New Deal for Disabled People : survey of registrants – report of Cohort 3

The New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) was implemented nationally in July 2001. It is a voluntary programme that aims to help people on incapacity benefits move into sustained employment. NDDP is delivered by a national network of local Job Brokers comprising public, private and voluntary sector providers of varying types and levels of work-focused support and assistance. The evaluation design for the programme includes a Survey of the Registrants, which aims to obtain information on NDDP participant characteristics, their experiences of, and views on, the programme. The survey involves three cohorts, with the first two having two waves of interviewing and the third one wave. This report is of the third cohort. The survey for the third cohort entailed face-to-face Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) interviews with people who were registered between August and October 2004 as NDDP participants on the Evaluation Database. The sample was stratified by whether or not registrants were within Pathways to Work pilot areas and whether they had registered with new or existing Job Brokers. Disproportionately large numbers of those within Pathways areas and those with new brokers were sampled to allow robust analysis of these groups. The survey fieldwork was conducted between February and May 2005. After the opt-out process, and after identifying those out of scope, the field response rate was 77 per cent. The 2,531 interviews achieved represent an overall response rate of 64 per cent. Where the respondent had a partner living in their household, and the partner was available, a short interview with the partner was also conducted. If the partner was unavailable for interview it was possible for the interviewer to conduct the interview by proxy (with the respondent on behalf of the partner).