Welfare Reform Bill

Perhaps I may respond to the points raised in what has been a helpful and valuable small debate on the important issues of capacity and engaging with groups. The third sector has specialist knowledge, great understanding and works with many of our customers on a routine basis. I reiterate that we believe that, in terms of the provider contract, it is right for a single organisation to be responsible for the overall delivery of the functions. That is the starting point. The documentation relating to the invitation to tender has been placed in the Library and I hope that noble Lords have been able to access it. It sets out some of the key areas that we will be addressing in that process. In particular, providers will need to give details of the qualifications and experience of their staff and they will also need to provide details of the training arrangements fornew and existing staff. So testing the capacity and experience of the organisation and its staff will play a key part. I was asked whether we are forcing out smaller providers by contracting by district, but I do not believe that we are. We acknowledge that smaller providers may not have the capacity or experience to bid for large contracts, but we have encouraged them throughout this procurement process to form consortia in order to bid. We have also encouraged larger organisations to form links with smaller or niche providers, and we have published details of interested organisations on the internet to facilitate that. So the opportunity for smaller providers to become sub-contractors to the main provider is encouraged. Obviously, it is impossible and inappropriate to be too prescriptive about this up-front, because we want flexibility in these arrangements in order to be able to address the individual needs of our customer base. I think that I dealt with the issue of training and the skills for which we are looking from providers. Capacity is an important issue, but we have already Jobcentre Plus and pathways into Jobcentre Plus in 40 per cent of the country and have proved that there are high-quality individuals out there who can and do participate in providing services under the arrangements, so we are optimistic, but it is important that we have capacity to deliver on this very important programme. We are confident that the processes and mechanisms that we have in place should enable that to happen.