Round-up

I'm sure we were all looking forward to hearing Iain Duncan Smith questioned about his and his department's use of statistics on 4 September.  But according to a blog, this is not now going to happen.  The writer quotes Sheila Gilmore MP, a member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee as saying that the Department's Annual Report isn't ready, and since the main purpose of the meeting was to examine that, it's had to be postponed.  How fortunate for IDS.  As fortunate, perhaps, as the fact that they're still examining the quality of the sanctions data, so can't publish that either.  At what point do we conclude that facts are being deliberately suppressed?

One fact that hasn't been suppressed (it's been leaked) is an internal survey of civil servants working on Universal Credit.  The Guardian has the details.  Staff talk about terrible management, poor decision-making, no communication and dishonesty.  It's utterly damning.

Then there's ATOS.  It's been disclosed that the company has been paid £754 million for its sickness and disability testing since 2005.  £754m.  That's your money and my money.  The Independent reports that Lord Alton has got the National Audit Office to investigate the contracts, calling them "a licence to print money".

So-called zero hours contracts are not IDS's responsibility, but the consequences of them are.  Yet it's only the Lib Dems, including Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, who are expressing concern.  The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has just upped its estimate of how many people are working on these terms to 250,000, but this is almost certainly too low.  Are people being forced to apply for, and take, these jobs under threat of sanctions?  

Finally, an unusual reference to A4e in a regional paper.  The company still occasionally gets PR pieces in local papers, but this one, in the Oxford Mail, won't please them.  It quotes a 27-year-old woman who says that the WP wasn't very effective for her, and her adviser had no time to spend with her.  She got help from the charity Crisis Skylight, whose CE says that the WP has been a huge disappointment, offering minimal support.  Strangely, the county's Tory MP, Sir Tony Baldry, doesn't completely disagree.  He acknowledges that the need in the area is for people with skills and qualifications, and they are not getting those.