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The National Audit Office has today reported that employment programmes are making a difference for those who take part. More people are in work than before, and the New Deal have been successful in helping participants into work. However more needs to be done to reach out to the most disadvantaged, particularly people living in the three million workless households in the UK.

The Department for Work and Pensions provides a wide range of support to help people into work, and the difference between the employment rate of many disadvantaged groups and the overall employment rate has reduced.

For example, the employment rate of lone parents has increased from 38 per cent in 1993 to 56.5 per cent in 2006, although it still falls short of the overall employment rate. Programmes such as the New Deal have been one factor behind the improvements, and evidence shows that they help people who take part in them.

However, while more people are in work than ever before, there are still more than 4.2 million working age adults and 1.7 million children living in households where nobody works. Internationally the United Kingdom has one of the highest rates of people living in workless housholds.

Over the last 10 years, the total number of workless households has reduced, but the bulk of this reduction has occurred in the households where someone is actively seeking work. Today, eighty per cent of workless households have no-one who is actively seeking work, and many have been on benefits for a long time.

Many people from workless households do not take part in employment programmes and much more needs to be done to increase participation. Better outreach, improved use of community-based services, and better understanding of how wider issues within a household can deter individuals from working, are all needed to increase participation.

Many people in workless households would like to work, but face complex barriers to employment: for example they require assistance to improve skills, help with childcare, or support for managing a health problem. This means that programme flexibility is essential, but a fully personalised ‘menu’ of employment assistance is not yet available except in a limited number of programmes.

Complex household problems also mean that support from more than one agency is necessary, and this makes effective partnership working essential. Integration between Jobcentre Plus and Learning and Skills Council funded training providers is improving. Jobcentre Plus and the Learning and Skills Council are also increasing their collaboration with local partners and working with Local Strategic Partnerships.

Effective, joined-up local partnerships will be increasingly important in reducing the number of workless households.

Sir John Bourn, head of the NAO, said today:

"More people are in work than ever before, and the Department for Work and Pensions has developed and introduced some effective employment programmes. However, there is plenty to do: almost three million households, containing 1.7 million children, still have no one in work.

"More has to be done to reach out to these households and to increase awareness of the support available and help people to prepare for and find work."

Notes for Editors:

1. A workless household is a household that includes at least one person of working-age (men aged 16-64 and women aged 16-59), where no one in the household aged 16 or over is in employment.

2. Press notices and reports are available from the date of publication on the NAO website, which is at www.nao.org.uk . Hard copies can be obtained from The Stationery Office on 0845 702 3474.

3. The Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, is the head of the National Audit Office which employs some 850 staff. He and the NAO are totally independent of Government. He certifies the accounts of all Government departments and a wide range of other public sector bodies; and he has statutory authority to report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which departments and other bodies have used their resources.