Speeches by Egan.

“We see reports of armed criminal gangs operating with confidence along the northern coastline of France. My constituents ask what the French authorities are actually doing to deal with the issue. Can the Minister give an update on the ongoing discussions that he is having with his French counterparts? What will change …”

“Thank you for that reassuring answer from across the panel. I think it is important to have the background and that context. Given the timelines for it, do you know when you will start to get that data about the sustained employment aspect for disabled people and when you will be in a position to not just publish it bu…”

“Thank you. Ruth, is there anything you would like to add?”

“The Government have announced a national expansion of the WorkWell programme. There has been some caution because you do not have the full analysis from the pilots that went out. I would like to ask about the evidence and the reasoning for the national expansion.”

“Thank you. With these kinds of programmes, outcomes can vary significantly between different localities. Do you feel that the programmes you are talking about strike the right balance between having that local flexibility, but also the national oversight in making sure the outcomes are where everyone wants them to be?”

“Thank you, David and Ruth. I would like to ask you both how much choice you had in how you deliver your respective programmes and how you have learned and adapted what works best. I am conscious that you both cover large areas even in the West London Alliance. I was involved with Central London Forward. These regional …”

“Excellent. Ruth?”

“I think that is right. Whenever we get good examples, it is when people have a good relationship with the clients that they are working with. Thank you.”

“There has been difficulty recruiting and retaining work coaches. How will you get around that aspect on the work and health coach element of the programme?”

“We had a very interesting visit to Durham, as other members have referenced. As part of that, we talked to a group of people who were at pre-retirement. We touched on this in the last panel, and I would like to know your thoughts—because it was overwhelming, from the table we were on—about flexible working, bringing in…”

“Am I correct in saying that there is no intention to change it; it is always humans that will make the decision?”

“That is a very important statistic to draw on and I understand the Department is developing and testing for more machine learning models. You have said that people will have that concern in their mind about fairness so can you tell us a bit more about the learning? I appreciate you cannot talk about the mechanics of th…”

“I will move us on to Universal Credit, the advances model: where people can get their Universal Credit before the five-week wait. The impact on protected characteristics has been assessed but because of the data there is only one protected characteristic, age, that is reported. Of the four outcomes that were assessed y…”

“Thank you. To continue on the learning from the Department, I was surprised that the hit rate where fraud is detected was, our report says, 20%, which seemed high. Clearly, it is a very important area for the Department to focus on. Conversely, in 80% of the cases that get reviewed fraud is not being found. I wanted to…”

“Thank you. You started to answer some of my next question, which was focused around the targeted case reviews. The savings were £581 million; obviously, the aim is to save a lot more than that. Do you want to tell us more? You talked about ramping up that work. Can you tell us more about that and the confidence that yo…”

“Staying on the theme of fraud and error, we note that in the last financial year your target for savings was £1.7 billion but the Department delivered more than that, £2 billion. For the next year will those targets be more stretching?”

“Thank you. I have one more question, Chair. We understand the Department is working with the Home Office to access data about people leaving and entering the country. I know that when I went to my local jobcentre that is something that they were saying they really needed. HMRC recently experienced difficulties in relat…”

“Thank you very much, Chair. Becci, I will come to you first. I have a question about the Freud report, which was obviously a while back but introduced several recommendations, including something called the black-box delivery model. That promised greater innovation and efficiency for Welfare to Work services, and more …”

“Thank you, Becci. Would anyone else like to come in on that question?”

“Do you think a driver of that is because of the kind of financial rewards that came with the job brokers? For example, if you were offering more incentive to a job broker for someone who had been out of the labour market for a longer period of time or linked to a disability, that might create a different picture becaus…”