Internship experience during a global pandemic

By Christine Corlet Walker (Twitter @corletwalker)

SeNSS Researcher

University of Surrey, Science, Technology, and Sustainability Studies Pathway

I started my UKRU internship at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on the 17th February 2020. At the time I was expecting to be working in Caxton House in central London for the duration of my placement. Obviously, that didn’t happen. By week four I was working from home as the coronavirus accelerated and lockdown was fully enforced. This was coupled with DWP becoming one of the main government agencies fighting the impact of the virus, specifically on the employment. Ten-thousand staff were redeployed to process the nearly 2 million new universal credit claims in March and April. The team I was working in were great and, thanks to their existing spread of DWP offices across the country (inc. Sheffield, Leeds and London), adapted very quickly to remote working. We had weekly catch ups and I got to know people by voice, rather than by face.

During my time at DWP I worked on the development of a database of soft outcome measures, to support the evaluation of their intensive employment support programmes. These were particularly focused on those people who are traditionally ‘far’ from the job market; for example, those taking part in the Work and Health programme. The database included 130 measurement tools, extracted from the literature, that capture a range of outcomes, such as self-confidence, motivation, health and wellbeing, job-search ability and resilience. In addition, I undertook a literature review, compiling the evidence about the relationship between these soft outcomes and long-term employment outcomes.

Although I missed out on the ‘full’ government experience, my time in DWP gave me insight into the institutional structure and working culture of the civil service; it helped me to understand how and where research makes its way into the policy cycle; and it helped me to understand the complexity of ensuring that a juggernaut like the civil service responds in a timely and effective way during crisis. Once the office is open and operating again, I’ll be back to give a talk to the DWP Analytical Community about the database and how it can best be used.