Welfare Reform Team Evaluation of European Social Fund pilot project 2014-2015

Benefit losses for project customers – whether as a result of the benefit cap, LHA or tapers
due to other income – can be considerably more than £100 a month. In the worst case,
customers may lose nearly £300 a week LHA and only be left with entitlement to 50 pence a
week.
Weekly housing benefit losses for project customers are shown in the chart below.
• Debt, ethnicity and the type of welfare reform faced by customers all had a bearing
on whether they found a job or not.
Although a Fisher’s Exact Test of Significance indicated an association between customers’
ability to find work and debt, ethnicity and the type of welfare reform, insufficient data
meant that it was not possible to establish the direction of relationship between these
factors and a customer’s ability to move into employment. These are all important factors
that any future evaluation should consider.
A data summary and analysis is included as Appendix 5 to this evaluation.
Weekly housing benefit shortfall for ESF project customers
1
1%
1
1%
8
6%
0 2
0% 1%
25
17%
105
74%
Less than £50
£51-£100
£101-£150
£151-200
£201-£250
£251-300
£301 or more
Customer and partner questionnaires
We carried out questionnaire surveys for customers in the project and partners who
helped us to deliver the project. These are included as Appendix 6 and Appendix 2
to this evaluation respectively.
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