Turf Wars?

We reported back in October that the winners of the contracts to use ESF money to tackle "entrenched worklessness" had been announced. Why, then, has it taken until today for the government to put out a press release about it?

The basic details come in a piece from the Press Association. It is announced as a coherent scheme to "be delivered by a mixture of public, private and voluntary organisations which will be paid by results" but is still confused about the distinction between the "£448 million for councils to send in trouble-shooters to such families over the next four years" and the new £200 million ESF money going to the private companies. It will be payment by results. The news media, as usual, have put their own spin on this basic announcement, without doing any research of their own."The Daily Mail, bless 'em, have the headline "Charities and private firms to be paid £15,000 to turn around each 'Shameless' family". The excuse for that, apparently, is some rubbish on Channel 4, and the Mail is determined to make the label stick. The piece focusses entirely on the new contracts, and they say that "Providers will be paid in three stages – when they have made a member of a troublemaking family sign up to a personal action plan, when the plan is completed, and finally when the individual has moved into employment. In total, a three-year contract will be worth up to £15,000 per family." The Telegraph has a more measured approach, and point out that 40% of the money is an "attachment fee" when the family sign up. (That's £6,000 before doing anything.) The BBC, striving to be neutral, says, "Eight specialist welfare-to-work firms have been appointed to help individuals overcome barriers to getting a job and staying in work. These include skills like timekeeping, writing a CV and job interviews."

What no one is explaining is how all these professionals are supposed to work together. The local councils have taken on, or redeployed, people to work specifically with these "troubled families"; some of these people are the remnants of Emma Harrison's "family champions". Now there are private companies involved as well. Are there going to be two, at least, people fighting over a family to claim the credit and the payment? How sad that A4e won't be involved.

Those "entrenched worklessness" ESF contracts out

The winners have been announced of those contracts which A4e couldn't bid for, after Emma Harrison convinced the government that her own "family champions" project was the way to go and said that she wouldn't make any money from it. The big winners are Reed, with 4 of the 12 areas. As usual, past failure is no bar to further contracts. EOS Works Ltd (formerly Fourstar) get 2 areas and there's one each for WISE Group, G4S, Skills Training UK, Twin Training International and Paragon Concord International. It will be interesting to see whether any of them will sub-contract to Families Unlimited, the outfit which Harrison set up with the former civil servant.

Another interesting aspect of this is the potential clash with Local Authority provision. Many LAs already have the organisation and staff in place and are doing this work, and yet are expected to pass families on to the private contractors. Most sensible people will think that the ESF money should have gone straight to the local councils, rather than have some sliced off for private profit.


You might be amused (or not) by the Daily Mail's take on all this.  Hysterical, vicious and inaccurate.  

ESF Phase 2 - nothing for A4e

The announcement of the successful bidders for ESF phase 2 has been made. (For some background on the European Social Fund see this website.)

Now, when the PQQ stage shortlist was announced, A4e had succeeded in 8 of the 12 areas in making the shortlist. But they haven't won a single contract. The biggest winner is Seetec, with 4 areas. Ingeus and Intraining each have 2, and ESG, Reed and Working Links have one each (Cornwall is still to be decided).

Interesting.

The Waiting Game

We're expecting important contract announcements shortly - the shortlist for FND phase 2 providers and the winners of the JCP Support and ESF contracts. This may well come in the middle of the Labour Party Conference. If anyone is tempted to ask why these programmes should not fall under the axe, given the need for huge public spending cuts that all the parties are telling us about, the answer will probably be that they are "helping the unemployed".

Meanwhile, A4e keeps the local press supplied with PR pieces. One, from Gateshead, tells us that A4e have teamed up with Remploy to put 11 disabled people into a work trial scheme. Hardly big news, you might think. And when you read the article it's clear that it's come straight from A4e. (And a PS - the identical article has just appeared on A4e's website.) The same can't be said of another piece from Barrow the other day which reported that A4e, along with other businesses, had been forced out of a building because the owners hadn't paid the electricity bill and the power was turned off. Not A4e's fault. But it did prompt the comment from a correspondent of mine about the lights going out for A4e.