Evaluation of the programme "Exemplary Support for Counselling Centres for the Unemployed"

Within the context of the Baden-Wuerttemberg programme "Good and Secure Employment", the Baden-Wuerttemberg Ministry of Labour and Social Order, Family, Women, and Senior Citizens has advocated twelve projects from the “Exemplary Support for Counselling Centres for the Unemployed” for counselling and assistance for the long-term unemployed who have multiple placement obstacles.

The twelve projects have different aims. On the one hand, the professional development of long-term unemployed people and their integration into either the primary labour market or into vocational training should be improved; on the other hand, high-quality counselling should help the unemployed to better understand the processes within the job centres as well as the complex matter of SGB II (Basic Social Security and Social Assistance). As a consequence, it is expected that the number of opposition proceedings and complaints will be reduced. Furthermore, the counselling centres are supposed to act as mediators between all relevant actors in the labour market and are expected to contribute to the establishment and the intensification of a local network consisting of all socio-political institutions in the region.

The Institute for Applied Economic Research (i.e. IAW) in Tübingen is commissioned to evaluate these model projects and is therefore conducting an implementation study as well as a performance analysis. The aim of the implementation study is to identify different strategies or varieties of dealing with the goals and requirements of the project. We will describe the structures in which the counselling centre is embedded and the intensity and way of cooperating with other local institutions. The performance analysis is conducted to show the degree of achieving the goals of the programme. In the light of these goals, the following aspects are considered crucial for the evaluation:

• All perspectives and interests of all the different local stakeholders (e.g. counselling centres, job centres, unemployed people, and employers) will be taken into account.
• We will conduct case studies at all twelve counselling centres to describe the complete range of implementation varieties. The goal is to derive criteria for an “ideal counselling centre”.
• The case studies will be implemented in two phases and are stretched over the whole period of evaluation to enable not only an implementation study, but also an analysis of the processes of change taking place during the project. The case studies include structured interviews with all relevant stakeholders.

Final report (in German)