Keeping an eye on a company whose business is government contracts.
Monday, 6 January 2014
Overdue accounts
Like a lot of people, I've been waiting for A4e's annual accounts to be published. They were due by 31 December (for the year ending March 2013) and are now, according to Companies House, overdue.
Well, if they are not filed.. then they could be fined.. and if that fine isnt paid...http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/companiesAct/ca_lateFilingPenalties.shtml What will happen if the penalty is not paid?
The penalty will be referred to collection agents. If it remains unpaid, legal action may be taken which could result in a County Court judgement or a Sheriff Court decree against your company.
I would not be at all surprised if A4e is experiencing considerable financial problems, as the accounts for 2012 showed a significant downturn compared to previous years. I've just been trying to find out if there is any recent information about them- I found one site which indicated that A4e's credit score has changed over the past 60 days, and warns of possible adverse information. I wasn't able to find out more on that particular site though because I didn't want to register to log in.
Thanks for that link, Anonymous. It's there for all to see on the page you linked to: 'The Experian credit score for A4e Ltd is 1/5, indicating it is in a very poor financial position.' Looks like A4e is indeed in serious financial trouble.
Oh dearie, dearie me! According to Emma Harrison on Channel 4 News in October 2012, she had invested £50 million ”in the success of the Work Programme” and she had even remortgaged Vulgarity Towers in order to raise this huge amount, apparently.
For some years, the filed accounts have shown that about 87% of A4E Ltd’s shares are owned by Emma Harrison.
Providing the Work Programme scheme on behalf of the govt has always been a hideously expensive, hideously risky gamble, as all observers are all too aware, especially since the scheme has proven itself to be such a hideous failure commercially, socially and politically.
I wonder whether Mrs Harrison now wants to strangle IDS & his acolytes? I would, in her shoes.
Ahhh...but does anyone here feel one bit of sympathy for Ms Harrison though? I certainly don't!
If anyone of us were to purchase share on the open market, we'd be warned that the value of shares can go down as well as up. Well, the WP providers cannot be bleating on about how the WP has shafted them financially.
Of course, A4e and co will blame the recession for lack of financial success. However, they all took a business decision on the WP and considered it viable.
"However, they all took a business decision on the WP and considered it viable". Of course in many ways recession is good for A4e as it supplies a stream of new "stock" to exploit.
Not just that but A4e were paid a lot of money to design the WP in the first place. So they were paid compensation for the cancellation of previous (FND) contracts and they were paid to make up the WP and still they make a right Horlicks of it? Not very good to lose a game where you make up the rules!
To be fair IMatt I don't think the providers had a cchoice. All previous programmes got cancelled.
It was embrace it, try and survive. Pretty spineless. But would have been risky to be the one complaining with all the competition. I cannot see any of the providers turning big profits in there welfare ddivisios. If any
Gissajob. What info/facts makes you think they were paid to design a contract they competed for. Don't you make those proposals in the bid. Surely if A4E designed it, it would unfair to others competing in the bidding rounds
I've rejected your third comment, simply because you were trying to pretend to be a different person. A4e was paid to produce a study of PbR before the WP was introduced. It then seems highly likely that all the primes had a hand in the final design.
I worked at A4e for 7 years, during which time, my colleagues and I helped many people in to full time, permanent employment. I understand that some may rejoice at the suggested downfall of this company but I am bitterly disappointed that the organisation is in decline as it represented, in Manchester, a real opportunity for many people and the contract for which I and my team were responsible returned comparitively high job entry figures. Whilst I don't attempt to deny, A4e got it wrong towards the end of New Deal and to a degree thereafter, they should still be considered as a major contributor to improved lives.
Quite frankly, Emma Harrison has only made money from delivering Government services and the money being made by the unashamed profiteers Serco and G4S, makes A4es earnings seem small by comparison. Sorry if I sound like a torch bearer but I, like many others have spent a long time helping people in to work and am sick of hearing Welfare to Work providers battered and villified for helping people achieve some of their goals and restoring dignity and self respect.
Having worked in the industry myself (not for A4e) I have a lot of sympathy with what you say. However, I lose that sympathy in your second paragraph. The only difference between A4e and the likes of Serco and G4S is one of scale. And the rewards are way out of line with the services provided, especially when a company is a "prime" and doing nothing other than taking 10% of someone else's earnings. If you comment again (and you're welcome to) would you please get yourself a pseudonym - it makes it easier for us, and stops you trying to assume different personalities.
'Helping people achieve their goals and restoring dignity and self respect'.
Isn't that A4e's company motto?!
I can only speak for myself but after two years at A4e I am no nearer to finding a job and I am now back at the Job Centre.
During my two years the help I received was minimal and amounted to no more than cv and interview skill advice.
Sure, I know people who have found work on the Work Programme but not because of A4e. They have found work through their own efforts.
When I signed up for the Work Programme I was told by the manager that they would ACTIVELY look for work on my behalf i.e. they would act as an agency. This did not happen and I was left to continue to look for work myself.
If you have intervened and directly helped someone find work then fair play. But my experience of A4e is that it has failed.
"I worked at A4e for 7 years, during which time, my colleagues and I helped many people in to full time, permanent employment." I have no doubt that this is true. However it really is irrelevant! The question you need to ask is: "Do I believe that the vacancies my clients filled would have not been filled but for my intervention?". In other words would those vacancies still exist or would someone have taken them. In a scenario where there are far more candidates than vacancies there can be only one honest answer - the vacancies would have been filled by someone. So although your intervention may have influenced which individual was successful in getting the job it really added nothing to the economy, nor reduced unemployment by a single person. You may feel good about your role. Some of your clients may feel happy with what you have done. But overall you (and the others involved in the industry) have added ZERO and cost £billions along the way.
This isn't entirely true or fair. WP advisers can encourage people to go after jobs they wouldn't have thought of, or even liaise with employers to interview their clients first.
"This isn't entirely true or fair. WP advisers can encourage people to go after jobs they wouldn't have thought of, or even liaise with employers to interview their clients first." It is both entirely true and fair. Neither of your observations addrfesses the point I am trying to make. The WP, at best, may influence which people fill a vacancy but it does not of itself create any jobs. Hence it adds nothing to the economy but costs billions. Now IF we had an economy in which demand for labour outstripped supply there would be some point to the WP in that it would aim to make previously unemployable people employable and so fill the vacancies. We don't have such an economy, nor have we enjoyed this for some time. Some say this is deliberate in order to depress wages and undermine employment rights and conditions. Be that as it may. Meanwhile the WP is an expensive irrelevance.
On that point, I agree, and I wasn't arguing. But what I, and the original commenter, were saying was that good WP advisers can influence which people get the jobs.
Work Programme (and comparable interventions) are supply-side initiatives designed to allocate jobs and lubricate the labour market. Playing devil's advocate, the effect of a good adviser may be to reallocate jobs away from people who are well suited to a particular job towards people who are less so - people who would otherwise have remained unemployed were it not for support provided (not saying this is always the case, but it's at least possible that it tends in that direction). As such, one of the questions is does the benefit to the formerly unemployed person outweigh the cost to the newly unemployed person ? It'll depend on individual circumstances, but it may. A further question would be whether it improves the position for employers, and a third would be looking at the more peripheral impact - e.g. the impact of employing people to deliver the programme, whether it improves compliance with conditionality (assuming for a second that that conditionality is fair, realistic, reasonable and so on) and if there are additional benefits like ( for example) addressing wider barriers and needs such as housing and accessing medical treatment and support.
A few months ago I was part of a small meeting with a Nobel Prize winning economist, and I raised the question of the value of supply-side labour market interventions in a job market which is highly deregulated and 'flexible'. His view was that they were largely pointless- the UK labour market doesn't suffer from much friction, and that the real solution was a more German style approach along the lines of the Hartz reforms - although of course the German economy is so structurally and culturally different to the UK that I'm unsure about how transferrable the lessons are.
Dear Anonymous7 January 2014 06:00; I do not doubt the sterling contribution and assistance you may personally have given clients throughout your tenure within A4E. You however have been let down by a dreadful and malicious system in which often the client is forced (under pain of benefit sanction) to undertake jobs or offers in totally inappropriate posts. Sometimes forced to work for nothing in voluntary sector, or forced into self-employment contracts. The sheer misery and waste of time suffered by the many vastly outways the benefit to the few! It would help your point if you could outline some cases here where people have fulfilled their ambitions. Was never offered a client-feedback form for the wasted two-years I was a client!
As Elmfield Training has worked quite a lot with A4e, I thought I'd do a search for them to compare. Sure enough, they also have a very poor credit rating: https://www.amee.com/companies/001570260-elmfield-training-ltd?src=auto&q=elmfield%20training
In November they went into admin- could this also be what's about to happen to A4e?
Historian, going by this site I've found for checking annual accounts of businesses, it would appear that A4e being behind on posting information about their accounts is normal, just check the months they are overdue by each year.
Even if it's normal for them to be a bit late filing their accounts, surely there must be problems at A4e if Experian has only given them a Credit Score of 1? I am by no means a business expert, but when individuals have a score as poor as that they have great difficulty getting loans or mortgages or making purchases which have contracts attached. If there weren't good grounds for giving them a score this low, surely A4e would want to contest it? Am I right in thinking that any self-respecting business would not be content for the world to be informed that it was in a 'very poor financial position' (as the amee website states) if this information was not true? If I am wrong about the significance of a very poor credit score, I would be interested to know the reasons for this.
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".
Well, if they are not filed.. then they could be fined.. and if that fine isnt paid...http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/companiesAct/ca_lateFilingPenalties.shtml What will happen if the penalty is not paid?
ReplyDeleteThe penalty will be referred to collection agents. If it remains unpaid, legal action may be taken which could result in a County Court judgement or a Sheriff Court decree against your company.
Naughty! I trust they'll be sanctioned.
ReplyDeleteI would not be at all surprised if A4e is experiencing considerable financial problems, as the accounts for 2012 showed a significant downturn compared to previous years. I've just been trying to find out if there is any recent information about them- I found one site which indicated that A4e's credit score has changed over the past 60 days, and warns of possible adverse information. I wasn't able to find out more on that particular site though because I didn't want to register to log in.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amee.com/companies/001471717-a4e-ltd - Credit score: Very poor.
ReplyDeletePerhaps time for the clients to give the advisers tips on claiming benefits and looking for productive, honest work.
Thanks for that link, Anonymous. It's there for all to see on the page you linked to: 'The Experian credit score for A4e Ltd is 1/5, indicating it is in a very poor financial position.' Looks like A4e is indeed in serious financial trouble.
DeleteRemember that when we do get the accounts they are only up to March 2013. So we won't know the current position until something appears in the press.
DeleteOh dearie, dearie me! According to Emma Harrison on Channel 4 News in October 2012, she had invested £50 million ”in the success of the Work Programme” and she had even remortgaged Vulgarity Towers in order to raise this huge amount, apparently.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.channel4.com/news/work-programme-figures-prove-emma-harrison-wrong
For some years, the filed accounts have shown that about 87% of A4E Ltd’s shares are owned by Emma Harrison.
Providing the Work Programme scheme on behalf of the govt has always been a hideously expensive, hideously risky gamble, as all observers are all too aware, especially since the scheme has proven itself to be such a hideous failure commercially, socially and politically.
I wonder whether Mrs Harrison now wants to strangle IDS & his acolytes? I would, in her shoes.
Ahhh...but does anyone here feel one bit of sympathy for Ms Harrison though? I certainly don't!
DeleteIf anyone of us were to purchase share on the open market, we'd be warned that the value of shares can go down as well as up. Well, the WP providers cannot be bleating on about how the WP has shafted them financially.
Of course, A4e and co will blame the recession for lack of financial success. However, they all took a business decision on the WP and considered it viable.
"However, they all took a business decision on the WP and considered it viable".
DeleteOf course in many ways recession is good for A4e as it supplies a stream of new "stock" to exploit.
Not just that but A4e were paid a lot of money to design the WP in the first place. So they were paid compensation for the cancellation of previous (FND) contracts and they were paid to make up the WP and still they make a right Horlicks of it?
Not very good to lose a game where you make up the rules!
To be fair IMatt I don't think the providers had a cchoice. All previous programmes got cancelled.
ReplyDeleteIt was embrace it, try and survive. Pretty spineless. But would have been risky to be the one complaining with all the competition. I cannot see any of the providers turning big profits in there welfare ddivisios. If any
Gissajob. What info/facts makes you think they were paid to design a contract they competed for. Don't you make those proposals in the bid. Surely if A4E designed it, it would unfair to others competing in the bidding rounds
ReplyDeleteI've rejected your third comment, simply because you were trying to pretend to be a different person.
DeleteA4e was paid to produce a study of PbR before the WP was introduced. It then seems highly likely that all the primes had a hand in the final design.
I worked at A4e for 7 years, during which time, my colleagues and I helped many people in to full time, permanent employment. I understand that some may rejoice at the suggested downfall of this company but I am bitterly disappointed that the organisation is in decline as it represented, in Manchester, a real opportunity for many people and the contract for which I and my team were responsible returned comparitively high job entry figures. Whilst I don't attempt to deny, A4e got it wrong towards the end of New Deal and to a degree thereafter, they should still be considered as a major contributor to improved lives.
ReplyDeleteQuite frankly, Emma Harrison has only made money from delivering Government services and the money being made by the unashamed profiteers Serco and G4S, makes A4es earnings seem small by comparison. Sorry if I sound like a torch bearer but I, like many others have spent a long time helping people in to work and am sick of hearing Welfare to Work providers battered and villified for helping people achieve some of their goals and restoring dignity and self respect.
Having worked in the industry myself (not for A4e) I have a lot of sympathy with what you say. However, I lose that sympathy in your second paragraph. The only difference between A4e and the likes of Serco and G4S is one of scale. And the rewards are way out of line with the services provided, especially when a company is a "prime" and doing nothing other than taking 10% of someone else's earnings.
DeleteIf you comment again (and you're welcome to) would you please get yourself a pseudonym - it makes it easier for us, and stops you trying to assume different personalities.
'Helping people achieve their goals and restoring dignity and self respect'.
DeleteIsn't that A4e's company motto?!
I can only speak for myself but after two years at A4e I am no nearer to finding a job and I am now back at the Job Centre.
During my two years the help I received was minimal and amounted to no more than cv and interview skill advice.
Sure, I know people who have found work on the Work Programme but not because of A4e. They have found work through their own efforts.
When I signed up for the Work Programme I was told by the manager that they would ACTIVELY look for work on my behalf i.e. they would act as an agency. This did not happen and I was left to continue to look for work myself.
If you have intervened and directly helped someone find work then fair play. But my experience of A4e is that it has failed.
"I worked at A4e for 7 years, during which time, my colleagues and I helped many people in to full time, permanent employment."
DeleteI have no doubt that this is true. However it really is irrelevant! The question you need to ask is: "Do I believe that the vacancies my clients filled would have not been filled but for my intervention?". In other words would those vacancies still exist or would someone have taken them. In a scenario where there are far more candidates than vacancies there can be only one honest answer - the vacancies would have been filled by someone. So although your intervention may have influenced which individual was successful in getting the job it really added nothing to the economy, nor reduced unemployment by a single person.
You may feel good about your role. Some of your clients may feel happy with what you have done. But overall you (and the others involved in the industry) have added ZERO and cost £billions along the way.
This isn't entirely true or fair. WP advisers can encourage people to go after jobs they wouldn't have thought of, or even liaise with employers to interview their clients first.
Delete"This isn't entirely true or fair. WP advisers can encourage people to go after jobs they wouldn't have thought of, or even liaise with employers to interview their clients first."
DeleteIt is both entirely true and fair.
Neither of your observations addrfesses the point I am trying to make.
The WP, at best, may influence which people fill a vacancy but it does not of itself create any jobs.
Hence it adds nothing to the economy but costs billions.
Now IF we had an economy in which demand for labour outstripped supply there would be some point to the WP in that it would aim to make previously unemployable people employable and so fill the vacancies.
We don't have such an economy, nor have we enjoyed this for some time. Some say this is deliberate in order to depress wages and undermine employment rights and conditions. Be that as it may. Meanwhile the WP is an expensive irrelevance.
On that point, I agree, and I wasn't arguing. But what I, and the original commenter, were saying was that good WP advisers can influence which people get the jobs.
DeleteWork Programme (and comparable interventions) are supply-side initiatives designed to allocate jobs and lubricate the labour market. Playing devil's advocate, the effect of a good adviser may be to reallocate jobs away from people who are well suited to a particular job towards people who are less so - people who would otherwise have remained unemployed were it not for support provided (not saying this is always the case, but it's at least possible that it tends in that direction). As such, one of the questions is does the benefit to the formerly unemployed person outweigh the cost to the newly unemployed person ? It'll depend on individual circumstances, but it may. A further question would be whether it improves the position for employers, and a third would be looking at the more peripheral impact - e.g. the impact of employing people to deliver the programme, whether it improves compliance with conditionality (assuming for a second that that conditionality is fair, realistic, reasonable and so on) and if there are additional benefits like ( for example) addressing wider barriers and needs such as housing and accessing medical treatment and support.
DeleteA few months ago I was part of a small meeting with a Nobel Prize winning economist, and I raised the question of the value of supply-side labour market interventions in a job market which is highly deregulated and 'flexible'. His view was that they were largely pointless- the UK labour market doesn't suffer from much friction, and that the real solution was a more German style approach along the lines of the Hartz reforms - although of course the German economy is so structurally and culturally different to the UK that I'm unsure about how transferrable the lessons are.
Dear Anonymous7 January 2014 06:00; I do not doubt the sterling contribution and assistance you may personally have given clients throughout your tenure within A4E. You however have been let down by a dreadful and malicious system in which often the client is forced (under pain of benefit sanction) to undertake jobs or offers in totally inappropriate posts. Sometimes forced to work for nothing in voluntary sector, or forced into self-employment contracts. The sheer misery and waste of time suffered by the many vastly outways the benefit to the few! It would help your point if you could outline some cases here where people have fulfilled their ambitions. Was never offered a client-feedback form for the wasted two-years I was a client!
ReplyDeleteAs Elmfield Training has worked quite a lot with A4e, I thought I'd do a search for them to compare. Sure enough, they also have a very poor credit rating: https://www.amee.com/companies/001570260-elmfield-training-ltd?src=auto&q=elmfield%20training
ReplyDeleteIn November they went into admin- could this also be what's about to happen to A4e?
http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/a4e-management
ReplyDeleteHistorian, going by this site I've found for checking annual accounts of businesses, it would appear that A4e being behind on posting information about their accounts is normal, just check the months they are overdue by each year.
Even if it's normal for them to be a bit late filing their accounts, surely there must be problems at A4e if Experian has only given them a Credit Score of 1? I am by no means a business expert, but when individuals have a score as poor as that they have great difficulty getting loans or mortgages or making purchases which have contracts attached. If there weren't good grounds for giving them a score this low, surely A4e would want to contest it? Am I right in thinking that any self-respecting business would not be content for the world to be informed that it was in a 'very poor financial position' (as the amee website states) if this information was not true? If I am wrong about the significance of a very poor credit score, I would be interested to know the reasons for this.
Delete