And the poor get poorer

The most telling comment on Osborne's Autumn Statement this week came from Matthew Taylor in a discussion on a BBC programme.  The worst thing about it, he said, was that no one, not even Osborne, believed a word of it.  Those crunching the numbers afterwards came up with a terrifying vision of what the Tories are aiming at; a country which would be back in the desolate and dangerous world of the 1930s, with "the state", that part of the national income spent for the benefit of everyone, reduced to almost nothing.  Certainly there were plenty of hints about slashing "welfare" even further.  I was puzzled by one announcement, which was slipped through barely noticed by the commentators (because it doesn't affect them): the rates of Universal Credit are frozen for those in work (see the Independent's article on this).  Now, I can't make out whether he was just talking about UC, which won't affect most people for some time, or whether he was trying to pretend that everyone is on UC and it will actually mean working tax credits are frozen as well.  There's a good article in the Mirror on why Osborne's vision is so appalling.
In case you want to play the game of blaming someone other than the government and start muttering about pensioners, there was a nasty hidden surprise for many of them.  The so-called triple lock should have given them an extra £2.85 a week, but most of that will be lost as pension credits are lowered; so only those pensioners who don't qualify for extra benefits, i.e. those with private pensions and / or large amounts of savings, will get the full increase.
In the midst of all the gloom and doom there was some good news for A4e.  They have new 2-year contracts to deliver the New Enterprise Allowance mentoring scheme in a further three areas of Scotland.
The Scottish government is furious with the UK government over the Work Programme.  As part of the devolution agreement Scotland is to have control over welfare programmes there, but not UC.  The Smith Commission spelled out that this would include the WP when the contracts came to an end in March 2016.  Like many English councils, the Scottish government wants to devise suitable, flexible support for the unemployed.  But it was told on Tuesday that the current contracts are to be extended for a year.  The UK government says that this was agreed in August, long before the Smith Commission was set up.  So tough.
There are only 6 days left to get evidence to the Work & Pensions Select Committee for their enquiry into benefit sanctions.  The DWP will maintain its lie about sanctions only being used as a last resort, as they've done in an article today in a Scottish newspaper.  I would love the enquiry to conclude that the DWP is deliberately lying and make that known.

The shape of things to come

So now we know what's in store if we get a Conservative government in May.  Benefits will continue to be frozen - everything except those for the disabled and the elderly.  This includes ESA for the WRAG group and working tax credits.  It will affect 10 million people.  We're told that this is in the interests of fairness, because wages are static.  Now before anyone starts blaming pensioners because we're safe for the moment, just think that you'd be doing exactly what the Tories want you to do - turning your anger on the wrong people.  It's not only that pensioners vote in greater numbers than young people (and it's a myth that we most often vote Tory), it's that exempting us deflects the wrath and persuades some people that it's all our fault.  It must not be a case of everyone should suffer except the wealthy.  And you can be sure that they will come for us after the election.
For young people the prospects are very bleak.  You will get work (probably a bogus apprenticeship on £2.73 an hour, or an unpaid "internship") or you will be sentenced to community work.  Don't ask where that community work is going to be found, that will be up to the outsourcing companies that get the contracts.
That was just from George Osborne.  It left Iain Duncan Smith with a couple of announcements.  Universal Credit will be rolled out across the country next year.  (Stop laughing.)  This morning we learned that the chap in charge of it, Howard Shiplee, has quit.  He has been ill for some time.  And - the real shocker that has barely been reported by large parts of the media - IDS, without waiting for the election, is trialling the payment of benefits on smart cards, aimed at those with bad habits so they can't spend their money on alcohol or drugs.  It's for the good of their families, of course.  Apart from the moral issues here, which we've examined before, the practical issues are huge.  Not least, there is no way of stopping the trading and selling of these cards to put cash in the claimant's pocket.  And it's very clear that this would be the only way of paying benefits under a Tory government.  How does this fit with Universal Credit, which encompasses housing benefit?  Will a landlord have to accept the card?
Before anyone starts advocating UKIP as an alternative, their welfare policies are equally disgusting.

After the Work Programme

I mean the title in two senses.  First there's what the government has announced about the fate of those who have been failed by the WP.  I don't need to say much.  We've all heard George Osborne, Iain Duncan Smith and Cameron spouting garbage in the last couple of days about things which are already happening.  The latest plan is to pilot "mandatory attendance centres".  IDS is almost honest about the point of these.  They will get lots of people to sign off, because they are working in the black economy, or trip people up very quickly so that they are sanctioned.  Actually, one of the pilots is for people who haven't yet started on the WP, so presumably it's about catching out those the Jobcentre suspects are working.  There is no word on who will run these centres.  Jobcentre staff will not be queuing up; the prospect of containing some very angry people for 35 hours a week, with nothing to do, has little appeal.  Let's hope they have a direct phone line to the police.  For many of the other people who have flunked the WP, a high-viz jacket awaits so that they can do "community work".  This could well be in Poundland or Tesco.

The second sense of the title is looking to the end of the current contracts.  Now, if you wanted some advice on a new model Work Programme, would you ask one of the current providers who has just been penalised for performing very badly?   Not if you have any sense.  But, undaunted by their own reputation, A4e has published their recommendations.  So what do they suggest?

• existing contracts should be extended "for well-performing providers" but "the re-tendering of the contracts of poorly-performing providers".  How odd.  As things stand, this wouldn't exactly benefit A4e.  Long term, though, it would be disastrous, concentrating the contracts and the money in fewer and fewer hands.
• "the most disadvantaged jobseekers" should be referred to the WP from "day one".  These lucky people would, apparently, be selected by the Jobcentres following an initial assessment.  While this is being implemented they want all young people and all over-50s to be referred as soon as they are unemployed.  This is certainly attractive to companies like A4e.  Those most likely to get work are those who have been out of a job for the shortest time.  So A4e would be able to claim all those job outcomes without doing anything at all.  The argument about "the most disadvantaged", however, can only make sense if the companies are offering anything the Jobcentre can't.  Two years of the WP strongly suggests that they are not, and will not.
• the payments system should be changed to reflect the "scale of barriers" clients face.
• some groups should be allowed to stay on the WP longer.
• there should be partial outcome payments for steps such as part-time (under 16 hours) jobs.
• the DWP should lead a drive to get employers to take on the long-term unemployed.  Well, that was supposed to be what the WP primes were doing, and have largely failed to do.  
• WP clients (A4e always uses the word "customers, but I won't) should be able to access New Enterprise Allowance funding.
• personal budgets should be introduced.  The paragraphs on this are so jargon-ridden as to be opaque, but it boils down to letting the provider have access to funds to address the perceived needs of the hardest-to-help.

All these recommendations are interesting, but wrong.  The Work Programme is an expensive failure, and the solution is not to give the companies more money and power.

Four stages of deceit

It's very noticeable that the government now has four ways of deceiving us over figures which ought to show the effects of their actions.

1. Spin.  We've been used to that for many years.  It means that you publish the figures but play down the negative, never mentioning it, and play up what look like the positives.  We saw a very good example of this with the second year Work Programme figures.  A week before their publication, the industry was encouraged to put out a raw figure of how many "jobs" had been secured, and this was all the politicians talked about, ignoring the fact that, as a percentage of the total on the programme, this was way down on the minimum targets.
2. Lie.  This can be done in many ways, which don't actually look like lying.  There was Osborne's claim to have created half a million private sector jobs.  This was untrue.  The figure included thousands who were unemployed and on benefits but doing mandatory work activity.  It also included everybody working in FE colleges; they were simply reclassified from the public to the private sector.  But the lie was repeated ad nauseam and the truth drowned out.  Then there's Iain Duncan Smith's habit of linking unconnected facts and figures to arrive at a picture he "believes" (wants) to be correct.  
3. Don't publish.  This has become a popular method of deceit.  The publication of the first year's WP data was delayed for as long as they dared, in the hopes that another couple of months would produce a figure which could be successfully spun.  It didn't work that time.  But now we have an apparently indefinite delay on the publication of the sanctions data.  No plausible reason has been given for this, so we have to assume that they simply want to suppress the figures.
4. Don't collect.  This appears to be the latest trick.  We read on Sunday in the Mirror that IDS has dropped the rule requiring Jobcentres to collect data on why they are giving people food bank vouchers.  The Labour MP Dave Watts says that this is in order to hide the fact that the DWP often fails to process benefits claims within the regulation 16 days.  But "the DWP said the rule was axed as councils now have more responsibility for giving emergency help."  This is patent nonsense.  

Are these four methods sufficient to manipulate the truth in the way the government wishes, or will there be more?

Another kick at jobseekers

Osborne thinks he will save £350m by shaving a bit off the unemployed's entitlement to benefits.  At the moment you can't claim for the first three days out of work.  The plan now is that you won't get anything for the first seven days.  (See the summary of the measures on the BBC news site.)  Osborne says, "Those first seven days should be spent looking for work and not looking to sign on."
"Jobseekers," says the BBC, "will also be required to have a CV before claiming benefits."  It's Planet Tory again.  Many people will not be able to produce a CV without help (even if that's just help to get it on a computer and print it) so what is the point?
And "about half" of jobseekers - those judged (by whom?) to be not doing enough to find work - will have to sign on weekly.  There's no mention of extra resources in the jobcentres to cope with this.

Sinister pressure on the BBC

I don't read the Sun.  I'm proud to say that.  I regard the Sun as having done huge damage to our national culture.  However, yesterday a piece popped up in the news alerts which is worth careful reading.
We know that Iain Duncan Smith doesn't like criticism, and it's possible to read this as merely him jumping up and down in a temper.  But there's more behind it.  First, he "branded the BBC as ridiculous" for its coverage of welfare issues.  Then he "savaged" the Guardian for talking only about cuts, and called it a "campaign rag".  This is the quote:

'He also tore into Beeb coverage of welfare reform. He said: “It’s easier for  them to live with the Guardian than anybody else, that’s to say more money is good, less money is a cut.  The word ‘reform’ very rarely passes their lips but the word ‘cuts’ is always  in their broadcasts.  The phrase ‘bedroom tax’ is a misnomer, it’s a Labour Party name. They never talk about under-occupancy or a spare room subsidy. Evan Davis (presenter of Radio 4’s Today) keeps asking everybody all through the programme, ‘Should Iain Duncan Smith resign?’ What for? Because that’s what the Labour Party was asking for, so he had to  repeat it. It’s a joke.”'

Remember that this is a government minister commenting on the free, independent media they're supposedly keen on, and singling out a presenter who is doing his job.  But George Osborne also gets in on the act:

'Chancellor George Osborne joined in the assault on the BBC, claiming that ordinary working people’s opinions were being ignored because of “lazy journalism”. He accused the Beeb of relying on comments from pressure groups to fill news bulletins, and said: “I don’t think the voices of working people who pay their taxes for this system are heard often enough. They experience in their daily lives the abuse of that system and I don’t think that is often reported.”'

The Guardian is the only paper (with the occasional exception of the Independent) which prints the stuff which IDS and his bunch would like to hide.  And the BBC is vital as our only source of unbiassed reporting on TV and radio.  It may not seem unbiassed at times - that's inevitable - but as long as both right and left are complaining, they must be getting it broadly correct.  

Now read this from Tim Montgomerie on Conservative Home.  He's commenting on what IDS and Osborne have said, and it's really sinister.  

"The last week has shown what is possible when the Conservative Party gets its act together and acts in concert with the centre right press. The consistency of message may be a first sign that Lynton Crosby is delivering the kind of message discipline that he was recruited for."  

Even worse is the suggestion in some of the comments under the piece that the government could put pressure on the BBC by starting a review of the licence fee.

On a day when so many of us have had to switch off all radio and TV to escape wall-to-wall Thatcher (no comments about that, please), and in the wake of the trashing of the Leveson recommendations in the name of freedom of the press, we should remember that it's only a free press and a free BBC which give us the information with which to oppose government - any government.  Bloggers and campaign groups can't do it alone.  

What about A4e?

That was the question asked by a friend, who noticed that this blog has veered off into the territory of welfare changes rather than focussing on the company.  There's a good reason for that.  A4e is attracting very little publicity and isn't seeking it.  How different from when Emma Harrison was in charge!
But attention needs to turn to all the companies delivering the Work Programme.  You may have noticed that in all the recent coverage of the changes, no politician has mentioned the WP.  And no journalist has asked the obvious questions.  Since the Work Programme is a failure, why are you still pouring money into it?  And why are you painting the unemployed as idle, not "doing the right thing" (and much worse), when your scheme to help them into work has proved useless?
We don't know whether A4e's finances have improved in the last 12 months.  It seems unlikely.  They are still advertising for staff in the same language as in the past.  There's an advert for an Advisor (Skills) Work Programme on the jobandtalent site (I don't know whether it's also on UJM) which talks about "individual, tailored support for each customer" and also "sales leads" and "sales calls", which is an odd way of describing contacts with employers.  We also get "A4e's DNA: Trusted, Passionate, Driven, Brave, Friendly and Caring" and "A4e's core mission is to improve people's lives".  I'm not mocking this.  It ought to be the reality.  But it's more than ever hollow, when there's no profit to be made and the struggle is just to keep the losses down.  
A4e, and all the providers, are almost certainly dealing with people who are increasingly angry and / or demoralised.  The government is determined to paint every benefits claimant as a drain on the taxpayer.  And now they have used the Philpott case to advance that idea.  As the Independent reports, Osborne is "questioning why taxpayers were funding 'lifestyles like that'".  Others are using it to call for cuts to child benefit.  And all of it after the disgusting Daily Mail opened the subject.  For a magnificent rebuttal to that, I applaud Zoe Williams in the Guardian.