Thursday 4 February 2010

No answers

The Conservative MP for North East Milton Keynes has been quite persistent lately in asking written questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about unemployment issues, with a particular focus on A4e. On 25 January he asked "how many hours of training A4e staff working on contracts let by her Department undertake annually" and was told by Jim Knight that "Staff training is an internal matter for A4E and therefore not one that the Secretary of State can offer information about, or comment on." Yesterday Mr Lancaster homed in on results, asking more or less the same question in two ways: "what percentage of people who have attended A4e meetings as part of programmes delivered under contract to her Department have found work within six months since the inception of those contracts in (a) England and (b) Milton Keynes?" and "how many people who have attended A4e meetings in Milton Keynes as part of programmes delivered under contract to her Department have found work within six months since the inception of those contracts?" Reasonable questions, one might think. But he got the same answer from Jim Knight to both: "This information is not available in the format requested." One hopes that Mr Lancaster is not satisfied with this non-answer.

2 comments:

  1. All credit to Mark Lancaster MP for his persistance. It really is outrageous that Jim Knight is unable to answer his questions especially where they concern his constituency.

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  2. It is telling that Jim Knight kept saying that training is a matter for A4e. As A4e and other 'training' providers are private companie, he has a point. However, A4e does not earn a living like other companies such as Ford, Nissan, Tesco, Asda or Virgin. It gets monies from you and I, who pay taxes of various kinds.

    Look at the bank bailouts. The public and politians demand to know what bonuses are being paid from those banks in reciept of public cash to their executives. Why should A4e and others be any different when it comes to scrutinising the scope and quality of their training???

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