I missed it, but Margaret Hodge was on The Daily Politics today talking about the PAC report. You can watch it here. She had to battle against poor interviewing, but she made her points. There is "still a cloud hanging over A4e". Providers are still claiming money for outcomes they had nothing to do with, jobs or self-employment already set up before referral. The interviewer, Carole Walker, kept trying to push the line that this was in Labour's time, but Hodge insisted it was under the current contracts. And, she said, "You don't pay a company if they have not done the work."
She was also exercised about the fact that no figures have been released. How can we know how well A4e or anyone else is doing if, 15 months in, there is still a refusal by the DWP to tell us the stats?
That's the crux of it at the moment. The documents leaked to Channel 4 News showed that, with the first year of the WP not yet completed, A4e's outcome figures were dire. That first year is well and truly over now, but figures promised in the "Autumn" are still not out, and rumour has it that they won't be released until the end of November (which is winter on my calendar). What are they hiding?