during the last few years of the programme the Department would have been unable to increase take-up because NDDP was operating at capacity.

Employers

Research with employers who had recruited NDDP participants suggests that employers’ awareness of the programme was not widespread, although awareness of the general New Deal ‘brand’ was higher (Aston et al., 2003:42; Aston et al., 2005:55; Dewson et al., 2005b:61). In the absence of a national advertising

campaign, employers tended to first hear of NDDP through (previous) colleagues at work or, if it was a voluntary organisation or one that dealt directly with people with disabilities or a health condition, through existing contacts and networks (Aston et al., 2005:57-58). Only in a small number of cases did the latter include contacts with Job Brokers.

Employers did not necessarily know whether a recruit had participated in NDDP and/ or was receiving in-work support if it was delivered outside of the workplace or by, say, telephone (Aston et al., 2005:31). As a consequence, even employers who had recruited a programme participant might be unaware of NDDP. This is confirmed by the Survey of Employers, which was of establishments that were known to have recruited at least one participant, where half (51 per cent) of employment establishments were unaware of NDDP (Dewson et al., 2005b:61).

Multivariate analysis (logistical regression) shows that those establishments most likely to be aware of NDDP were (Dewson et al., 2005b:62-63 and 85-86):

• in the financial and business service sector (45 per cent) or the public administration, education, health and social work (64 per cent) sector (compared to the community, social and personal services sector (28 per cent));

• larger-sized organisations (for example, 88 per cent of establishments with 5,000 or more employees compared to 44 per cent for those with 1-50 employees were aware of NDDP). Such organisations are more likely to have specialist staff who are more likely to be well-informed and up-to-date on recruitment issues and so possibly aware of NDDP (Aston et al., 2005:56);

• organisations that had been involved with other government employment or training programmes (compared to those that have not).

The qualitative research also suggests that awareness of NDDP was higher in locations with a large and very active provider delivering NDDP and perhaps other disability-related programmes (Aston, et al., 2003:43); and where the Job Broker was a private organisation actively marketing the programme in the local area (Aston et al., 2005:55).

Possible reasons identified in the qualitative research for the employers’ modest levels of awareness of NDDP include (Aston et al., 2003:42-43; and Aston et al., 2005:56-57):

• Job Brokers were allowed to deliver NDDP under their own name, and did not have to refer to the programme explicitly as ‘NDDP’; although they were required to use the NDDP logo.

• NDDP was not always delivered by Job Brokers as a programme separately from other programmes. Accordingly, employers could find it difficult to identify NDDP as a programme separate from other interventions such as Work Trials and Access to Work. In addition, Job Brokers would often provide assistance apparently funded from their own resources, that is, not obviously drawing on any particular programme at all.

• There had been little or no overt employer-focused marketing of the programme, either by government, or by individual Job Brokers. No employer referred to advertising or general publicity about the programme, although one or two said that they had read about it in the newspaper (editorial rather than advertising). • Job Brokers were more focused on participants than on employers. The typical

approach made to employers by Job Brokers was vacancy- or participant-centred, rather than programme-centred (see Section 3.3.3). Job Brokers appear to have approached employers about particular advertised vacancies on behalf of a specific participant. That the participant might or will receive support from the Job Broker was often made clear; but the source of that support was frequently not.

• To the extent that Job Brokers worked with participants who did not wish to, or did not need to, make it obvious to their employer that they had a disability or health condition, then there was no particular reason why the employer would necessarily be aware of the disability, the work of the Job Broker, or the existence of NDDP.

2.2.2 Reasons underpinning decisions about whether to register on