Off topic for this blog, of course, but of great interest to many of our readers; Labour's announcement today of its policy on unemployment benefits.
There's a great deal of misinformation out there, some of it deliberate from the right-wing media. For a straightforward account see Patrick Wintour's article in the Guardian. I'll simply say what I think, and leave it to readers to agree or disagree.
Labour wants to return to the contributory principle, and I support that. If you've been working you've accumulated entitlement to help when you're out of work. That's how National Insurance was conceived, and it's what most people think is fair. If for whatever reason you run out of contributions, or have never made any, you are still entitled to help, but on a means-tested basis. That was the system for years. It doesn't work if you increase the non-contributory benefit (known for years as Income Support level) but don't increase JSA at the same rate. The differential erodes until there is no distinction. To avoid that is expensive.
The policy on youth unemployment has caught the headlines. Those who leave school without adequate skills will have to go onto training to acquire those skills, and will get a training allowance for doing so. If they don't, they will get benefits but means-tested according to their parents' income. There are obvious difficulties with that, and Labour has said that those who don't live with their parents will be means-tested differently. They have not said that the training will be effectively workfare. If that was the case, or if outsourcing companies were involved in any way, I would be dead against it. What they seem to be talking about is courses in FE colleges and the like. I was rather worried by Labour's Stephen Timms today saying that the threshold was "level 3", i.e. A level. That's too high. But I don't have a problem with the principle. Any young person who has had a job will automatically be entitled to JSA.
Those who are outraged by the ideas underlying this policy seem to be claiming that everyone should be entitled to benefits regardless of whether they have made any contribution, including youngsters who come out of school unprepared or unwilling to get a job. Personally I disagree. I believe in a society based on the old Marxist maxim: to each according to his need, from each according to his ability.
So wade into the argument if you want to. But base your comments on facts.
Showing posts with label JSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JSA. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 June 2014
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Outsourcing Jobcentre Plus - the first steps?
When a report comes out of the Centre for Social Justice, one can assume that it's with the approval of Iain Duncan Smith, who set up the outfit and has close links with its people. So its latest proposals could well be seen as the floating of something the government wants to do. "Break state monopoly of failing £1.4 billion job centres" is the heading of their press release.
It's an extraordinarily muddled analysis to support their wish to move to the Australian model, which uses lots of private and voluntary sector bodies (the code is "market-based") rather than a public sector jobcentre system. For Conservatives this is axiomatic, needing no justification. But the CSJ obviously has to come up with reasons. So what do they find is wrong with our current system?
Well, "Thousands of claimants lack an up-to-date CV". This preoccupation with CVs puzzles many unemployed people. Most of the jobs they apply for don't require a piece of paper headed "CV"; they want an application form completed, on paper or online.
Then there's the claim that "40 per cent of claimants who move off Jobseekers Allowance make another benefits claim within six months". Er .... yes. How many jobs today are temporary or even casual? How is this the fault of the Jobcentres? And how does this compare with the private sector Work Programme figures?
"JCP focusses far too much on arranging benefits for claimants instead of identifying the factors that are preventing them from getting work and staying in work." This is a ridiculous statement. When someone loses their job and signs on, the first role of the Jobcentre is to ensure that they get the benefits to which they are entitled. That doesn't always work properly; but I would far rather entrust that role to a civil servant than to the employee of a private company like, for instance, A4e. After that, they are supposed to help you back into work. In recent years, jobcentres have been starved of resources and money has been diverted to the private companies to deliver programmes like the Work Programme. So, does the CSJ want the money restored? Well, they admit that JCP staff are underpaid, and advocate "increased pay for effective advisers" i.e. performance-related pay based on getting people into sustained work - the private sector model.
There's more of the same in the report. But to pick holes in it is to miss the point. We are on the way to handing the unemployed to the private sector from the moment they sign on.
It's an extraordinarily muddled analysis to support their wish to move to the Australian model, which uses lots of private and voluntary sector bodies (the code is "market-based") rather than a public sector jobcentre system. For Conservatives this is axiomatic, needing no justification. But the CSJ obviously has to come up with reasons. So what do they find is wrong with our current system?
Well, "Thousands of claimants lack an up-to-date CV". This preoccupation with CVs puzzles many unemployed people. Most of the jobs they apply for don't require a piece of paper headed "CV"; they want an application form completed, on paper or online.
Then there's the claim that "40 per cent of claimants who move off Jobseekers Allowance make another benefits claim within six months". Er .... yes. How many jobs today are temporary or even casual? How is this the fault of the Jobcentres? And how does this compare with the private sector Work Programme figures?
"JCP focusses far too much on arranging benefits for claimants instead of identifying the factors that are preventing them from getting work and staying in work." This is a ridiculous statement. When someone loses their job and signs on, the first role of the Jobcentre is to ensure that they get the benefits to which they are entitled. That doesn't always work properly; but I would far rather entrust that role to a civil servant than to the employee of a private company like, for instance, A4e. After that, they are supposed to help you back into work. In recent years, jobcentres have been starved of resources and money has been diverted to the private companies to deliver programmes like the Work Programme. So, does the CSJ want the money restored? Well, they admit that JCP staff are underpaid, and advocate "increased pay for effective advisers" i.e. performance-related pay based on getting people into sustained work - the private sector model.
There's more of the same in the report. But to pick holes in it is to miss the point. We are on the way to handing the unemployed to the private sector from the moment they sign on.
Friday, 28 June 2013
They've got away with it
It must be congratulations all round at the DWP. The Work Programme results are terrible but hardly anyone has noticed, because the raw numbers are impressively big, and a week of spinning has convinced the largely gullible media that failure is actually success. Well done, chaps.
But these are the figures (in percentages):
Why are there no headlines this time around about "its worse than doing nothing", as indeed it is for more than half the providers? Leaving ESA aside for the moment, the minimum contracted figures - what the providers contracted to deliver - were only a tiny amount above the dead weight figure - what the DWP assumed would happen with no intervention at all, which means no money spent. But half the companies couldn't even deliver that. For JSA 18-24 the wooden spoon goes to A4e in South Yorkshire, which managed just 15.5%. Yet Mark Hoban says, "The improvement in performance over the past year has been profound and the scheme is getting better and better."
The failure with ESA is inescapable, and some publications, like the Independent, choose to headline that. But it's been spun for a week that this is down to lack of "resources", i.e. those on ESA need more money spent on them than the programme provides. The excuses are somewhat tortured. An outfit calling itself Inclusion (it describes itself as a "cutting-edge thought leader" but doesn't say where its funding comes from) wants to move the goalposts and take the economy into account. It recognises that poor performance means less income so even poorer performance. Another think-tank, the Social Market Foundation (equally cagey about where its funding comes from) says, confusingly, "Poor performance against the DWP's minimum levels cannot be taken as evidence that providers are doing a bad job or that the scheme offers poor value for money," because we don't know how a different approach would have fared. The ERSA, the mouthpiece for the providers, declares that the government's way of measuring performance is wrong and that the targets should take the state of the economy into account.
The Financial Times tells us that "several providers have been put on watch for having their contract terminated." 12 contracts, they say, have been put under a "performance improvement notice". But I would be very surprised if any providers do actually lose contracts. In another piece the FT points out that the WP is "cheap and it isn't working". The bidding process meant that companies said they could do it "at a lower cost than was probably wise", and so the profits aren't coming in which would enable them to spend enough to be successful. It's that negative spiral which those actually experiencing the WP know only too well. The article concludes with the opinion that Osborne is shifting money from the WP to the jobcentres. Yet JCP has suffered big staff cuts recently.
In real business, as opposed to outsourcing, contracts have a legal reality. They come with penalty clauses, punishing the contractor for failure to deliver. In this business, the companies know that the minimum contractual requirements mean little or nothing. The likes of A4e are used to missing their targets and still making loads of money. The government has an interest in pretending that failure is, in fact, success. When the model is payment by results (but not really) the contractors make less money; but the casualties are not the businesses but the people who have not received the service.
It is nonsense to blame the economic situation. If the number of unemployed people who can get back into work depends on the state of the economy (and it probably does) then what is the point of a scheme like the Work Programme? The companies are adding little or nothing to what would be happening anyway.
However, it appears that Iain Duncan Smith has got away with it.
But these are the figures (in percentages):
Why are there no headlines this time around about "its worse than doing nothing", as indeed it is for more than half the providers? Leaving ESA aside for the moment, the minimum contracted figures - what the providers contracted to deliver - were only a tiny amount above the dead weight figure - what the DWP assumed would happen with no intervention at all, which means no money spent. But half the companies couldn't even deliver that. For JSA 18-24 the wooden spoon goes to A4e in South Yorkshire, which managed just 15.5%. Yet Mark Hoban says, "The improvement in performance over the past year has been profound and the scheme is getting better and better."
The failure with ESA is inescapable, and some publications, like the Independent, choose to headline that. But it's been spun for a week that this is down to lack of "resources", i.e. those on ESA need more money spent on them than the programme provides. The excuses are somewhat tortured. An outfit calling itself Inclusion (it describes itself as a "cutting-edge thought leader" but doesn't say where its funding comes from) wants to move the goalposts and take the economy into account. It recognises that poor performance means less income so even poorer performance. Another think-tank, the Social Market Foundation (equally cagey about where its funding comes from) says, confusingly, "Poor performance against the DWP's minimum levels cannot be taken as evidence that providers are doing a bad job or that the scheme offers poor value for money," because we don't know how a different approach would have fared. The ERSA, the mouthpiece for the providers, declares that the government's way of measuring performance is wrong and that the targets should take the state of the economy into account.
The Financial Times tells us that "several providers have been put on watch for having their contract terminated." 12 contracts, they say, have been put under a "performance improvement notice". But I would be very surprised if any providers do actually lose contracts. In another piece the FT points out that the WP is "cheap and it isn't working". The bidding process meant that companies said they could do it "at a lower cost than was probably wise", and so the profits aren't coming in which would enable them to spend enough to be successful. It's that negative spiral which those actually experiencing the WP know only too well. The article concludes with the opinion that Osborne is shifting money from the WP to the jobcentres. Yet JCP has suffered big staff cuts recently.
In real business, as opposed to outsourcing, contracts have a legal reality. They come with penalty clauses, punishing the contractor for failure to deliver. In this business, the companies know that the minimum contractual requirements mean little or nothing. The likes of A4e are used to missing their targets and still making loads of money. The government has an interest in pretending that failure is, in fact, success. When the model is payment by results (but not really) the contractors make less money; but the casualties are not the businesses but the people who have not received the service.
It is nonsense to blame the economic situation. If the number of unemployed people who can get back into work depends on the state of the economy (and it probably does) then what is the point of a scheme like the Work Programme? The companies are adding little or nothing to what would be happening anyway.
However, it appears that Iain Duncan Smith has got away with it.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Work Programme figures - fail!
The figures are out. There's the press release here, but you'll have to search for the salient points. Those are:
- "For JSA claimants aged 18 to 24, providers averaged 31.9% into sustained work in year two of the scheme against contracted levels of 33%
- for JSA claimants aged 25 or over, providers averaged 27.3% into sustained work in year two against contracted levels of 27.5%. This is a big improvement from year one, when no provider reached their contracted level of 5.5% for either group."
So it hasn't hit its target.
The actual stats are here. I haven't had a chance to look at them properly yet, so examine them for yourselves. Let's hope the media do a proper job on them.
Tuesday, 9 October 2012
£10bn cuts
If you are unemployed you will be aware by now that it's your fault. You lounge about at home in the lap of luxury while your neighbours go out early every morning to work for their living. You need to be forced to work. Ridiculous, isn't it? But instead of having a rational debate about the reform of welfare, the Conservatives have decided to cut benefits piecemeal. Having spent at least a decade in collusion with the right-wing press to demonise benefits claimants, they can now conduct polls and focus groups to show how popular it is to cut benefits. Surprise, surprise. There's no point in debating the rights and wrongs of this, because it's going to happen. What is worth talking about is a radical rethink of the whole basis of welfare. If you have any thoughts on this, please comment.
There have been a number of interesting reports in the last few days, both factual and speculative. A piece in the Telegraph tells of the views of a group of Tory MPs. They want to cut JSA by 10% after 6 months of unemployment and by another 10% after 12 months. Another far right group, the think tank Policy Exchange, has come up with a report that shows that nearly a third of people leaving JSA are back "on the dole" (their words) within eight months. Now, the conclusions they draw from this are bizarre. Jobcentre Plus should have the same incentives as WP providers (despite the fact that there are as yet no published results for the WP). Nasty things should happen to claimants of top-up benefits who are not doing all they can to find higher-paid or full-time work. It seems to be about penalising people for the economic reality they can do nothing about.
Another interesting snippet comes from a BBC news piece about a disability rights campaigner at the Tory conference. G4S has raised concerns about the number of referrals they are getting. They have halved in recent months. This is not contradicted by a DWP spokesman, who says that the number of referrals was always predicted to fall after the first year. This is puzzling because it doesn't square with what we've heard about at least one A4e office, where the first appointment for someone referred was 7 weeks after the first phone call, and staff said they were overwhelmed by the numbers. Was that unusual?
There have been a number of interesting reports in the last few days, both factual and speculative. A piece in the Telegraph tells of the views of a group of Tory MPs. They want to cut JSA by 10% after 6 months of unemployment and by another 10% after 12 months. Another far right group, the think tank Policy Exchange, has come up with a report that shows that nearly a third of people leaving JSA are back "on the dole" (their words) within eight months. Now, the conclusions they draw from this are bizarre. Jobcentre Plus should have the same incentives as WP providers (despite the fact that there are as yet no published results for the WP). Nasty things should happen to claimants of top-up benefits who are not doing all they can to find higher-paid or full-time work. It seems to be about penalising people for the economic reality they can do nothing about.
Another interesting snippet comes from a BBC news piece about a disability rights campaigner at the Tory conference. G4S has raised concerns about the number of referrals they are getting. They have halved in recent months. This is not contradicted by a DWP spokesman, who says that the number of referrals was always predicted to fall after the first year. This is puzzling because it doesn't square with what we've heard about at least one A4e office, where the first appointment for someone referred was 7 weeks after the first phone call, and staff said they were overwhelmed by the numbers. Was that unusual?
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