No choice

There's an interesting exchange on the BBC "Ouch!" message boards started by someone who got a phone call from A4e. The person had no idea what "A4e" was, and, when told that s/he was in receipt of direct payments for social care, was still flummoxed, since the only payment s/he had received was a one-off small cheque some time ago. The point of this account is not simply that an A4e employee made a mess of a phone call; it's that a great many people can have vital parts of their lives controlled by this company without even knowing it. Privatising public services removes choice and it removes accountability. The thousands of people whose direct payments have been farmed out to A4e had no say in the matter. Similarly, those whose children are referred to Vox centres, or who have to access a CLAC any of the numerous services "outsourced" by local councils, may well not know that it's A4e who are running things. In some cases, like direct payments, even the local councils have only the choice between A4e or keeping the service in-house, because there are no other players.

Welfare-to-work similarly gives the client no choice. Flexible New Deal was set up with choice in mind. Each area would have two prime contractors so that clients could choose between them; but the companies successfully argued that the clients would not have enough information to make an informed choice (previous reputation being, apparently, irrelevant) so for the first year they would be allocated to a provider by the Jobcentre. Now with the Work Programme each of the 11 large areas will have a single large contractor, which will engage a lot of smaller outfits and create competition between them. (A4e describes this set-up on their MyA4e site.) Note that the client has no say in the matter whatever.

Few people know or care about this - until it impacts on them, and they find that there is nothing they can do about it.

Jumping the Gun?

Anyone watching the BBC's Politics Show in the North today would have to assume that the Work Programme contracts are already done and dusted.

The introduction to the item talked about a "Sheffield company" which was going to do what is already done in Germany, work with whole families. They then looked at Orchard Park Estate in Hull, where unemployment is very high and women say there are no jobs for the majority who want to work.

Cut to Emma Harrison of A4e, even more ebullient than usual. Cities like Hull, she said, need more support. A4e are going to be allowed to work with whole families, isn't that wonderful? The new Work Programme will mean "a massive breakthrough" because of this working with entire families. Cut back to a Hull councillor. who said that the programme was about cutting benefits rather than creating jobs. Back to Emma, who talks about the trap of Incapacity Benefit, and how the "radical reforms" will stop this.

A brief studio discussion followed, in which a Labour MP said that the last government did focus on whole families, and this was just re-badging. A woman from the Taxpayers' Alliance talked about making work pay and the need to create jobs.

So what are we to make of this? The company have been pushing for this "whole families" concept for a long time, and it looks like all that lobbying of ministers which Harrison brags about has paid off. The new government's advisers are oblivious to the dangers of giving the employees of a private company the right to interfere in the lives of families. Presumably where A4e has the current FND contracts they will accept the new, "re-negotiated" WP contracts, and that's why Harrison appears to be jumping the gun. If their clients in Hull want to question the new approach they can always seek legal advise - from the CLAC run by A4e.