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Gloucestershire Business News

Watchdog concerns over £1.9 billion Kickstart scheme

A watchdog has raised concerns about the effectiveness of the Government's hurriedly introduced Kickstart scheme aimed at giving work to young people affected by the Covid crisis.

The scheme, which started in September 2020, was designed to tackle the feared rise in youth unemployment.

But the National Audit Office says the Department for Work and Pensions has not kept adequate checks on whether the jobs would have been created anyway and were of a sufficient quality.

The DWP originally said it wanted to create 'high-quality six-month work placements' for those aged 16-24 who were on Universal Credit and deemed to be at risk of long-term unemployment. Employers were given funding to create new jobs.

The budget for Kickstart was £1.9 billion, with a cost to the taxpayer of around £7,000 per participant. That makes the initiative more than twice the cost of DWP's next most expensive support scheme.

Kickstart has also experienced a number of technical and logistical problems and attracted criticism from businesses taking part about unclear rules.

Then, as the programme got going, the economy was already reopening, which increased the risk of the Government subsidising jobs which would have been produced without intervention.

By summer 2021, the Department acknowledged it was unrealistic to achieve its initial aim of 250,000 young people starting a Kickstart job by 31st December 2021 and is now planning on the basis of up to 168,000 by the end of March 2022.

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: "At the start of the pandemic, DWP acted quickly to set up Kickstart to help young people into work when youth unemployment was predicted to rise significantly.

"However, DWP has limited assurance that Kickstart is having the positive impact intended.

"It does not know whether the jobs created are of high quality or whether they would have existed without the scheme.

"It could also do more to ensure the scheme is targeted at those who need it the most."

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