Jobless people without a basic qualification

The Jobless people without a basic qualification audit of 2006 investigated central goverment policy to give jobless people aged 23 and over without basic qualifications better prospects of finding a job.

This Impact Assessment considers three of the recommendations we made in the original report:

1) The ministers should provide regional agencies with incentives to invest in long-term training and reintegration.

2) Long-term regional alliances need to be established in the fields of education and employment.

3) Municipalities must have more confidence in the continuity of the Work and Social Assistance Act (Wwb), and regional training centres (ROCs) must be more flexibly and more market-driven so that they can address the problems of the long-term reintegration of vulnerable groups.

We selected these three recommendations because they go to the heart of the problem: the poor organisation of the long-tem reintegration of jobless people with no qualifications by means of training and education. We found that a lot has been achieved in recent years to promote regional cooperation in the fields of education, employment and long-term reintegration. The cooperation is directed chiefly at courses that combine work and learning; less attention is paid to the sustainability of the cooperation. Courses that combine work and learning are designed for both those in work and the jobless. They are not reserved exclusively for jobless people without basic qualifications. Reaching our audit's target group calls for a targeted approach.

We recommend that the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment and the Minister of Education, Culture and Science continue to monitor the sustainability of regional cooperation, even when financial support from central government is no longer available. The Ministers should ensure that a permanent link is established between education and employment. They should become and remain directly involved in finding solutions to the problem of providing certified education to jobless people with few if any qualifications.

To determine whether the current developments are sustainable and will help solve the current problems, we will return to the Jobless people without a basic qualification audit after the close of the PLW programming period.