Saturday 2 April 2011

£1.4 million a year for Emma Harrison

This is a must-read article for anyone interested in A4e. In the Guardian, Toby Helm and Daniel Boffey have been going over A4e's accounts and report that Harrison and her husband have a joint income of £1.4m from government contracts.

The writers give the incomes of Serco bosses and point out that a recent report for the government called for a fair pay code for company executives. Then they turn to A4e. "A4e's latest accounts show that Harrison, who lives with her husband in Thornbridge Hall, a 12th-century stately home in the heart of the Peak District, has an 85.5% shareholding in the Sheffield-based company. She receives a salary of £365,000 a year. On top of this, last year she and her husband received an additional £462,000 from A4e for the company's use of her home for conferences and administrative work. .Her husband received an additional £626,856 for the lease of another property to A4e." The company's "turnover hit £190,990,000 and its profit increased 80% to £6.2m in the last financial year". The accounts take an upbeat view of the "opportunities" to be had from the "pressure on public spending".
Union leaders are quoted. Understandably, they're not happy. But, "A spokesman for A4e said the £462,000 paid to Harrison and her husband for the use of Thornbridge Hall last year was part of a leasing arrangement covering several years. The spokesman added: 'Over the past 20 years Emma Harrison has grown A4e from a small, Sheffield-based training business to one of the largest social purpose companies in the UK, helping unemployed people back into work. This has been a long journey, at times involving significant personal financial risk.'"

This is a timely article. It's just a pity that it won't change anything.

7 comments:

  1. Just found this Historian. Did you see the programme? Emma and self-proclaimed political maverick Ray Lewis go head to head to prove that they know the best way to tackle a problem that's plagued governments for decades: unemployment.http://www.channel4.com/programmes/who-knows-best/4od#3129322

    She won ..... naturally!

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  2. I didn't see it, but read all about it.

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  3. Both their proteges found work helped by both Emma and Ray having contacts and being known ..... Rays protege had still to start the job that is why Emma was deemed the winner.

    As for her enormous income ..... There is a minimum wage so why not a maximum? Whether applicable to just companies and banks or across the board .....

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  4. In the Guardian.

    £1.4m-a-year welfare entrepreneur picked by Cameron to get Britons off benefits and into work

    As Emma Harrison’s company adds five new taxpayer-funded welfare contracts to its empire, unions attack ‘obscene’ public payouts.


    Emma Harrison
    Hayley Taylor

    Two reason to get out bed in the morning and immigrate.

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  5. The former government also employed Ms Harrison, let us not forget. Talk about the Blind leading the Blind!

    Can someone please clarify if these new contracts for a4e are fewer than the ones they had before and if the revenue that is about to flood into their coffers from these new contracts is greater (If so she is really taking the p)

    (As for emigrating, friends of mine, could not find work in Italy/UK so decided to go to his home country, New Zealand, where there is no Global Recession. No problem finding work. Of course Brazil is also a good place to be currently

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  6. It's a smaller share of the cake for A4e. The revenue from them is not known at this point. It depends on how many job outcomes they get in which categories. Potentially it's huge.

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  7. Has anyone seen these figures?

    [A4e]
    A declared €38,608,289 in allocated EU funds
    An estimated €59,548,832 in total EU funding

    http://eufunds.ftdata.co.uk/search.php?action=search&terms=A4E&country=&lang=en&limit=50

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