Phoebe Arslanagić-Wakefield is a Senior Policy Advisor at Impetus.
As colourful lights go up and charming Christmas markets begin trade across the UK, there’s something we do a lot of at this cheering time of year, beyond seeing old friends and consuming mulled wine: we donate more money to charity.
But once you realise you want to help, establishing which charity should receive your donation is not always straightforward. Perhaps you want to maximise the amount of good your donation can do by giving to the most effective charity, but how do you know which that is?
This eternal challenge – “How can I use my limited resources to do the most good?” – also plagues major philanthropists, charities themselves, and even the Government. In the run up to the next general election, the question of how the Government can best deploy its limited resources under darkening economic skies is particularly vital.
It is this challenge that makes the launch of the government’s brand-new Employment Data Lab service, created expressly to shine a surgical light on effective interventions and ensure that constrained resources are spent where they will have impact, so significant.
Focused purely on employment policy, the Data Lab works as follows: it compares the outcomes of people who received support via an intervention, such as a training course or career coaching, with those who did not receive that support. This benchmarking process allows the Data Lab to establish how effective that support is, questing out the impactful interventions that make a real difference and exposing those that do not – in short, it’s a boon to robust, evidence-based policymaking.
For its pilot run, the Data Lab put employment charity Resurgo’s Spear programme through its rigorous benchmarking process. Aimed at young people who are NEET – not in education, employment, or training – the six-week long Spear programme is designed to help young people move into work. Resurgo was chosen for the Data Lab pilot in part because of the high quality of data it gathers, through practices which its partner charity Impetus has supported and funded Resurgo to develop.
The Spear programme’s focus on NEET young people is much needed because the proportion of these young people in the UK has declined by a mere 0.7 per cent since 2001. Over a period that has seen seven prime ministers, why has so little progress been made in helping the 711,000 young people paying a heavy personal cost for the NEET label?
Part of the answer must be that successive Governments have struggled to identify which interventions and forms of support can make a difference. This grows more pressing as the UK officially enters recession: we know that young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are at particular risk of suffering serious, long-term damage to their employment prospects in times of economic difficulty. With individual and economic consequences that could last decades, this is something that should keep Sunak up at night.
But there was a chink of light when recently, the Data Lab released the results of its pilot. Positively, the results show that young people who undertake the Spear programme are 20 per cent more likely than those who do not to be employed a year after the programme.
Let’s put that figure into perspective. If all young people who are received support as effective as Spear, it would mean 130,000 young people moving into employment, simultaneously filling over 10 per cent of the vacancies that are so troubling British businesses.
This is faster than the rate at which the number of young people who are NEET fell during the UK’s last economic recovery post-2007. Incredibly, this makes the Spear programme better at helping these young people than economic recovery. The economic benefits, in terms of growth and that elusive phenomenon known as productivity, should also be crystal clear to Conservative politicians.
In benchmarking Resurgo’s Spear programme, the new Employment Data Lab draws policymakers’ attention to a successful intervention with the potential for replication. Much like any member of the public seeking to do the most good with their dwindling budget, the Government should pay attention to the results: young people deserve access to programmes that work and taxpayers should know that their cash is being spent on well-evidenced interventions.
Phoebe Arslanagić-Wakefield is a Senior Policy Advisor at Impetus.
As colourful lights go up and charming Christmas markets begin trade across the UK, there’s something we do a lot of at this cheering time of year, beyond seeing old friends and consuming mulled wine: we donate more money to charity.
But once you realise you want to help, establishing which charity should receive your donation is not always straightforward. Perhaps you want to maximise the amount of good your donation can do by giving to the most effective charity, but how do you know which that is?
This eternal challenge – “How can I use my limited resources to do the most good?” – also plagues major philanthropists, charities themselves, and even the Government. In the run up to the next general election, the question of how the Government can best deploy its limited resources under darkening economic skies is particularly vital.
It is this challenge that makes the launch of the government’s brand-new Employment Data Lab service, created expressly to shine a surgical light on effective interventions and ensure that constrained resources are spent where they will have impact, so significant.
Focused purely on employment policy, the Data Lab works as follows: it compares the outcomes of people who received support via an intervention, such as a training course or career coaching, with those who did not receive that support. This benchmarking process allows the Data Lab to establish how effective that support is, questing out the impactful interventions that make a real difference and exposing those that do not – in short, it’s a boon to robust, evidence-based policymaking.
For its pilot run, the Data Lab put employment charity Resurgo’s Spear programme through its rigorous benchmarking process. Aimed at young people who are NEET – not in education, employment, or training – the six-week long Spear programme is designed to help young people move into work. Resurgo was chosen for the Data Lab pilot in part because of the high quality of data it gathers, through practices which its partner charity Impetus has supported and funded Resurgo to develop.
The Spear programme’s focus on NEET young people is much needed because the proportion of these young people in the UK has declined by a mere 0.7 per cent since 2001. Over a period that has seen seven prime ministers, why has so little progress been made in helping the 711,000 young people paying a heavy personal cost for the NEET label?
Part of the answer must be that successive Governments have struggled to identify which interventions and forms of support can make a difference. This grows more pressing as the UK officially enters recession: we know that young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are at particular risk of suffering serious, long-term damage to their employment prospects in times of economic difficulty. With individual and economic consequences that could last decades, this is something that should keep Sunak up at night.
But there was a chink of light when recently, the Data Lab released the results of its pilot. Positively, the results show that young people who undertake the Spear programme are 20 per cent more likely than those who do not to be employed a year after the programme.
Let’s put that figure into perspective. If all young people who are received support as effective as Spear, it would mean 130,000 young people moving into employment, simultaneously filling over 10 per cent of the vacancies that are so troubling British businesses.
This is faster than the rate at which the number of young people who are NEET fell during the UK’s last economic recovery post-2007. Incredibly, this makes the Spear programme better at helping these young people than economic recovery. The economic benefits, in terms of growth and that elusive phenomenon known as productivity, should also be crystal clear to Conservative politicians.
In benchmarking Resurgo’s Spear programme, the new Employment Data Lab draws policymakers’ attention to a successful intervention with the potential for replication. Much like any member of the public seeking to do the most good with their dwindling budget, the Government should pay attention to the results: young people deserve access to programmes that work and taxpayers should know that their cash is being spent on well-evidenced interventions.