ESPN Thematic Report on integrated support for the long-term unemployed

Transcription

1 ESPN Thematic Report on integrated support for the long-term unemployed 2015 Tomáš Sirovátka May

2 EUROPEAN COMMISSION Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Directorate D Europe 2020: Social Policies Unit D.3 Social Protection and Activation Systems Contact: Valdis ZAGORSKIS Valdis.ZAGORSKIS@ec.europa.eu European Commission B-1049 Brussels

3 EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROPEAN SOCIAL POLICY NETWORK (ESPN) ESPN Thematic Report on integrated support for the long-term unemployed 2015 Tomáš Sirovátka 2015 Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion

4 The European Social Policy Network (ESPN) was established in July 2014 on the initiative of the European Commission to provide high-quality and timely independent information, advice, analysis and expertise on social policy issues in the European Union and neighbouring countries. The ESPN brings together into a single network the work that used to be carried out by the European Network of Independent Experts on Social Inclusion, the Network for the Analytical Support on the Socio-Economic Impact of Social Protection Reforms (ASISP) and the MISSOC (Mutual Information Systems on Social Protection) secretariat. The ESPN is managed by LISER and APPLICA, with the support of OSE - European Social Observatory. For more information on the ESPN, see: Europe Direct is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union. Freephone number (*): (*) The information given is free, as are most calls (though some operators, phone boxes or hotels may charge you). LEGAL NOTICE This document has been prepared for the European Commission, however it reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. More information on the European Union is available on the Internet ( European Union, 2015 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

5 Contents SUMMARY BENEFITS AND SERVICES SUPPORTING THE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED Income benefits for the long-term unemployed and their effectiveness Social services for the LTU Activation support for the LTU Job-search conditions in the social assistance scheme Specific measures for older people aged 45 and over COORDINATION BETWEEN SERVICES TOWARDS THE ONE-STOP SHOP APPROACH Agencies involved in providing benefits and services to the LTU One-stop shop Minimum standards, regional variation Exchange of data, information system, cooperation INDIVIDUALISED APPROACHES Individual tailored support Conditions attached to the support of the LTU and individual personal situation Individual Action Plan OVERVIEW TABLE REFERENCES

6 Summary The long-term unemployed (LTU) are not entitled to unemployment benefits instead the majority of them get social assistance (SA). While there is no evidence of major unemployment traps emerging, the effectiveness of social assistance in alleviating the risk of poverty is rather weak. There is no coordination between employment services and other social services. The LTU are entitled to Individual Action Plans (IAPs), and they must cooperate in implementing them. No other guarantees are offered to the LTU concerning participation in specific active labour market policy (ALMP) programmes or social services. The scant data available on targeting the LTU in ALMP measures show their underrepresentation in requalification programmes. Existing studies and data on the effectiveness of ALMP measures document surprisingly good results, especially in the case of disadvantaged categories of the unemployed although uncertainty remains regarding the sustainability of labour market inclusion due to methodological limitations (follow-up over time). The LTU are obliged to register as jobseekers with the public employment services (PES) i.e. local employment offices if they apply for social assistance. This also means that they have to cooperate with the PES: they must fulfil the obligations laid down in the IAPs and accept a suitable job offer, including a temporary job or a targeted employment programme. In addition, since 2006 the social assistance benefit scheme (minimum income support MIS) has included an activation element in the means testing: only 70% of income from work and only 80% of income from social insurance benefits is taken into consideration. When the PES provide ALMP measures, mediation and counselling for the (long-term) unemployed they often outsource/subcontract the measures to other actors, such as education bodies (both public and private), private job agencies and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and/or they cooperate with municipalities in creating jobs in the public sector. The experience of the effectiveness of outsourcing is mixed. The fragmentation and lack of coordination between social services and employment services provided to the LTU is a problem the individual casework approach does not work in practice. Since 2012, local employment offices have been providing employment services, unemployment benefits and social assistance benefits in fact, they represent a onestop shop. Within employment offices, there is a division of tasks: employment mediators/counsellors and social counsellors work in parallel but separately. Coordination is a problem due to case overload for this reason, an increase in staff numbers was approved and the situation is improving step by step. There are no minimum standards concerning employment services and social services for the LTU and/or social assistance recipients. An Individual Action Plan must be drawn up with every unemployed person after five months of unemployment. Since the client workload facing PES staff is high (following drastic staff reductions in ), a thorough implementation and assessment of IAPs is difficult. Beyond SA benefits, other social services are not integrated into IAPs. Some partial steps have been taken to improve the unfavourable implementation conditions, but these have proved inadequate. Among other measures, a European Social Fund (ESF) project entitled Methods of Individual and Complex Work with Clients of the Employment Office is being implemented between January 2013 and November However, it does not solve the problem of the lack of capacity among job mediators. The recommendations are as follows: to increase the front-line client-facing staff capacity; to increase the scope of ALMPs targeting the LTU; to provide the LTU with a job/programme guarantee; to implement casework with the LTU and coordination with social services; to improve job/activity incentives of the LTU; and to improve protection against poverty (possibly tied benefits). Considering such methods as profiling and early assessment is also advisable. 6

7 1 Benefits and services supporting the long-term unemployed 1.1 Income benefits for the long-term unemployed and their effectiveness Under the Employment Act (Act No. 435/2004 Coll.), the period covered by unemployment insurance (unemployment benefits) is only five months (eight months in the case of unemployed people over 50, and 11 months in the case of those older than 55). After the end of this period, those unemployed people whose household income does not reach the level of the living minimum are entitled to social assistance (SA) (minimum income support MIS) benefits of up to the level of the living minimum. As documented in OECD (2015), the replacement rates of social assistance benefits for the long-term unemployed (LTU) in 2012 were slightly above the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average. This scheme is means tested. Two main benefits are provided under the scheme: the allowance for living expenses (příspěvek na živobytí covering personal needs), and the housing supplement (doplatek na bydlení). Discretionary lump sum benefits are also possible extraordinary temporary assistance in needy cases (see Act No. 110/2006 Coll. and Act No. 111/2006 Coll.). This means that the LTU are not entitled to unemployment benefits, but only to social assistance in case of need. No administrative data exist on the coverage of the LTU by social assistance. In a research report based on analysis of primary administrative data from December 2011, Horáková et al. (2013) found that, of 98,000 households in receipt of the allowance for living expenses, 85% contained an unemployed person registered with the employment office (clearly, these were mostly LTU, since only 5% of the group received unemployment benefit). Given that, according to data from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MLSA), there were 237,000 LTU (unemployed for more than 12 months) at the end of 2014, and that at the same time there were about 162,000 people in receipt of the allowance for living expenses, we may assume that a major part of the LTU receive the social assistance/minimum income support benefit. The replacement rates of social assistance benefits (data for ) are slightly above the OECD average (see Sirovátka et al. 2015). This means that no major unemployment traps are emerging, although the incentives could be further improved. On the other hand, the effectiveness of social assistance in alleviating the risk of poverty is rather weak: 44.5% of the unemployed are at risk of poverty, compared to 8.6% in the overall population. Similarly, 34.3% of unemployed households (as defined by the OECD typology) are at risk of poverty Social services for the LTU Social services for the LTU are generally rather rare and weak, and are not well coordinated with employment services. Nevertheless, employment offices have recently started to provide the unemployed with financial and debt counselling and courses. If a household receives SA/MIS benefits, it is exempt from paying out-ofpocket fees for healthcare provision (as of January 2015, only fees per day of hospitalisation are mandatory in the country), and it may also be exempt (at the discretion of the school director) from paying enrolment fees for pre-school facilities such as kindergartens. If they have specific problems, the LTU can turn to specialist counsellors at employment offices. There are also Civic Counselling Points in municipalities, where people can go to get advice about their individual problems. Municipalities and/or the Agency for Social Inclusion run field social work programmes in some excluded localities (estimated at about 20% of them). No data exist about take-up of the above measures/services. 1 For the data, see the Czech Statistical Office and the author s own computations based on the SILC 2013 database. 7

8 The effects of social services for the LTU are not very visible. Nevertheless, social work and services, provided mostly by non-government organisations (NGOs) in excluded localities, and similarly financial (debt) counselling provided by the employment offices (see below) are necessary and useful. 1.3 Activation support for the LTU The long-term unemployed are obliged to register with the employment office and to sign an Individual Action Plan (IAP) after five months of unemployment. 2 They then have to cooperate in implementing the IAP, so all of them are covered by an IAP. No data exist about the effectiveness of IAPs. The LTU receive no guarantees of participation in specific active labour market policy (ALMP) programmes or social services. They may, however, be included in various ALMP measures, at the individual discretion of the Public Employment Service (PES) i.e. the regional and local employment offices. No set rules exist, although in Methodological Note No. 1/2014 by MLSA it is recommended that preference should be given to disadvantaged jobseekers (Úřad práce 2014b). Data on take-up of ALMPs by the LTU are not available. Some information was collected until 2011 on participants in retraining programmes, and it showed that the long-term unemployed were slightly under-represented: 31% of participants had been unemployed for more than 12 months, whereas the LTU made up 36% of the registered unemployed. Nearly 29% were people under 30 years of age, 21% were over 50, and 20% had at most primary education (ISCED 1, 2). In the unemployment register, the figures for these categories were 30%, 26% and 30%, respectively; this indicates that it is particularly the low skilled who might be better represented (data from the MLSA web portal). No data exist for the Roma. Estimates by the PES from 2012 (Vláda 2013: 91 92) put the number of unemployed Roma at 48, % of the unemployment stock (while their share of the population is 2 3%). The Roma represented 3.1% of participants in requalification, 8.2% of participants in public works, only 1.2% of participants in job creation schemes, and 3% of participants in individual regional projects financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). There is thus documentary evidence of the underrepresentation in ALMPs of the Roma, who are mostly long-term unemployed. Hora and Sirovátka (2012) used primary administrative data to show that, in 2009, the LTU (unemployed for more than one year) made up the bulk of participants in requalification (61%), public works (79%) and job creation in the private sector (51%); however, in this case the authors used the total length of unemployment, calculated as the sum of all the individual unemployment spells of a given person, as a measure. MLSA figures describing the overall effects of requalification programmes in 2011 are available. 3 The method was to take requalification programmes from the previous year into consideration (more than 32,000 cases), as well as requalification programmes from 2011 (43,500 cases). The number of participants who left the registers within a period of 12 months of requalification was then calculated. The resulting figure was 50.8%, and in the case of the LTU it was 36.3%. These findings represent relatively good outcomes. 4 Hora and Suchanec (2014) attempted to estimate the net effects of ALMP measures using the matched pairs method 5 (data from PES registers for ). Their estimates show that participants in requalification have at least a 1.3 times better 2 At the same time, they are entitled to an IAP after five months of unemployment and they can also ask for an IAP even earlier. 3 Since 2012 data have not been collected due to a temporary and unsuccessful reorganisation of the information system. 4 The outcome is likely to be even better, but it was not possible to follow a large part of the participants during the whole period of 12 months after requalification, due to the methodology. 5 This means that the unemployed with similar characteristics were compared. Unfortunately, the LTU were not included as a specific category. Instead, the analysis focused on the other disadvantaged groups, such as unskilled and disabled people, who represent the core of the LTU. 8

9 chance of leaving the register than non-participants (matched pairs); in the case of job creation measures in the private sector, their chances are six times better. Though with regard to requalification, the chances of those unemployed people with good characteristics did not improve, they were 3 4 times better among disadvantaged groups with cumulated handicaps (such as older, disabled and unskilled workers/isced levels 1 and 2). In respect of job creation schemes, the chances were about 20 times greater (or even more) when compared to other disadvantaged nonparticipants. As with other studies (Hora and Sirovátka 2012), these findings document the quite positive effects of ALMP/activation measures mainly those targeted at the more disadvantaged unemployed Job-search conditions in the social assistance scheme The LTU are obliged to register as jobseekers with the PES (local employment offices) if they apply for social assistance. This also means that they have to cooperate with the PES in terms of fulfilling the obligations set out in the IAPs and accepting a suitable job offer, including a temporary job or a targeted employment programme. Otherwise they are excluded from the register and their entitlement to SA is cut: they are only provided with the subsistence minimum, instead of the living minimum (about 30% less). Since 2006, the social assistance benefit scheme (minimum income scheme - MIS) has included an activation element: only 70% of income from work and only 80% of income from social insurance benefits are taken into consideration when assessing entitlement to SA/MIS benefits. This means that the living minimum level, to which the LTU are entitled, is higher in the case of households that have some (low) earnings or benefits from sickness insurance scheme. Another measure was tested in 2014 within the ALMP toolkit: an activating job opportunity that is, any kind of work in the private or public sector for up to 40 hours per month for a period of three months, where the pay cannot exceed half the minimum wage. In 2014, there were 1,570 participants in the measure Specific measures for older people aged 45 and over No specific measures exist. However, people over 50 represent one of the categories recommended for priority attention under ALMPs (see below). Similarly, many of the ESF-funded projects target this category. 2 Coordination between services towards the one-stop shop approach 2.1 Agencies involved in providing benefits and services to the LTU In the, the unemployed have to register at a local employment office, which is entrusted with deciding on their entitlements to unemployment benefits and with delivering them. In 2012, social assistance benefits provision also shifted from the municipalities to employment offices. From this perspective, local employment offices represent, in fact, a one-stop shop. When the PES offices provide ALMP measures, mediation and counselling for the (long-term) unemployed, they often outsource/subcontract to other actors, such as education bodies (both public and private), private job agencies and NGOs, and/or they cooperate with municipalities to create jobs in the public sector. If we consider the public works programme as an activation offer, cooperation between municipalities and NGOs is a general rule. Another activation offer is the 6 However, the methodological problem of hidden characteristics of the pairs remains unsolved, as does that of follow-up over time (in this case 18 months at most), which implies uncertainty about the sustainability of labour market inclusion. 7 For the data see the MLSA web portal. 9

10 public service programme (cooperation with municipalities or NGOs); this, however, is provided only rarely, due to poorly designed legislative conditions. Yet another measure is an activation opportunity (cooperation with employers), which was piloted as a new ALMP measure in It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of this cooperation, since no studies exist. According to employment offices, the experience is mixed regarding outsourcing. In some cases, employment office staff say that they would be able to provide better measures at a lower cost, especially in counselling for the unemployed, while in other measures cooperation is perceived as effective, especially regarding specific measures for the groups furthest from the labour market (interviews by the author with the directors and other employment office staff during 2013 and 2014, as part of another research project). There is no coordination between employment services and other social services. Fragmentation and lack of coordination between social services and the employment services provided to the LTU is a problem the individual casework approach method does not function in practice (see below). 2.2 One-stop shop Although formally local employment offices represent one-stop shops, there is a division of tasks within employment offices, just as used to be the case before the merger with social assistance. Employment mediators (and counsellors) are responsible for dealing with the agenda of unemployment benefits, job mediation and IAPs. Social counsellors are responsible for the agenda of social assistance benefits. They can easily share information with the employment mediators/counsellors (and the intensity of information exchange is increasing), but their handling of the LTU is done in parallel and separately. The advantage of this one-stop shop is that the exchange of information between employment mediators/counsellors and social counsellors is easier. On the other hand, when these agendas merged, the number of social counsellors was cut from 3,642 to 1,953 (Úřad práce 2014a), and the number has not yet fully recovered (see below). Thus, effective casework and coordination is a problem due to case overload and the resulting inadequate time available to social counsellors, in particular, for social work with their clients for this reason, an increase in staff numbers was approved (as emerges from reports by Úřad práce 2014a; 2014b; Úřad práce 2015). Nevertheless, the situation is slowly improving. Thanks to the increased staff in the social assistance agenda (600 social workers in 2014) it is also possible to make home visits to the households of social assistance recipients, in order to verify their entitlement to social benefits and their compliance with the job-search requirements. In April 2015, the government decided to increase the number of staff in the social assistance agenda by another 300 (nevertheless, it is claimed that a further 800 employees are needed) (MLSA 2015). Second, a more intensive cooperation emerged between employment mediators and social counsellors under specific ESF-funded projects such as Education of jobseekers socio-economic competencies which began in June 2012 and will run to October 2015 with the aim of improving the debt-prevention, self-presentation and communication skills of the unemployed. More than 10,000 people have been included in the project (as reported in an interview with an expert from the PES). 2.3 Minimum standards, regional variation Regional employment offices subordinated to the General Directorate of Employment Office are legal entities (14 offices in the country) that have responsibility for designing the strategy and measures of ALMP in the regions, while respecting regional and local specifics. They design the measures (the level of job subsidies, types of requalification programmes in the region) and allocate funding for ALMPs to local employment offices. Local employment offices ( contact points ) also have some discretion: they decide on how to use the specific types of measures within the given financial limits and on the participation of individual jobseekers in ALMPs. There are no minimum standards concerning the employment services and social services for the 10

11 LTU and/or social assistance recipients (such as professional standards and treatment standards in terms of the waiting time, time provided/intensity of service, quality standards, etc.) beyond the general entitlement/right to the services and benefits enshrined in legislation. In consequence, there is regional variation in services, depending mainly on caseload. In general, a heavy caseload is the main obstacle to more effective individual service/support. The situation is worst in those local employment offices where unemployment is high. Local employment offices also differ in the scope of the ALMPs offered to the unemployed. As a general rule, those offices where unemployment and long-term unemployment are higher receive a greater proportion of the resources assigned to ALMPs. 2.4 Exchange of data, information system, cooperation In fact, employment offices keep records on the LTU about both their employment and their social situation and this information can easily be shared within the employment office. In practice, information exchange between employment mediators/counsellors and social counsellors on individual cases takes place whenever it is deemed necessary. Recently, the exchange has intensified as more staff have been recruited: in particular, social counsellors recommend to employment mediators/counsellors those clients who need more intensive casework and ALMP measures. One problem is that the data on the unemployed and the data on social assistance recipients are on two distinct and separate databases. The reasons are technical and historical: the databases were originally developed at different public institutions (employment offices and the social departments of municipalities), with the social assistance database dating from much later. Plans exist to merge the databases on one information system. However, even today it is possible to match the databases (for example, for analytical purposes) by using the individual/personal identification numbers of the unemployed (social assistance recipients). Regional and local employment offices indeed have access to both databases. 3 Individualised approaches 3.1 Individual tailored support In the, neither profiling nor early assessment methods are used. However, job mediators and counsellors categorise the unemployed based on their own individual assessment. Individual support is offered at the discretion of individual job mediators and counsellors. While they are theoretically provided with enough discretion and flexibility in delivering support, there is some doubt about the extent to which proper individual tailored support is possible under the given implementation conditions/circumstances, considering the heavy workload of mediators and counsellors. The principle of individual casework in job mediation cannot be applied either because of the workload. Describing the situation before the crisis, Kalužná (2008: 22) mentions about 1,800 front-line PES staff in placement and counselling (this number has not changed much over time): this means an average caseload of between 200 (in times of low unemployment) and 300 unemployed (in times of heightened unemployment). Úřad práce (2015) reports a caseload of 329 unemployed people per mediator/counsellor (ibid.: 10) and puts the number of jobseeker-facing front-line staff at 905 mediators and 980 counsellors (ibid.: 8). This means that the situation has not improved much, compared to the situation before the crisis. 8 8 Another problem is that it is only the mediators who deal with the IAPs. This means that their workload is quite heavy if we consider the fact that about 70% of the unemployed have to be provided with an IAP (they are unemployed for more than five months) while the counsellors rather provide the specialised counselling service. 11

12 Nevertheless, under the Employment Act, an IAP is always offered after five months of unemployment (for more details see below). Also, in most ALMP measures (such as job creation in the public and private sector), employment offices try to prioritise the LTU. At the same time, vulnerable groups at risk of long-term unemployment should be given preferential treatment: specifically, paragraph 33 of the Employment Act obliges the PES to support and pay special attention to especially those who are disadvantaged due to health status, age, child care obligations and other serious circumstances. The MLSA s Methodological Note No. 1/2014 emphasises a similar approach with respect to participation in ALMP measures (Úřad práce 2014b). Furthermore, those projects funded under the ESF, where the LTU represent one of the priority target groups, allow a more complex and individualised approach to the unemployed. In particular, the unemployed are often provided with individual diagnostics and/or counselling programmes, such as motivational courses and job clubs, which have become quite common. Following these programmes, decisions are made concerning other measures, such as vocational training or subsidised jobs. All in all, the principles of individualised support are not systematically implemented, although they are theoretically available. In practice, some are being increasingly applied thanks to the ESF-funded projects. 3.2 Conditions attached to the support of the LTU and individual personal situation The conditions attached to social and activation support do not take much account of the individual personal situation. Rather, it is certain thresholds that condition the support: the length of unemployment (long-term unemployment) is the key threshold. First, Individual Action Plans, which better set out the obligations of the unemployed, are drawn up after five months of unemployment. 9 Second, the longer the spell of unemployment, the stricter are the sanctions, due to harsher legislative conditions and/or the availability of benefits. Most importantly, the definition of a suitable job (see the Employment Act, para. 20) stipulates that a job should be considered suitable if it corresponds to at least 80% of a full-time job; in the case of those who have been unemployed for more than a year, 50% of the full-time equivalent is considered appropriate. If a job is not accepted, exclusion from the register for a period of six months follows (Employment Act, para. 17). Lastly, and most importantly, incentives to work are built into the social assistance scheme and the unemployment registration conditions: entitlement to social assistance benefits strongly reflects active participation in the labour market (see above). Similarly, there is tolerance of the unemployed having temporary employment: if they have earnings of less than half the minimum wage, they can still be registered as jobseekers. 3.3 Individual Action Plan According to paragraph 33 of the Employment Act (Act No. 435/2004 Coll.), as amended, an Individual Action Plan (in the form of a contract) must be established with every unemployed person after five months of unemployment, and must be signed by the PES (local employment office). The unemployed person can request a plan even earlier. The plan typically includes steps that should lead to employment (such as job search, support in job search and/or participation in ALMPs) and the schedule for this. The unemployed individual is obliged to cooperate with the employment office in order to fulfil the tasks set out in the plan by the given deadlines. Non-compliance may lead to sanctions, such as exclusion from the register and loss of entitlement to 9 The reason being that after five months entitlement to unemployment benefit expires for most of the unemployed. 12

13 unemployment benefits (if there is such an entitlement). A new application to join the register can be submitted only after six months. Since the staffing of the PES is still not satisfactory and the workload of PES staff is heavy due to drastic staff reductions in , which have not yet been fully made up a fact that emerges from Úřad práce (2014a; 2014b) (leaving aside the fact that even before that the casework conditions were not favourable) a thorough implementation of IAPs is not an easy task. The measure of IAPs was legislated in 2008, just before the crisis, when the low unemployment rate made individual casework appear feasible. During , employment offices were also overloaded due to a collapse of the computerised administrative system after the system administrator (a private IT company) changed. Even currently, intensive casework based on IAPs is hardly possible as a general standard, although many examples of good practice exist at local employment offices. Some steps have been taken to improve these unfavourable implementation conditions. During 2014, nearly 1,300 new staff members were taken on to compensate for the previous staff reductions of about 2,000 in 2011; see Úřad práce (2014a); Sirovátka et al. (2015). Nevertheless, the great majority of these were allocated to the agenda of social or unemployment benefits, rather than mediation and counselling (Úřad práce 2015: 9). Between January 2013 and June 2015, the project Methods of Individual and Complex Work with the Clients of the Employment Office has been implemented. 10 It is currently in the final stage of piloting the proposed methods. The project has also made it possible to boost the personnel capacity of the PES by 252, of whom 204 were expected to be charged with mediation/counselling, though later on they were mostly allocated to the benefit agenda. The purpose of the project is to work directly with the clients of the PES to define the standards for the implementation of new methods of work in both a complex and an individual approach. This project will be extended to November 2015, and there are hopes that a new project will be prepared, entitled Effective employment services, which will secure some continuity for example, information centres should be established at employment offices, with 80 new information centre workers at selected employment offices. Another problem is that typically employment/activation services, as included in the IAP, are not linked to other social services. As already explained above, employment mediators/counsellors and social counsellors at the PES work in parallel, in principle, although the exchange of information is quite possible. Recent measures have aimed at deepening their cooperation. Other social services are not integrated into IAPs: the unemployed have to approach each responsible public administration body separately in order to secure such services. 10 See 13

14 4 Overview table Please put an X in the column that best represents the situation in your country Please summarise in a few words and in order of priority the 3 key gaps that need to be addressed to improve effectiveness (if only one gap just complete one column) Very good Medium Weak Gap 1 Gap 2 Gap 3 Effectiveness of benefits & services supporting the long-term unemployed Income benefits Social services X X SA provision does not sufficiently protect the LTU against poverty (possibly tied benefits supporting children, such as free meals, commuting to schools and others to be implemented) Social services are not coordinated with employment/activation services Incentives for SA recipients need to be improved public service scheme should be accompanied by financial rewards or back-to-work benefits to be provided Complex casework impossible because of heavy caseloads Activation services X Scope of ALMPs to the LTU to be increased IAPs should be supported by increased staff capacity (front-line staff) + job offer/programme guarantee for the LTU Effectiveness of coordination between employment, social assistance and social services X Casework methods to be implemented into employment and social services Principles of coordination between employment, social assistance and social services to be 14

15 established Extent of individualised support X New methods to be considered, such as profiling, early assessment More mediation and counselling capacity needed (front-line client-facing staff) Extent and variety of ALMPs to be increased in order to meet the needs of individual support 15

16 References Hora, O. and Sirovátka, T Srovnání efektů aktivní politiky zaměstnanosti v České republice v období růstu (2007) a během první fáze krize (2009) [Comparison of active employment policy effects in the in the period of growth (2007) and during the first phase of the crisis (2009)]. Praha: VÚPSV. Hora, O. and Suchanec, M Zhodnocení programů aktivní politiky zaměstnanosti realizovaných v České republice v období krize [Assessment of Active Labour Market Policy Programmes Implemented in the in the Time of the Crisis]. In: Sirovátka, T., Horáková, M. and Horák, P. (eds) Česká politika zaměstnanosti v době krize a po krizi. Brno: Masaryk University Press, Albert. Horáková, M., Jahoda, R. Kofroň, P. Sirovátka, T. and Šimíková, I Příjmová chudoba a materiální deprivace v České republice podle indikátorů EU - vývoj v důsledku krize, fiskální konsolidace a sociální reformy [Income poverty and material deprivation in the by EU indicators development as a result of the crisis, fiscal consolidation and social reforms]. Praha: VÚPSV. Kalužná, D Main Features of the Public Employment Services in the Czech Republic. Social, Employment and Migration Papers No. 74. Paris: OECD. Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MLSA) Personální posílení ÚP ČR vstupuje do druhé fáze [The boosting of employment office staff levels has entered a second phase in the ], Press release, 15 April. OECD Benefits and Wages: Tax-Benefit OECD Model. Sirovátka, T., Jahoda, R. and Malý, I ESPN Thematic Report on Social Investment -. DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission. Úřad práce 2014a. Zpráva o činnosti úřadu práce za rok 2013 [2013 Employment Office Activity Report]. Praha: Generální ředitelství Úřadu práce. Úřad práce 2014b. Zpráva o činnosti úřadu práce za první pololetí roku 2014 [Mid Employment Office Activity Report]. Praha: Generální ředitelství Úřadu práce. Úřad práce PES Capacity Questionnaire (unpublished report submitted to the Commission). Vláda Zpráva o stavu romské menšiny v České republice za rok 2012 [Report on the Situation of the Roma Minority in the in 2012]. 16

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