Labour Market Evidence Programme: user consultation and scoping report
This report presents local governments' evidence needs on supporting people to enter and remain in employment, and proposes evidence reviews to address these.
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DWP are commissioning a What Works Centre for Local Employment Support (WWCLES) to help inform evidence-based local employment and labour market support by regional and local government.
A preliminary research project – the Labour Market Evidence Programme (LMEP) – was commissioned to inform the WWCLES work. It consists of:
- a user consultation with future WWCLES users
- an initial set of evidence reviews based on the consultation
- a ‘lessons learned’ report (informing the future WWCLES)
This research scoping report is based on findings from the user consultation. It presents the different evidence needs of local policymakers to support local employment.
The report’s findings will inform eight subsequent evidence reviews as part of the LMEP.
Contribution to the evidence base
The existing evidence base is inaccessible and fragmented. This research will increase DWP’s understanding of user evidence needs relating to local employment support, by synthesising evidence and disseminating it in an accessible way for regional and local government users.
Research value
DWP intends to use the LMEP’s outputs to provide a handover to the WWCLES. This will help speed up the centre’s set up period by providing a research and evidence base to build upon, while making the most of the commissioning lead-in times.
Overall, the work of the LMEP, and the WWCLES more generally, has many policy implications, including:
- influencing how Mayors and local government commission, design and evaluate local employment support to ensure quality and VfM in an increasingly devolved employment support landscape
- providing evidence to DWP and HMT policy makers of value for money case for place-based and local employment support to support DWP and HMT’s decision making at spending reviews