Monday 12 November 2012

Sense and nonsense

We reported back in April this year that Richmond upon Thames council had put its contract for supporting and training local voluntary organisations out to tender, and the winning bid had come from the Foundation for Social Improvement.  Yes, the FSI, the creation of Emma Harrison, a registered charity with two other A4e directors on its board and based at A4e's Westminster offices.  The leader of the opposition on Richmond council was kicking up a fuss about handing contracts to a "scandal-hit organisation" rather than to the local CVS which had been doing the job satisfactorily.  20 days later we learned from the Guardian that the contract was worth £85,000 and that the council had decided to pull out because of the potential risks.  The author of the article, Patrick Butler, pointed out that the FSI had assets of only £90,000 in its latest accounts, and so it was odd that it had got the contract in the first place.  Now we have an update from something called Your Local Guardian.  The contract has been awarded to the Richmond CVS (Council for Voluntary Services) and the Richmond Adult Community College.  The piece shows how a bad reputation can follow you around.  "A4e was embroiled in scandal last month," it says, "when figures suggested it received £46m from the taxpayer last year, for its work on the Government's flagship Work Programme - despite finding long term jobs for less than 4% of its unemployed clients."
The FSI's accounts for the year ending March 2012 have not yet been received by the Charity Commission, but since 2008 it has received a total of £1,686,933, much of it from A4e, and spent a total of £1,691,561.

The government has come up with a "new" way of dealing with NEETs - those youngsters not in employment, education or training.  The Telegraph calls it an "earn or learn" plan, while the Express, in typical style, headlines it "Go to work or lose benefits".  It could involve "the creation of new-style 'traineeships' set up to prepare school leavers for jobs in relatively low-skilled industries."  Does anyone smell a new contract here?  Perhaps we should recall Labour's original New Deal scheme, back in the late 1990s, set up to training or work placements for NEETs.  That expanded into the full New Deal which was outsourced by David Blunkett in 2006.

6 comments:

  1. Maybe I am just reading the post on the Indus Delta site wrong,more voluntary sector join the WP..but at the bottom of the article it states this is incorrect?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looking at the original on the DWP site, it says that the previous figures were wrong, but I can't work out whether that changes the facts that it's now giving out. You tell me ...

      Delete
  2. My point exactly,a bit of double speak..The DWP puts the blame on the Providers,which brings into doubt if the outcome results will be accurate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Insanity!! Can we believe anything we read or what is reported? Politicians make a public statement and then refute that they did,public bodies are caught distorting the facts and it is now so common place that "We the public no longer really care"as I remember while I was stationed in Haiti the mantra was "A lot of money is made in chaos and the more misery the better" as stated Insanity!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have a question and it's something that has been bothering me for some weeks now after an interesting but uncomfortable experience in one of A4e so called training sessions. Does A4e process their prison (ex-offenders)contracts through the same offices as their Work Programme contracts?


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure, but I would think so. There is no reason to segregate ex-offenders from other people.

      Delete

Keep it clean, please. No abusive comments will be approved, so don't indulge in insults. If you wish to contact me, post a comment beginning with "not for publication".