Chris Grayling has issued a written statement giving a bit more detail about the transition to the Work Programme. There are details on the Indus Delta site and on the CarleyConsult site. It contains nothing really new, but we now know that FND1 providers (Flexible New Deal phase 1) are being given 12 months' notice of the termination of their contracts. The worry now for those providers is whether they will be the preferred bidders for the new Work Programme contracts. A4e's Emma Harrison certainly gave the impression on Sunday that she expected that to be the case; and Graham Hoyle, Chief Executive of the Association of Learning Providers, has said that Freud has suggested as much, and wouldn't it be odd if they weren't, "unless of course any had not been able to cope with the current opportunities". It will be interesting to see whether a provider's record will be taken into account. No decision has apparently been made about the future of Work for your Benefit.
The new buzzword is "framework". This appears to mean that a number of selected providers will do not only the basic WP stuff but also any other work-focussed services required by other "public service commissioners". How this framework will help to include smaller organisations, except as sub-contractors, is not clear.
You make an excellent point about whether a provider's previous record will be taken into account when dishing out the new contracts.
ReplyDeleteIn the real world we all know the answer to that. Unfortunately, when it came to the Labour government, a provider's previous record didn't seem to count for anythng. Which makes you wonder why they wasted even more taxpayers money in subjecting the various jobs programs to Ofsted inspections.