Evaluation of the Federal Programme

Background and Objectives

With the Federal Participation Act (BTHG) of 2016, funding for pilot projects to strengthen rehabilitation was included in Book IX of the Social Code (§ 11 SGB IX). On this basis, the federal programme rehapro promotes pilot projects of job centres and statutory pension insurance institutions over a period of five years. The aim is to test innovative ideas and proposals in the field of basic provision for job seekers and the statutory pension insurance to support people with complex health and psychological support needs or incipient rehabilitation needs and to further improve cooperation between actors in the field of medical and vocational rehabilitation. The innovative measures, approaches, methods and organizational models are intended to contribute in particular to strengthening the principles of "prevention before rehabilitation" and "rehabilitation before retirement" and to maintaining or restoring earning capacity as well as sustainably reducing access to the reduced earning capacity pension and integration assistance or social assistance.

The Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has commissioned a consortium led by the Institute for Work, Skills and Training (IAQ) to evaluate the federal programme. The programme evaluation focuses on the following areas:

• Comparative analysis of the approaches pursued in the pilot projects.
• Which supporting approaches in prevention, early detection, rehabilitation and post-rehabilitation support, for example, prove to be particularly effective for beneficiaries according to Book II of the Social Code or insured persons according to Book VI of the Social Code?
• Which organizational measures and forms of cooperation between the institutions of the basic income support (job centres), the institutions of the statutory pension insurance (pension insurances), and institutions of other social security systems and other actors involved are effective and appropriate?
• What possibilities exist for generalizing and sustaining the approaches tested in the pilot projects?
• What are the overall results and impacts of the federal programme?

Approach

The programme evaluation consists of several parts:

Monitoring: monitoring is used to determine which persons take part in the pilot projects and what specific benefits they receive. Monitoring is an indispensable data basis for analysing the implementation of the federal programme rehapro and for impact analysis. The ISG Institute for Social Research is in charge of monitoring.

Classification / Clustering: groups of pilot projects are formed on the basis of the project descriptions. On the one hand, this is done inductively by means of a classification of the approaches and a so-called “logic analysis” of all pilot projects. On the other hand, the targets of all pilot projects are analysed. This reveals which objectives are pursued particularly frequently and which objectives may be pursued less frequently. The classifications are carried out by the Institute for Work, Skills and Training (IAQ), the Institute for Empirical Sociology (IfeS), the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IAW) and the IGES Institute.

Organizational survey: by means of an organizational survey, the resources used, activities and organization-related results of the pilot projects, as well as the motivation for participating in the pilot project and existing experiences with the target groups are collected. This supplements the data collected in the monitoring process with important information from an organizational perspective. The information from the organizational survey is also needed for monitoring, case study selection and impact analysis. Furthermore, every two years, a survey is conducted among job centres that do not participate in the federal programme in order to systematically record differences between job centres that are involved in the programme and those that are not. The organizational survey is carried out by the SOKO Institute for Social Research and Communication.

Impact analysis: for the impact analysis, telephone interviews with participating and non-participating persons (treatment and control group) are carried out. The data collected in the process is intended to reflect the objectives of the programme at the individual level and at the same time capture important personal prerequisites and problems. With the impact analysis, quantified assessments of the effectiveness of the programme with regard to different target dimensions are to be worked out. The evaluation will be carried out separately for the various treatments identified as a result of the classification and for which sufficient case numbers are available. The SOKO Institute and the IAW are responsible for carrying out the impact analysis.

Analysis of process data: in order to accurately depict employment, the course of rehabilitation benefits or other measures and, if necessary, transition into incapacity pension, analyses of the process data of the Federal Employment Agency and the German Pension Insurance are carried out. This will be done in compliance with high data protection requirements. The IAW is responsible for analysing the process data.

Case studies: the implementation of the pilot projects will be examined in detail in about 50 case studies. The aim is to identify success factors as well as obstacles to the consolidation and generalization of effective approaches. Guideline-supported interviews and analyses of project-related documents are planned. In addition, group discussions and observations will be used. The case studies are carried out by IAQ, IfeS and IGES.

Further elements: in further modules – consolidation and networking – the partial results of the programme evaluation are brought together and presented to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the advisory board of the programme.