Clawing back

Chris Grayling "slams" Flexible New Deal in a piece in the Express and Star, a Midlands paper. It was "chronically mismanaged", he says. "The Flexible New Deal programme helped 16,200 people find work, working out at a “staggering” £31,284 per job, said employment minister Chris Grayling. More than £500 million was spent in a year, mainly for service fees under which providers were paid for every person the government thought would go through the scheme, regardless of the outcome, the minister said. Mr Grayling cancelled the contracts on taking office in June and revealed that £100 million worth of service fees had been “clawed back”." He goes on to insist that by paying only for outcomes the Work Programme will be completely different. Naturally, he's blaming the Labour government. But the prime contractors in the new scheme will probably be the very companies which, he says, failed so badly on FND (and on Pathways). Was it just the contracts which were wrong, or were the companies at fault? Apparently not. And what does that bit about "clawing back" £100 million in service fees mean? Have A4e and the others had to pay that money back?