New Deal work plan 'cost £31,000 for each job'

A PROGRAMME launched by the Labour government aimed at helping people find work was "chronically mismanaged", costing half a billion pounds while failing jobseekers, ministers said yesterday.

The Flexible New Deal programme helped 16,200 people find work, working out at a "staggering" 31,284 per job, said employment minister Chris Grayling.

More than 500 million was spent in a year, mainly for service fees under which providers were paid for every person the government thought would go through the scheme, regardless of the outcome, he said.

Mr Grayling cancelled the contracts on taking office in June and revealed yesterday that 100m worth of service fees had been "clawed back".

He said the new Work Programme would not provide huge sums of cash upfront, while providers would only be paid on results.

"I cancelled the Flexible New Deal because it was clear it wasn't designed to meet the needs of people looking for work, but today's figures show it is even worse than I thought," said Mr Grayling.