A4e - a company that makes its money from government contracts

In 2008 I set up a website to keep watch on the Sheffield-based company A4e. On 14 July 2009 they got it banned as "defamatory". To them, the truth is too uncomfortable. But truth is not so easily suppressed.

A4e is one company among many which has made huge profits from the contracting out of public services. Some, like Capita, have concentrated on "back-office" services which involve systems more than people. A4e, however, has made its money from contracts which deal directly with people - the poorest people in the country. That's not how they put it, of course. They are "improving people's lives". That claim must be examined. They say that they're about "public service reform". You can read all this rubbish on their own website. The Labour government has continued the work that the Conservatives began of outsourcing public services, enabling them to sack civil servants and "reduce the size of the state". This has brought no benefit to the public, and it has transferred taxpayers' money, in vast quantities, into private hands. In A4e's case, this means the hands of one person, who has become a very wealthy woman. Money intended to provide services to the those most in need goes instead into the bank account of Emma Harrison. This is now considered normal. We challenge that.

WHO THEY ARE

Emma Harrison is the Chairman and founder of the company. The Executive Chairman isMark Lovell - "An entrepreneur and business leader focused on high growth business strategy in public service markets, Mark has led the strategy for the growth of A4e Ltd from start up to a £100m business over the last 16 years." - so says A4e's website. Bob Martin is the Group CEO; he was recruited from Capita, the largest company benefitting from government contracts. Rob Murdoch is responsible for managing the competitive tendering and business development arm of the business. He has worked in the education and training sectors, as well as the finance and equity markets, and recently went to Istanbul to push A4e's business. The Sales Director is Rod Newey. He went from running a business to running the Merseyside TEC. He headed A4e's Business Link involvement, and now leads the push into the international market.

A4e's staff, certainly at the lower levels, are paid poorly in comparison to public sector workers. Many are temporary staff or on short term contracts, are minimally qualified. This is inevitable but goes some way to explaining the poor service which many clients experience.

FRAUD

2009 brought plenty of bad publicity for A4e with a Radio 5 Live piece on its welfare-to-work programmes, then an Observer article on fraud investigations and a Channel 4 news piece which backed up the charges.

From The Telegraph 9 September 2008 "The latest register of members' interests shows that the former home secretary's incomings over the past year or so were boosted by a £30,000-a-year salary from a Sheffield-based international training and support services company called A4e. This is supplemented by the £50,000 he receives each year from the Sun newspaper, £30,000 from a Texas-based security company called Entrudler he had with Kimberly Quinn, the former publisher of The Spectator. Blunkett, 61, the MP for Sheffield Brightside, has garnered some useful headlines for his new employers A4e with the Star newspaper in his constituency reporting in January: "A4e's free legal line wins Blunkett's approval". That was shortly before Blunkett took a job with the company."

This came as no surprise to anyone who had followed A4e's fortunes from the early days, and who suspected that there was a friend in high places who was instrumental in securing all those contracts. But it does raise questions about how an MP can be employed by a company which has government contracts.