A lesson from Bradford

This is not about A4e. But it's a story which shows the flaws in the privatisation of public services.

In 2001 the government forced Bradford council to outsource its education services, all of them, to a private company. The 10-year contract went to Serco. The council leader, asked why Serco, a company which had no experience in education, said that they got through the procurement process as the best option on the basis of the promises they made; they would hire the required expertise. Serco said that they would improve education in Bradford, and would be paid bonuses on the only measure which the government saw as relevant, the number of GCSE passes. Those passes went down, with teachers complaining that they were under continual pressure to improve GCSE results at the expense of everything else. Serco tried to renegotiate the contract when it was clear that they were not going to achieve the promised results. Ten years on, the council is taking education back in-house, to no one's regret. Serco say they haven't made a penny from the contract, and insist that they have improved primary education in the city.

There are stark lessons here.

• Large private companies are good at getting contracts in all sorts of areas where they have no experience, because they employ bid writers to make the right promises, and are willing to hire the people with the relevant expertise. But all too often those promises are not fulfilled.
• Contracts have to contain some measure of success on which to base payments to the company; outcomes, in other words. Focussing on these outcomes can do great damage to the overall service.
• Once tied into a contract, a local authority can do little or nothing to save a service from going down the tubes until the contract period is up.

Bradford has learned the same lesson that Middlesborough learned when it outsourced its social care direct payments to A4e. This government, however, has learned nothing.

A quiet time

It's a quiet time on the government contracts front, and there's little news from A4e. But their business continues. Earlier this month, for instance, Middlesborough put more work their way with the Middlesbrough Enterprise Gateway (MEG), which "is encouraging self-employment and small business start ups with one-to-one coaching." See the nebusiness website.

Meanwhile, various accounts are appearing on the internet of people's experience of Flexible New Deal. As with New Deal, such accounts are not necessarily representative of the whole; they are by people who feel strongly enough to vent their frustration. And clients are, by definition, people who have been unemployed for a long time. But some common themes are emerging. Clients feel patronised, and say that the promised respect is not forthcoming. They complain of inconsistent information and pointless occupation. This was, perhaps, inevitable. There is little hope that these huge, money-wasting contracts will end with a new government. The small contracts will probably proliferate. It's a depressing prospect.

Direct Payments for Social Care

Many local councils now put the minutes of their meetings, and reports to those meetings, online. Middlesborough Council, in an executive report dated 17 December 2009, gives us an interesting insight into what has been happening with Direct Payments for Social Care. When this was introduced by the government, several councils found it financially more attractive to contract out the service than to set up an in-house department. A4e has a number of contracts around the country to handle Direct Payments, and Middlesborough was one of those councils which contracted with A4e. It has more than 550 people in receipt of such payments. The 5-year contract included employer support, payroll support and financial monitoring, and it was due to expire at the end of March 2010. But "several quality issues had arisen throughout the period of the contract with A4e" and the council decided to split off the financial monitoring and do it in-house, and to separate the other two functions into different contracts. But "there was only 1 tender submission in respect of the Employer Support Contract and this was from A4e (with whom there has [sic] been quality issues)." (As the report says, there is a "niche market" in such services, i.e. only A4e.) And the three submissions for the Payroll Support contract were unaffordable. So it's back to the drawing board, with a new contract combining Employer and Payroll Support, and that means a whole new tendering process. So A4e's current contract will be extended for 6 months.

We have reason to be grateful for transparency in local government.

Twittering A4e - and No (sorry, Know) Hope

If you look for Twitter feeds on A4e you'll get two kinds (see below) - tweets from disgruntled clients, and PR tweets from A4e itself. They've got a new one called A4eworks, where you can learn about the roadshow they're running to promote FND under the banner of Know Hope. They've gone from Rotherham (see the video here) to Middlesborough yesterday, Scarborough today, Hull tomorrow and Barnsley and Doncaster on Friday. You have to admire their courage (sort of). Of course, FND is going to be nothing like New Deal. "Flexible New Deal is a completely new approach, and it's just that - 'Flexible'. We know everyone is different and so the 'Flexible' part means that organisations like A4e are free to help you and your specific needs. Getting back into work through Flexible New Deal means the help you get is completely tailored to you and your individual circumstances. It's your own personal journey back to work." Etc. Read it all here and remember it.

I can't help thinking that the slogan Know Hope is a mistake!

PS. I apologise if I gave him the idea, but someone who calls himself highpark1 has just added his Hub pages as Twitter items. These are anti-A4e stories, all of them taken directly from other people's sites, without acknowledgement, let alone permission.