Two bits of news

Two small news items including A4e.

The first is a piece in the Sheffield Star about the city's most profitable companies. A4e has moved from 12th place to 4th, it's profits having increased from £5.6m to £9.9m.

The second is a report on the BBC's news website about the young unemployed. It cites A4e's Vox Centre in Brixton (which the piece calls its "flagship centre") which trains youngsters in vocational skills for "entry-level" jobs. Since opening last June they haven't had any success in getting these youngsters into work.

Guardian article and Vox

I'd like to point you to an article in the Guardian's "Comment is free" section, by Arec Balrin. He sets out his experience, as a sufferer from autism, with A4e. As always with such articles, the comments which follow show the range of reactions, but it's well worth reading.

On the other hand, there's an article in the Sheffield Star about the opening of the new Vox centre which would have you believe that A4e invented the idea of special provision for difficult school children. "A4e chairman Emma Harrison says the centres have been so successful that local councils have started paying for children to attend because it is cheaper than trying to control them at school, find them when they are truanting or seeking other solutions," she says. The "other solutions" could be the Pupil Referral Units which have been operating up and down the country under the control of local authorities for years. They are staffed by experienced, specialist teachers and overseen by management committees which comprise councillors, local head teachers and representatives of the community. They are funded by the local council, and many of them get very good results. Harrison says Vox have got attendance up to "in some cases" 85%. That's normal for the PRUs. So why would councils want to abandon PRUs and pay to put kids into A4e provision? Only because it could work out cheaper. That's how creeping privatisation works.

Round-up, 18 September 2010

The Financial Times has reported this week that there could be drastic cuts in the numbers of participants in the Work Programme. (Since the FT is behind a pay wall, we are indebted to the Indus Delta site for details.) The providers are apparently arguing that they need money upfront, rather than being dependent on outcome payments. At present they get 30% of the contract value per client regardless of outcome, and the rest if and when he or she gets a job. If this needs to be repeated with the Work Programme, it would mean that far fewer clients could be taken on. This was entirely predictable, but would be a major climb-down for the government and a win for the providers.

A rather embarrassing story was published in the Sheffield Star yesterday. An A4e employee, Daniel Madner, got very drunk on a train and exposed himself to a young nurse and her friends. The nurse phoned her father, a police officer, who arrested Madner as he got off the train. In court it was pointed out that Madner's job with A4e would be at risk if he was put on the Sex Offenders Register, so he was made to pay £500 to the young women, was tagged, given a 6-month community order and "ordered to undertake 100 hours of unpaid work".

We have a new description of A4e in a news item stating that Thomas Godfrey has left his post of commercial director at Sport England to join the "private sector business which provides help and information on employment, starting a business and creating partnerships."