Weekend round-up

A4e was at all the party conferences this year, as usual.  They don't record what interest they drummed up amongst the Lib Dems or Labour, but describe on their website the "event" they hosted in Manchester for the Tories.  They've had to amend the story in the last couple of days - it was "former minister" Mark Hoban who led the praise for 6 A4e "customers" (I do hate that word) who have found jobs through the WP.  Apparently 40 people turned up.  Now, as I've always said, I'm happy for anybody who gets work, with or without the help of A4e.  But it seems slightly over-optimistic for A4e to be lobbying just at the point when they've lost market share for getting poor results.

There was a little-noticed piece on the BBC website yesterday about the poor quality of prison education.  Ofsted has been very critical about current standards, and it's pointed out that prison education and training is outsourced to private companies.  No companies are named, but A4e has several contracts.

BBC Radio 4's "The Report" programme last night looked at the state of Universal Credit.  There was nothing which hadn't already been in the press, but the programme pulled it all together to show how the project went off the rails.  Around £200m has been completely wasted, there are no effective financial controls, and there is no chance that it will come in "on time and on budget", as IDS insists it will.  UC is being rolled out to 6 more jobcentres, but it's still limited to new claims by single people with no dependants, on JSA only and with no complications.  It was pointed out that you can't do a change of circumstances, or even sign off, online.  You have to phone an 0845 number, at your own expense.  The whole thing is supposed to be completed by 2017, but as the reporter said, whether IDS would still be in post by then is doubtful.

That dismal excuse for a newspaper, the Express, gleefully reported a survey which purports to show that a majority of people think that benefits claimants "should find a job or work harder".  Surprisingly, a lot of the comments under the article are not supportive of the Express's stance.  For the actual figures, read a better article on a website here.  But all such polls are suspect.  We don't know the sample size, but we do know that sampling methods tend to exclude the poorest people, and that would certainly skew the results here.  Of course, the government is jubilant, and Labour is flummoxed about how to respond.

Changing faces

So Mark Hoban has gone.  He made absolutely no impact at the DWP, but apparently thinks he did.  He told his local paper in Hampshire, "I have turned the Work Programme around and I have delivered on what I was asked to achieve."  He is replaced by Esther McVey, who has an interesting background.  Aged 46, she's from Liverpool; solidly middle class (a family business in demolition), a law degree, and a career in television before founding her own business.  She only came into Parliament in 2010.  No doubt Cameron thinks she will have the presentational skills which Iain Duncan Smith so conspicuously lacks.  Also joining thee DWP as Minister of State is Mike Penning, a 56-year-old with a similar background to McVey (except he chose the army rather than television).
More interesting, perhaps, is the reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet, with the ineffectual Liam Byrne being replaced by Rachel Reeves as shadow work and pensions minister.  Reeves is not a great TV performer, but she knows her stuff and is a formidable intellect.  Don't expect IDS ever to debate with her publicly.
None of this makes any immediate difference to government policy, unfortunately.

Figures

The latest batch of Work Programme statistics is due for release on Thursday, 26 September.  I don't expect anything startling.  And I don't expect the media to take an interest.  The significant numbers will be the outcomes for the long-term jobless, and the "sustainment" payments.  The latter will give an indication of whether providers can cope financially with the contracts.  Comparisons between providers also matter.  We can expect the headline, from both the DWP and the ERSA, to be raw numbers, which tell us nothing.

There's another important set of figures which the government has obviously decided to bury - the data on sanctions.  They were due out last May but the DWP waffled about quality issues with the data.  Then there were indications that the delay might be down to the hiatus caused by the high court ruling and the need to legalise what had been declared illegal.  Then there was a hint that an announcement would be made in August.  Still nothing.  But we do have an announcement that there will be "an independent review of benefit sanctions".  Don't get your hopes up.  This is only to look at the "clarity of information" given to JSA claimants about the process.  It's to be carried out by a think-tanker, a theorist called Matthew Oakley.  I wonder if he will talk to anyone who has been punished.  A comment by Mark Hoban is insulting: "It is important that Jobseekers know exactly what is expected of them when they apply for Jobseeker's Allowance, and that they risk having their benefits sanctioned if they fail to play by the rules." [My italics]  Perhaps it's a game to you, Mr Hoban, but not to those who suddenly find themselves penniless.  There is so much about this regime that should be examined by a qualified independent person.  He might, for instance, consider a story in Sunday's Observer which shows that one in three homeless people on JSA have been penalised, compared to about 3% of jobseekers overall.  But this review is simply a cosmetic exercise.

That last story, the Observer article, ends in the now familiar way, with a quote from that shadowy figure, the DWP spokesman.  This person always makes political statements of dubious accuracy, but is never named.  Is this a civil servant doing his master's bidding?  Or a political aide to whom IDS has passed the buck?  Either way, if the journalists can't get a comment directly from those responsible, i.e. the politicians, they should refuse to publish this anonymous nonsense.

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.

Another one bites the dust

Another charity has had to pull out of the Work Programme, according to an article on the Guardian website.  The Creative Society was set up in 2009 and was successful in finding work for young people.  Under the WP it became part of A4e's supply chain.  A4e liked their training programme so much that they "used it as a model of good practice".  But now they've had to quit because they weren't getting enough referrals to make it sustainable.  The work has dried up.  The writer, Martin Bright, talks about a "massive, unwieldy private-sector bureaucracy".  The charity has survived by working outside the WP, accessing European Social Fund money.  But Bright points out the "terrible irony" that charities like his are already having to mop up after the WP, with the Jobcentres sending them people who have finished the Work Programme.
It was widely predicted that this would happen, but the Work Programme contracts contain no way of ensuring that the sub-contractors get referrals.
But let's not be despondent.  HR Magazine reports that at a recent conference Mark Hoban said that, "The Work Programme has given hope to those written off by society".  Reading on, he is obviously stuck determinedly in the mindset that those who are still out of work have "complex barriers", suggesting that they are ex-offenders or come from "worklessness" areas.  In other words, it's their fault, not the result of what few jobs are available going to those who have been out of work for the shortest time.

A4e and the government

The latest edition of Private Eye has shown once again the unhealthy relationship between A4e (and the other Work Programme primes) and the government.  They have documents released under FoI relating to a meeting which Chris grayling had last July with A4e directors.  At that point it was already clear, or should have been, that the WP was failing, and the publicity around A4e had been terrible.  But Grayling tells them, "In six months it will be all forgotten," and that he's grateful for what they're doing.  Grayling was replaced by Mark Hoban, who was similarly congratulatory at a meeting with Maximus in September.  The article continues: "The most revealing document, a 'short feedback' email, says Hoban wants Maximus' views on 'how we "sell" the Work Programme'."
Hoban has since made stern noises about tackling under-performance on the WP.  But, as the Eye points out, this is indicative of the fact that the government is more concerned with covering up the failures than securing value for money.
One important link with government for A4e was Jonty Olliff-Cooper, and he has gone.  The only publication to have picked up this fact is the Guardian, with a diary piece by Hugh Muir.  He points out that Cooper used to be "assistant to eccentric [Tory] strategy guru Steve Hilton".  Muir seems to be suggesting that Cooper has departed because the WP figures, due out shortly, are going to be terrible, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's clearing his path to a seat in parliament.  Nor would I be surprised if his position became untenable after his appallingly ill-judged tweets.  His going leaves one strong link between A4e and government, however.  After the meltdown last year and Emma Harrison's departure, the company hired the PR consultants Quiller, which includes George Bridges, "a pal of Chancellor George" as Muir puts it.  This was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, and Jonty confirmed that in a tweet not long ago.  But Quiller is still there.
Outsourcing by government is not a straightforward business relationship.  There are mutual interests, which are not necessarily those of the people who ultimately pay the bills - us.

The only game in town

A4e "welcomes" the new contracts to be issued by Chris Grayling for "offender rehabilitation", or so they say on their website.  These contracts will privatise a chunk of the work of the Probation Service, and they're set to be on a Payment by Results basis.  PbR is not a model the outsourcing companies like; but it seems to be the only game in town at the moment.  The Work Programme hasn't been a good advertisement for it, and Mark Hoban (more about him later) has reiterated that the worst-performing providers will be penalised by losing "up to 5%" of their new referrals.  It's hard to see that as a punishment.  The providers have complained that they have too many referrals and not enough money to do anything useful with them.  Hoban is talking tough, saying that he's willing to see providers go out of business if they can't deliver on the contracts they signed.  But if any of the big companies, including A4e, went bust it would cause big problems, as the remaining providers would be expected to pick up the business.

The Telegraph reports that Mark Hoban has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the MPs' second homes scam.  He sold his London flat, funded partly through the MPs' expenses system, in November with a profit of £144,000.  He's only been asked to repay £11,332, because that's all that's due since the new system kicked in.  The article, somewhat tongue in cheek, ends by describing Hoban as the minister "at the forefront of trying to get more people off benefits and into work".  It really does point up the hypocrisy of politicians who milk the system while vilifying the poorest.

Two more articles I'll simply recommend without comment.  The first is in the Guardian: "Recession is a good time to exploit cheap labour, says Cameron aide".  The second, also in the Guardian, is by Nick Cohen: "Lies, damned lies and Iain Duncan Smith".

Finally, a demonstration of how the right-wing press works hand in glove with the government, this time to denigrate the BBC.  The Express has splashed an account of a book which purports to show left-wing bias in the Beeb.

Thanks to the Eye

The latest Private Eye has some interesting sidelights on the Work Programme and attendant issues.

• The first concerns those sanctions targets which the government so strenuously denies. Labour's Liam Byrne and his colleague in the Lords, Lord McKenzie, have made much of this, wanting an investigation. But the Eye reveals that in 2006 Labour had an explicit target of 6% sanctions, and when this came out the excuses were “spookily similar” to those given recently. They also point out that Freud, who has masterminded much of the current “reform”, was also advisor on welfare to Labour. No wonder Labour's opposition is so lame.
  
  
• FoI requests made by the Eye have also revealed how the government tried to massage the Work Programme figures before their release last year. Mark Hoban, employment minister, met Kirsty McHugh who is head of the ERSA, the trade body for companies like A4e, involved in the WP. “She told Hoban, 'On performance overall, I think it is really important that both the industry and the department are robust in terms of defending the Work Programme as much as we can.'” Hoban's response was that he was keen to put the ERSA's own figure of “200,000 job entries” out there because it would be “much more understandable to the media / public than discussion around Job Outcomes”. This was, of course, deliberately misleading, since the 200,000 figure means nothing without knowing the percentage figure for actual job outcomes. But Hoban and his masters obviously didn't want that to come out. There was a lot of discussion with the ERSA, not, apparently, about why they were doing so badly and what measures were going to be taken to improve the situation, but about how to spin the failure. The emails suggest that the DWP even considered ignoring the contractors' minimum performance levels completely, but McHugh thought they needed to be prepared for questions on it. She was right. The DWP press release did ignore the minimum performance levels, but the media went with it anyway. This hardly inspires confidence that effective measures to tackle the dismal performance of the WP providers are being taken. Indeed, the apparent vow of silence on the whole subject might be a sign that they hope we'll all forget about it – except for those obliged to take part in it, of course.
  
  
• Finally, the much unloved Universal Jobmatch. The last edition of Private Eye showed that many of the vacancies for carers were being advertised on the site at well below minimum wage when travel time was taken into account, and that the DWP was not interested in doing anything about this. Now they've turned their attention to the non-jobs (which many of our readers know only too well). They found adverts which turned out to come from outfits which demanded personal data but then never responded; simple data mining, in other words. And they chased down adverts for what are not real jobs but “multi-level marketing”, particularly from Kleeneze reps. Again, people were using UJM simply to garner contact details and make money out of desperate people. This isn't new. Such “opportunities” have been a familiar feature of job sites for years. But now that people can be punished for not pursuing them, it's only a matter of time before someone loses their benefits for refusing to join one of these pyramid selling schemes.

More from the Guardian on targets for sanctions

Well done to the Guardian for keeping on the case of the sanctions targets and league tables, because no one else seems to be interested in what should be seen as hugely important.
Yesterday the paper revealed a leaked email from a Jobcentre manager proving that there were targets for punishing people by stopping their benefits.  Mark Hoban denied there were any such targets.  Today the Guardian follows this up with a denial from Iain Duncan Smith.  "There are no targets for any sanctions whatsoever", he says, and staff will be reminded of that.  He said that "the order not to employ targets had gone out to jobcentre staff on innumerable occasions".
There's a sense of deja vu about this.  A full year ago the Guardian revealed that there were targets for sanctions.  IDS said that the report was "claptrap" but then the DWP admitted that it was happening.  So twelve months on, it's still happening.  And Duncan Smith and Hoban either know it is and are not telling the truth; or they genuinely didn't know and their civil servants are running rings round them.  Either way, the victims are ignored - except by the Guardian, which has a short film about what happens to them.
There's a parallel with the denials that there are targets for Atos to get people onto ESA, despite all the evidence to the contrary.  Maybe there's a problem with IDS's definition of "targets".

Targets for sanctions

I've just seen this article on the Guardian website, headlined "Jobcentre was set targets for benefits sanctions".  A leaked email proves that, despite Mark Hoban's denials, there are league tables for Jobcentres' "success" in punishing people, and the information to compile these tables could only have come from the DWP.  The author of the email, a JC manager, says that she has been warned to "show an improvement", and that sanctioning only 6 people out of 300 is "not credible".
It's embarrassing for the DWP and for Hoban.  But, as usual, only the Guardian has published it.  Do tweet the article if you can.

"Misleading and insulting"?

That's what Mark Hoban calls criticism of the "work experience" schemes.  He's written a piece for the Telegraph explaining away the need for emergency legislation and justifying what most call "workfare" with the usual buzz phrases.  I won't bore you with them.  As always, the comments under the article are much more informative than the article itself.

But the Left Foot Forward website has an interesting piece called "Five things the government won't tell you about workfare".  What the five points amount to is that the schemes don't help people get into work.  So all that Hoban and the government are left with is what the last administration actually called "work for your benefit", and they are happy to cite the findings of a survey, that 85% of respondents believe that unemployed people should do just that.  So who is being misleading?

Labour, by the way, has decided to abstain in the vote on the emergency legislation (which stops the government having to pay back the £130m they took from claimants while the schemes were illegal).  There are a lot of Labour people unhappy about that.  But there's talk of Labour pressing for an enquiry into the sanctions regime.

As a postscript, a piece on the BBC News website reports a housing association, Eastlands Homes, sending a disgusting newsletter to its tenants.  They asked people affected by the welfare cuts, "Can you really afford Sky, cigarettes, bingo, drinks and other non essentials?"  They've apologised.  But it's very telling that someone responsible for the newsletter could put it out in the first place.

Mark Hoban interview

I've just watched an entertaining but infuriating interview with Mark Hoban on BBC's Newsight.
It started with a clip from the classic film Metropolis, a scene of mass forced labour.  It was then pointed out that 130,000 people have been "sanctioned" for not taking part in any of the 7 schemes affected by today's court ruling.  A Human Rights barrister said that they may have a right to compensation.  A TUC spokeswoman said that they support good quality work experience schemes, but not unpaid work in return for benefits.
Then the interviewer, Gavin Esler, turned to Mark Hoban and asked why his department was so incompetent.  It was rapidly clear that Hoban wanted to talk only about the vindication of the schemes themselves, not the court ruling.  They don't agree with the court, and want to be able to be flexible and respond quickly.  This is not a major blow, he said, it was "business as usual".  What provision has been made to repay people, Esler asked.  None, they're not going to pay.  (The interview was taking place against a backdrop of a scene of forced labour from Metropolis.)  Esler asked if people like Cait Reilly are workshy.  We offer help, said Hoban, not answering the question.  Then, astonishly, he uttered the phrase "tailored, personalised support".  When Esler put the contrary case, Hoban said that they were "very effective schemes in getting people into work".  I wanted Esler to bring up the DWP's own figures which show just how useless they are, but instead he turned to the Work Programme, and the 3.5% success in its first year.  Hoban repeated the phrase "personalised support".  So all the evidence that the WP offers nothing of the kind can be ignored by this government, and the same old lies can be propagated.
I agree completely with Zoe Williams in her Guardian piece: "All the statistics released about the Work Programme show execrable results, and yet we've heard nothing about penalties, or remaking the contracts, or rethinking the system. There is a creeping sense that this is turning into a cash cow for the private sector, a get-out-clause for the government ("we've spent all this money, if people can't get jobs despite our help, it's because they are inadequate"), and unemployed people will be left at the bottom, ceaselessly harassed by a totally specious narrative in which their laziness beggars a try-hard administration."

"Back-to-work scheme breached laws"

The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of Cait Reilly's contention that the government's unpaid work schemes are legally flawed.  There's the BBC's report here and the Guardian's here.  The latter says that the  scheme is "in tatters".  But let's not get carried away.
They're unlawful only because of "a lack of basic in  formation given to the unemployed".  They weren't given enough information about the penalties they faced or their rights to appeal.  Tens of thousands of people who have been sanctioned are entitled to "a rebate", but the DWP has said that it won't pay out until "all legal avenues" have been exhausted.  They're going to the Supreme Court.  Which all means that it's not the schemes themselves - MWA and the rest - which are unlawful, just the way the DWP went about it.  And they've already changed the paperwork.
Mark Hoban is cross.  He said: "The court has backed our right to require people to take part in programmes which will help get them into work. It's ridiculous to say this is forced labour. This ruling ensures we can continue with these important schemes.  We are, however, disappointed and surprised at the court's decision on our regulations. There needed to be flexibility so we could give people the right support to meet their needs and get them into a job. We do not agree with the court's judgment and are seeking permission to appeal, but new regulations will be tabled to avoid any uncertainty."

PS:  There's an excellent comment piece by Zoe Williams in the Guardian.

Scaremongering?

That was Mark Hoban's response to the Public Accounts Committee's roasting of the DWP for the misery caused by Atos.  The BBC reports it straightforwardly.  Margaret Hodge put the blame on the DWP rather than on the company, saying that it regarded the appeals process as an inherent part of the system, when it was actually damaging vulnerable people.  Hoban replied that they'd failed to recognise that changes had been made and that independent reports said that the whole thing was fundamentally sound.  Mind you, according to a tweet by Jonty Olliff-Cooper, Hoban has described Jobcentres as "the last vestige of the command and control economy", so are we to expect that they will soon be handed over for private profit?  (JOC calls this comment "pretty fruity from a minister", which must be public school speak for something I don't understand.)

There's an excellent article by Zoe Williams in the Guardian yesterday, in which she describes the "shadow state" created by the outsourcing of public services.  I won't quote from it because you need to read the whole of it.  Last week another Guardian article by Toby Lowe described payment by results as "a dangerous idiocy that makes staff tell lies".  Again, spot on.  And if we needed any more practical examples of how things can go spectacularly wrong, there's the report from the Commons Justice Committee on the "shambolic" situation with court translation services (something Private Eye has been going on about for ages) and the Care Quality Commission's report into Serco's out-of-hours doctor service in Cornwall, which failed the sick by not having enough staff to answer calls.

But all of this is presumably just scaremongering.

Let's have a proper debate

Ever since the publication of the dreadful performance data for the Work Programme, the media have been doing a demolition job on the whole fiasco.  I applaud that, and I'm happy to have helped, as, I'm sure, have other bloggers.  We don't mind providing information and contacts to journalists.  We don't even mind that we never get an acknowledgement of our contribution.  I also applaud the fact that the Work and Pensions Select Committee has been taking evidence.  But last Sunday's R5Live programme demonstrated one of the problems.  There may be someone representing the providers, but the presenters don't always have the knowledge to challenge a misleading or inaccurate statement.  And if no one from the government will turn up (and they never do) we are left with a bland response which is not open to interrogation.  The same happens with newspaper articles.  A "DWP spokesman" gets the last word.
It's time for a genuine debate, a confrontation between those responsible for the Work Programme and those who know what's wrong with it.  Leave out the opposition politicians.  Labour has nothing to contribute to this debate; the Work Programme is in many ways simply a continuation of their own Flexible New Deal.  Leave out the civil servants.  Let's have Iain Duncan Smith or Mark Hoban and a representative of the providers facing someone like me (yes, I'd do it, but there are plenty of other people who could) and someone who has been on the receiving end and is knowledgeable and articulate enough to engage in the discussion.  If the government or the providers won't do it, then leave two empty chairs and let the other two relate the flaws in the scheme.  Don't read out a written statement.
It won't happen, I know.  The media have got used to a particular format, and whistle-blowers make good telly, they think.  But maybe .....

Radio 5 Live Investigates - the self-employment scam

The Radio 5 Live Investigates programme has tackled the Work Programme and its predecessors several times.  Today they were looking at reports that people are being pressured into declaring themselves self-employed simply to get an outcome for the providers, and on the promise that their benefits would actually be higher.  No providers were named, but by the end of the programme it was said that 10 different providers had been accused.
Did we learn anything?  A number of WP clients, two of them on ESA, told of being pressured from very early in their WP experience that they should go self-employed, not because they had any viable business in mind but because they could get more in benefits by claiming Working Tax Credits.  They were given totally inaccurate figures, according to Sue Royston of the CAB, and were being led into a very dangerous situation where the fact that they're not working the requisite number of hours results in a clawback of thousands of pounds.  People spoke about advisers being totally clueless and only driven by the need to get people signed off.  One WP client, an unemployed project manager, faced an "adviser" who didn't know what a project manager was and admitted she couldn't help him, but the office rang a bell, literally, whenever someone signed off.
Kirsty McHugh of the ERSA (the industry's trade body) said she was surprised.  She corrected some of the misinformation - the providers only get an outcome payment after 6 months, not immediately as had been said.  But there was no excuse for bad advice, and people should complain to the provider if they felt they had been wrongly advised.  The researcher was able to point out that people are frightened to complain, and would not use their real names on this programme.  McHugh was then guilty of what I'm seriously tempted to call a lie - that WP providers are not able to sanction anybody.
Mark Hoban wasn't available, and the DWP said that there were always payment checks and a complaints process.  Stephen Timms, for Labour, had nothing useful to say.
What came out of this investigation was that the taxpayer is being ripped off in at least two ways.  WP companies are claiming outcome payments they are not entitled to; and WTC is being paid falsely.  There's also the problem that the government is putting out false figures on jobs.

One thing that wasn't mentioned but which I'm wondering about; is agency work (which has always been regarded as casual work and so doesn't attract an outcome payment) being reclassified as self-employment? I know that supply teaching agencies have forced their clients to become self-employed, so shifting the costs of National Insurance and administration of tax onto the client.  The same seems to be true of nursing agencies.  Is it happening in other areas as well?  If so, it's another serious distortion of the figures.

"Statistics cast doubt on coalition's '500,000 new jobs' claim"

That's the headline to an article in the Guardian yesterday.  It will no doubt surprise most of you to know that if you're on the Work Programme you're counted as one of the half a million new jobs which the government brags about.  105,000 people, 20% of that total, are on what the report calls back-to-work schemes (the Work Programme and MWA) but are classed as in work.  The article is muddled on its figures in places, but it's clear on that 105,000.  The vast majority are on benefits but the government counts them as new jobs.
Apparently it's not really the government's fault.  The (ILO) International Labour Organisation insists that our Office of National Statistics "counts people as employed if they are adding to the nation's economic output, regardless of whether or not they are paid."  Mark Hoban wants the ONS to change this, but says that it makes little difference.  The equivalent of, "Whatever".
Now here's an interesting point that lawyers might want to get their teeth into.  People on these schemes are "adding to the nation's economic output" - the ONS has accepted that, and it's what Hoban doesn't like.  So shouldn't they get at least minimum wage?
The next time that the government puts out any figures on unemployment or jobs, they are probably not telling the truth.

Don't mention the Work Programme

Have you noticed that the Work Programme doesn't exist any more?  Up to last Autumn it was dropped into every pronouncement by Tory ministers; but after the publication of the performance data it's as if an edict has gone out saying don't, under any circumstances, mention it.  Too embarrassing.
Even today, when Chris Grayling was doing the rounds to talk about his latest brilliant idea - outsourcing the Probation Service on a payment-by-results basis - hardly any journalists brought up the failure of the WP.  Their short memories are very convenient for the politicians.  They lose interest very quickly.  Only the Telegraph has published anything about A4e's accounts.
But something must be going on behind the scenes, surely.  The providers, if not losing money, are not making any profits, and updated performance figures will have to be published sooner or later.  Who will blink first?  Will a provider pull out of the contract, or will the government pull the plug on the whole thing?  Is Mark Hoban trying to renegotiate the contracts?

It seems that there's been a backlash over the language being used about people on benefits.  The Independent is leading the way in reporting this.  Last Friday it publicised a poll commissioned by the TUC showing that "a campaign by Tory ministers is turning voters against claimants – but only because the public is being fed 'myths' about those who rely on benefits."  The article goes on: "According to YouGov, four out of 10 people think benefits are too generous and three in five believe the system has created a culture of dependency. However, people who know least about the facts are the most hostile towards claimants. More than half of those who are 'least accurate' about the system think benefits are too generous, while fewer than one in three (31 per cent) of those giving the 'most accurate' answers agree."  Today the paper reports that the Tory campaign team has been told to tone down the language.  "Mr Duncan Smith was appalled by a Tory online advert last month showing a man on a sofa, asking whether the Government should support 'hard-working families or people who won't work'".  Nice.  Apparently one Tory minister told the paper: "Some people who lose their jobs and many people on tax credits, are strivers not scroungers."  (my italics) How generous of him.  Methinks he doesn't get it.  Two of the Lib Dems, Sarah Teather and Vince Cable, are completely unequivocal that the language is wrong and damaging.

Writing - or respect?

Those who don't read the Observer should read this article.
Now, I start out by loathing the very notion of the "nudge unit" as a sinister way of manipulating people's thinking to suit the government.  However, the exercise described here appears to be based on sensible psychological insights (otherwise known as common sense) and designed to help and support rather than manipulate.  Notice that the trial was with people who hadn't been out of work very long, and that the emphasis in the article is on getting people to write down their commitments and express themselves about a traumatic event.  But the real benefits (which the comments under the article pick up) are summed up as, "The unit made three changes to the way jobseekers in Loughton were treated: the amount of paperwork was reduced at the first meeting so that the claimant could talk about getting back to work from day one; the conversation was focused on what jobseekers would do for the next fortnight and they were encouraged to make written commitments; and advisers at the centre were told to build the confidence and wellbeing of those still claiming after eight weeks, rather than treating them as failures."  (My italics)
I can remember a time when schemes like New Deal were promoted as being about helping to build people's confidence.  The Work Programme put paid to any such soft-headed notions.  Mark Hoban thinks the trial describes an "innovative approach".  No, Mr Hoban, it's a very old-fashioned approach which your department seems to have forgotten.

Targets and definitions

In an outsourced society, targets are, apparently, vital.  You can't measure the success or failure of a contract without them.  When companies bid, they have to agree to meet targets.  But as we've seen so often, not meeting them doesn't matter much.  There's no penalty.  You just don't make as much profit.  But if that's already factored into your calculations, who cares?  All the Work Programme primes missed the first year target, which was pitifully low anyway.  Even delaying publication of the data for a couple of months didn't push the figures up enough.  So what happens now?  A stern letter from Mark Hoban.  Well, what else can he do?  If they've all performed equally badly, or if the differences between them are minimal, you can't penalise one and not the others.  And anyway, the only suggested penalty is to cut down the number of referrals to the worst performing companies.  For some, that would be welcome, since they can't cope with the numbers they've got.
There are other targets, unofficial ones, which do have an impact, but on clients rather than the companies.  Think of Atos.  Both the DWP and Atos have denied that there are any targets for getting people off incapacity benefits.  But whistle-blowers among Atos staff have said that they are indeed given targets and are pressured to meet them.  And now we have the Universal Jobmatch site.  Again, the official line, in all the guidance, is that it's not compulsory for people on JSA to register with it.  But we know that people are being told, by both JC and Work Programme advisers, that it is compulsory, because they have been given targets, and it's easier to give orders than to persuade.

Two other words have become part of the language of welfare-to-work, and in the process have been neutralised.  The first is "mandatory".  We all know what it means in practice.  But it somehow sounds better than its dictionary definition (a real, physical dictionary, my copy of the Concise Oxford, 8th edition) which is simply "compulsory".  So let's not talk about people being "mandated".  They are compelled.
Even more weasly is the word "sanction".  It's an interesting word, because it can mean two very different, almost opposite, things.  One meaning is approval.  The other is penalty.  And it's the second meaning, of course, which pertains here.  When people don't do what they are compelled to do they are penalised - punished.

So if you're an outsourcing company which has failed to meet its targets, you can't be penalised.  But if you're a client, you can be told that something is compulsory when it isn't and penalised for not doing it.