Miscellany

It's not always obvious that you're dealing with A4e.

Take Middlesborough Enterprise Gateway, marketed with the slogans "a fresh start" and "be your own boss". Nowhere on its website will you find A4e mentioned, but that's who is delivering this project. It's been running for over a year.

Then there's a video on the Flixel site, an interview with Dame Kelly Holmes. It's tagged as A4e and education. It's standard motivational stuff, follow your dreams etc. I admit I have a bit of a problem with it. The tiny minority of highly successful people tell us that we can achieve similar success, when the majority, however dedicated, won't.

It's the last Fairy Jobmother programme tonight, thank goodness. Not having watched this series, I don't know how deceptive it is. But we do know that interviews were arranged by Ms Taylor / the producers (see the Builders' Merchants Journal site), and that gives the impression that interviews and jobs are there for the taking. In fact, anyone with a long spell of unemployment on their CV is unlikely to clear even the first hurdle of an interview. Is that made clear?

Remember "Working Families Everywhere"? Only three local authorities signed up for it. Hull is employing 6 of the "family champions", but it seems likely that they are not new appointments but redeployed existing council staff. If this is the case, (and if it's true in Westminster as well) it rather takes the project out of Emma Harrison's hands. The "champions" are accountable to the councils, which can design the jobs.

Doubts

In all the publicity about the Work Programme it's been assumed that the inclusion of lots of voluntary sector organisations as sub-contractors is a good thing. Indeed, the government was adamant that they had to be part of it, and the people who've made a living out of running the sector have been desparate to be involved. But looking at the list of these organisations, I'm not so sure. Many of them are not the usual "third sector" big players which depend entirely on contracts from local or national government for their income. Some are small community projects. Others are respected organisations which people turn to for independent help and advice. The involvement of these organisations with the WP carries dangers for them. For one thing, they could find themselves under immense pressure. The primes are focussed squarely on the money, and if these groups do not contribute as much to the bottom line as expected they could be ditched. And they also run the risk of being seen as agents of private companies like Ingeus and A4e, and this could affect their image. I think we'll see more than a few of these organisations falling out of the WP in the next couple of years.

There are other concerns. The plan is that primes will genuinely compete with each other; if they fall below target they will lose share of the clientele to their rivals. But no one has said what will happen if they are all falling below target to the same degree, which is very likely. Remember also that these are 7-year contracts. If the government which succeeds this one wants to change them or abandon them they won't be able to without paying out a great deal of money.

We're used to A4e finding new and dafter ways of describing itself; but one which popped up this week is the most absurd yet. "A4e is a social purpose company with the sole aim to improve people's lives around the world. We do this by helping them to find work, skills, direction – or whatever it is they need." Roy Newey, having moved on from Saudi Arabia, is currently looking for business in Latvia.

All the coverage in the last few days has shown how little the media understand, or care, about the history of welfare-to-work. And that's also evident in a review of next week's Fairy Jobmother programme in the Hartlepool Mail. After calling the show "popular" and "innovative", the piece tells us that, "Hayley worked with the candidates featured in the show for two weeks and tried to instill the skills and motivation required to get back into work. As part of the show, she helps them with basic CV writing and job hunting skills before lining them up with interviews." So none of them, we must assume, had been on a New Deal or FND course, where private companies were paid to do this, and apparently failed. I bet we won't be told. And how does "lining them up with interviews", which they almost certainly wouldn't have got without the cameras, affect people's perceptions of the world of the unemployed?

Saudi Arabia and here

I don't know why I was initially surprised to read that A4e is seeking business in Saudi Arabia. Roy Newey arrived there on 4 June and tweeted that he was " looking forward to meetings with government to support skills and employment programmes." Why should I think that this is a step too far? After all, it's just business, as it is for many other companies and governments who regard the nature of the Saudi regime as irrelevant to trade and profit.

There has been only one more review (that I've seen, anyway) of The Fairy Jobmother, and that's in the Independent. The writer, Laurie Penny, calls it "possibly the ghastliest piece of poverty porn ever made" and she doesn't get any more complimentary as the piece goes on! One could almost feel sorry for Hayley Taylor. If she had stopped after the US series she would have retained some dignity. This new series was obsolete before it began. There has been no reaction from those papers (the Mail and the Express, for instance) which have demonised the unemployed; perhaps it embarrasses even them. Most of the media have become bored with the concept and are turning to more intelligent examinations of the problems of poverty and unemployment.

There has just been another reminder of how history gets rewritten. Iain Duncan Smith has been on the radio defending his government against the criticisms of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He described the Work Programme as if it's a wholly new idea to involve the private and voluntary sectors in getting people back to work. Don't ever ask how well, or badly, the private sector has performed; just forget the last contract and give them the next one.

Reviews of The Fairy Jobmother - or lack of them

I was steeling myself this morning to read reviews of that programme. But I can only find two.

There's a brief one in Metro. It talks about the "admirable empathy" of this "no-nonsense employment guru" and says that, "The combination of her pep talks and setting up interviews turned the future around for three of her volunteers. Even hopeless case Dave got a job in the end, but off his own bat. If Taylor could be rolled out across the nation’s Jobcentres, the benefits budget would be squashed in an instant."

The Guardian is dismissive. It's a tired formula, and the writer has fun with suggestions for more similar shows. The comments, however, are much more interesting. I particularly like one from someone called wishface.

It seems that this series is now old hat. Good.

Watch it if you must

A new series of The Fairy Jobmother begins on Channel 4 on Tuesday 7 June. I won't be watching. I wouldn't waste a minute of my life on it. If you do, dear reader, do post your thoughts.

It's worth remembering how this particular piece of what's been termed "poverty porn" came about. Channel 4 screened Benefit Busters, three programmes which took a serious look at the issues surrounding the welfare-to-work industry. The first two were filmed in A4e offices. Who now remembers the scenes in Hull, of clients being insulted and given nothing useful to do, of the man who got a job only to have it come to an end after a week? No, it was the first programme, which saw Hayley Taylor haranguing single mothers in Doncaster, which impressed producers. Ms Taylor was a character. And so she became a star, leaving A4e for a whole new career, here and in the US.

So will she fix up more hopeless cases with jobs which they certainly wouldn't have got if the cameras weren't there? Will you be shown idle, feckless people as if they were typical of the unemployed? Probably.

The BBC Panorama programme tonight (Monday 6 June) ought to be more informative: "With the government promising a welfare revolution, getting people off benefits and into work, Panorama visits the seaside resort of Rhyl in North Wales. In some parts of the town, nearly half of the adult population are on benefits. The programme follows the real life stories of some of the unemployed there, and asks the government whether this battle can really be won." But will there be any mention of the New Deal and FND providers who have dealt with these people in the past? Probably not.

Pathways, Work Programme and Hayley

In a piece headed "Pathway to nowhere" the latest edition of Private Eye again highlights the failure of Pathways to Work. The Eye has got hold of Ofsted reports on the 6 Pathways contracts. Reed comes out worst, and is slammed, but A4e in West Yorkshire is also criticised: "action to resolve staff underperformance has been slow". The Eye points out, again, that A4e employs David Blunkett, and indeed the latest Register of Members' Interests shows that he was paid £25k - £30k by the company.

The Indus Delta site carries a piece by Richard Judge, Finance Director of Serco's Welfare to Work arm. He's again questioning the viability of the Work Programme model. After saying that it's "an exciting opportunity to address long-term worklessness in all benefit groups, rather than a focus on Jobseeker’s Allowance" he goes on to point out that cutting the funding while increasing the number of clients is a backward step. The AME/DEL switch - paying providers what the government has saved in benefits etc. when someone gets a job - sounds good but leaves questions. "If we do not know how much money we can earn, then how can we possibly know how much we can spend getting the outcome that delivers the savings in the first place?" He recognises that it's not likely that the providers will get enough of the money to give them confidence to spend big sums at the outset. Is Judge speaking for all the providers? Are they still haggling with the DWP over this?

Meanwhile, Hayley Taylor of Benefit Busters and Fairy Jobmother fame is about to star in the US version of Jobmother. They're giving it 8 episodes there, amazingly. None of the previews mentions her former life with A4e, probably because the company isn't known there, but Hayley has become an "international career specialist". If one website, Deadline Hollywood is anything to go by, there will be the same sort of mixed reaction over there as here.

Round-up, 31 July 2010

This week saw the last of the three "The Fairy Jobmother" programmes. There's little more to be said about this grisly show, but the Workers' Liberty site has the best review by Cath Fletcher. She points out the "gender politics" inherent in the show. "Hayley tells the women she’s coaching that they’re beautiful. A random good-looking woman in a coffee shop is found to be self-employed. Employment makes you attractive, you see and if you run your own business you’ll have guys falling over themselves to meet you. The men, on the other hand, are sent down the boxing gym to work out their frustrations, brain injury being, apparently, a fantastic aspiration for working-class blokes. When in episode one Dean found work as a kitchen fitter this meant he could now ‘'provide for his family’'." She also points out that, "The Fairy Job Mother has some worthwhile insights about life without work. That it’s impossible to take agency work, for example, because once you sign off it takes six weeks to sign on again, and in order to survive you have to turn to the local ‘’loan man’’ as the programme politely put it (the term’s loan shark, Hayley, when the interest rate’s 60%). And if you think, hard, about the couple in episode one, it might occur to you that had it not been for her mother’s offer of free childcare, even getting work experience would have been impossible for Maxine. Not that the programme mentioned that. The Fairy Job Mother does, in a small way, what grammar schools used to do for working-class children – give a few of them special treatment so they can get out. If Hayley Taylor could magically visit every unemployed person in the country and offer her special brand of motivation, would there be any more jobs? No. Why does this programme exist? To make us feel that it’s only the undeserving poor who’ll get hit by benefit cuts. The clue’s in the title. This isn’t a solution. It’s a fairy tale."

Of more lasting interest is the publication of the proposals to reform the benefits system. There is no guarantee that these sensible reforms will ever be inplemented, because the initial costs are high; but if they are not, it will undermine Iain Duncan Smith's whole programme.

And what of A4e? Their travelling salesman Roy Newey has been in India with the trade delegation which accompanied David Cameron on his trip to that country. In England, A4e has sold a series of workshops to Hertfordshire County Council for people running childcare facilities. They're called "Business Success in Childcare", and a document online describes what they do (with messy graphics). And if we needed a reminder that A4e and their like are about making money, there's an interesting job advert on the totaljobs site for a Partnership Manager. "You will be building relationships with key strategic stakeholders to raise A4e’s profile in each district and source critical local information and identify local sales opportunities. Such stakeholders are likely to include: Local Authorities and other local government bodies,City Strategy Pathfinders,Local Strategic Partnerships, Local Employment and Skills Boards,Regional Development Agency representatives and Local Jobcentre Plus representatives. The role will also consist of leading the development of localised solutions to secure sales and tender success as well as understanding the financial and contractual drivers to deliver profitability. Identify opportunities to improve every aspect of business activity to achieve business goals." Now, there's nothing wrong with any of this. A4e is a private company which exists to make money. That's capitalism. But it should be borne in mind whenever we read the guff about "improving people's lives".

In the News

The difference between news and PR is always hard to discern with A4e, and there seems to be none at all today with a story in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph which is largely taken from A4e's own site. But hey, it's a good story. The brother of the Dragons' Den star Duncan Bannatyne, name of Bill, doesn't share his brother's good fortune. He had been working as a fork lift truck driver, but had been unemployed for a year and so was sent to A4e. The upshot is that he is now working - for A4e. The photo, on both sites, has the poster in the background with the cartoon Emma Harrison on it.

Emma herself was in Downing Street last week with other "philanthropic entrepreneurs" to discuss Cameron's "big society" obsession. According to the ICG site she was happy to endorse the project. "A4e (formally Action for Employment) is the prime contractor for government services like 'Flexible New Deal' and 'Education for Offenders' and have helped more than a million people in Britain back to work. 'Let us all accept that people have been helping people for ever - and that it gives us all a wonderful sense of purpose and is a thing that we can all do. It would build communities, friendships, self esteem, confidence and help people get back to work,' said Emma Harrison, who is also the founder of the charity Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI)." I wonder where that figure of "more than a million" comes from. Does it include the results of all the subcontractors?

It's the last of "The Fairy Jobmother" tonight, and the latest pearl of wisdom from Hayley is “The jobs are there. It’s being prepared to start at the bottom and work your way up. There’s something there for everyone if you’re prepared to work hard enough.” (The Herald). So if you can't find a job it's because you're not trying hard enough. Thanks, Hayley.

Episode 2

I am not about to watch episode 2 of "The Fairy Jobmother", which looks to be another kicking for the stereotypical unemployed. But if anyone does watch it and wants to comment, feel free. Will she wave her wand and get one or more of them a job?

That programme - and the Work Programme

Channel 4 has somewhat unwisely put up a page about "The Fairy Jobmother" entitled "Hayley Taylor's Top Tips on Gaining Employment". She gives seven fairly basic recommendations. Then there is a large number of comments, obviously carefully vetted, praising the show and asking for help for themselves or their relatives in finding work. Hayley answers only a couple of them; but it would be a full-time job in itself to answer all of them.

Turning to the Work Programme, there's an excellent article on the Public Finance site by Dan Finn, Professor of social inclusion at the University of Portsmouth. It should be essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. Yesterday's Observer has an article claiming that "Iain Duncan Smith's plans for a welfare revolution have run into trouble after the Treasury rejected a series of proposals put forward by his department." IDS's plans are based on the need to invest in reform of the benefits system, but Osborne is intent on slashing the bill for welfare benefits straight away. This comes after Serco's warning that the providers are not happy with plans for the WP contracts. Meanwhile, the "third sector" has been lobbying Chris Grayling to secure their involvement in the WP. It's reported that Grayling "had promised to consider some form of mechanism that could see prime contractors lose their contracts if they 'stuff the voluntary sector'."

I was half listening to The Daily Politics today and thought I heard it said that the government planned to create actual jobs to slot the unemployed into; it would be a refusal to take up such a job which would result in benefits being stopped. Did anyone else hear this?

TV - and being ill

With odd timing, A4e has published accounts of TV programmes "Benefit Busters" and "Famous, Rich and Jobless" on their MyA4e site. These are clearly dated July 2010 but read as if they are recent or haven't yet happened. Perhaps they are meant as a reminder that "The Fairy Jobmother" is just a spin-off. After all, the Doncaster Free Press managed to review that programme, calling Ms Taylor a "job expert", with but a single mention of "training company A4e". However, for all the hype, Jobmother only managed to get 8.9% of the viewers on Tuesday (according to MediaWeek), compared with 20.7% for BBC1's mini-series "The Silence" and 11.2% for ITV's "The Bill". It will be interesting to see how the second episode fares.

Reminding us that A4e has many irons in the fire, their Pathways site tells us that "A4e pathways are at the forefront with support for employers and GPs with the introduction of the fit note. A4e Pontypool pathways have contacted every GP surgery in Torfaen and Monmouthshire offering their expertise in reducing long term sickness related absence from work. The response from GP surgeries has been good and a number of meetings to discuss how the A4e pathways team could have a key role in supporting people where the doctor recommends an early return to work is work in progress." There is information about these new "fit notes", which were introduced in April, on the NHS website. So you could find yourself being referred to A4e just for being ill.

Was it a fix?

I've been reluctant to claim that Dean's success in getting a job on The Fairy Jobmother was contrived by the TV company, simply because we have no evidence of this. But others have been less cautious. Take Liam Tucker's posting on the TV Pixie site, for instance. He says: "The circumstances by which they got that work were entirely suspect, and that’s where the Hayley Taylor’s expertise falls down. Gaining Maxine unpaid work experience at Boots and Dean a wageless stint on the bins might’ve been possible in the real world, but grabbing the latter an interview with a fittings company out of the blue was unrealistic, to the point where those genuinely seeking work in the real world might be moved to complain. Job-hunting isn’t that simple for people with a patchy CV, and this was The Fairy Jobmother’s Achilles heel, effectively making it purely bludger-voyeurism, created for those comfortably in work to sit and gawp at the underclass."

It's perhaps significant that this criticism comes from the people in a position to know just how unrealistic it was. Other reviews miss this point. The Express & Star, for instance, focusses on Hayley Taylor and her methods, mentions that, "The pair get £261.62 a week, totalling £1040 a month in benefits – more than some working families," and sees nothing unusual in Dean's getting the first job he goes after. The Metro is just plain silly.

It's not impossible; and if the TV company and the employer assure us that there was no arrangement, we'll accept it. But even with that assurance, the programme gave the impression that if you really want a job, you can get one easily. And if it was a fix, it dishonestly fuelled hostility to supposed "dole scroungers".

The Fairy Jobmother - episode 1

I didn't watch it, and the reviews suggest that I made the right decision.

Dean got a job. Of course there was no collusion between the production company and the employer - shame on you for even thinking such a thing. But Jane Murphy on the Orange TV blog says: "Dean manages to clinch a position as a kitchen fitter's assistant. And that's where the premise falls down. Because this is all very inspiring - but if you have precious little work experience, particularly in the current economic climate, you're highly unlikely to get the first job you go for. I can't help thinking that if Dean had applied for the kitchen fitter's position without Hayley's help, he wouldn't even have got an interview. It's one thing to be willing to work - but it's quite another to find the determination to persevere through the inevitable disappointments and rejections while you look for a job."

Michael Deacon in the Telegraph catches himself being patronising: "I was going to say what a horribly middle-class idea, patronising the working class for our entertainment. But then I remembered that there’s nothing more horribly middle-class, or more patronising to the working class, than some jumped-up journalist being drippily self-righteous in the working class’s defence. So I won’t." But he is unable to resist being critical of Hayley Taylor: "I wasn’t quite so keen, though, on Taylor’s main educational prop: a large drawing of a twisting road (representing her subjects’ lives), on which she would affix stickers showing symbolic road signs. “The gated level crossing sign,” she announced, sticking it for some reason in the middle of a field, represented her subjects’ “debt” and “fear of coming off the benefits system”. Despite this, she seemed nice enough, in her briskly mother-ish way, although I have a tip of my own for her. If you’re going to scold your subjects for speaking in an unsophisticated manner (for example, saying “hiya” instead of “good morning”), it’s probably best if you don’t praise them by saying, “You’re doing really, really good.”

The Independent's Tom Sutcliffe falls into a patronising attitude: "Hayley Taylor, the Fairy Jobmother, is a bit like Pauline, the restart officer from The League of Gentlemen, approaching the jobless with upbeat mantras and slightly childish visual aids (a road map titled "Hayley's Drive to Life"). But where Pauline was malign and undermining Hayley is tender-hearted, encouraging and briskly effective. When Dean whined and whinged that his unemployment was everybody's fault but his own, she didn't see exasperating fecklessness – she saw fear of failure, and she soothed it away in a briskly maternal manner, transforming his resentful hoodie hunch into something close to upright posture. He got a job anyway, and – more to the point – he still has it. Set alongside a film like Between Life and Death, The Fairy Jobmother could easily look like the terminal decay of the serious documentary. In fact, it effectively smuggles a lot of education and information inside the boilerplate, can-do narrative arc. Did you know that one reason the jobless are so reluctant to take a chance on short-term jobs is that you lose your benefits as soon as you get work but it will take six weeks to get them restored if something goes wrong? Quite a gamble when you can't afford to lose." Yes, Tom, we did know that.

And there are two more episodes. Can't wait.

A depressing prospect

If there was any doubt about the purpose of "The Fairy Jobmother" it has been dispelled by the Sun's headline, "Why work? Dole pays us £1,150 every month." It's a preview of tonight's programme designed to evoke all the standard prejudices against the unemployed; and the comments from readers (is that the right word when applied to the Sun?) bear that out. But of course, this series is not designed to bring light or thought to the problem of joblessness. Ms Taylor, we're told, lived with each family for three weeks. That ruled out all the single people living in tiny flats. There had to be the likelihood of success, so that ruled out all the chaps in their late 50s or early 60s who have to undergo these "courses" although everyone knows they will never work again. There had to be something which Ms Taylor could teach them; so that ruled out all the qualified, skilled and experienced people who've been made redundant and can't find work. All that were left were the stereotypical families, apparently coining it for being idle. How very depressing. And the thing hasn't even been screened yet.

Let's not make it personal

This blog is not going to join in the personal jibes at Hayley Taylor; there are quite enough of them out there, and I'm rejecting all the comments which are insulting. Some of the comments have been provoked by a Guardian article: "Hayley Taylor: I've felt what the unemployed feel: losing confidence, staring at four walls." All the pre-publicity for "The Fairy Jobmother reinforces the suspicion that this series is about Ms Taylor rather than about unemployment. But we'll see.

Unemployment as entertainment

I've decided that I'm not going to watch "The Fairy Jobmother". I am sick of televison companies treating the unemployed as entertainment.

"Benefit Busters" was a gallant attempt to raise some important issues. We saw lone parents being "persuaded" into what have become known as poundland jobs, a synonym for the worst kind of mimimum wage work. We saw disturbing scenes at an A4e office, and what happens to people on IB who are being "assessed". But there was no further interest from the media in any of these issues. The only outcome was that a controversial individual in the first programme got a contract, because her methods make good television, supposedly. BBC's "Famous, Rich and Jobless" was a disgraceful mix of celebs and distress which proposed no solutions. The Panorama programme gave Digby Jones a platform to spout ill-informed nonsense and obscure the real issues facing the young, unemployed men. Now we are to be treated to another series which seems set to paint unemployed people as lacking in motivation, confidence and "life skills".

I have nothing against Hayley Taylor personally. The interview with her on the Channel 4 website shows that she came into the work in the same way as did many other people working on New Deal. She got lucky. But I don't feel obliged to watch any more of this.

The Fairy Jobmother - previews

I saw a trailer for this programme tonight, and my heart sank.

The various TV listings magazines offer different opinions; the Radio Times says:

"Last year Benefit Busters offered an eye-opening look at Britain's unemployed and those who steer them back into work. The surprise star was formidable employment coach Hayley Taylor, who combined ruthless positivity with a whimsical line in neckerchiefs. Now she has her own show. Hayley descends from the TV heavens to sprinkle fairy dust on the little people. First in line is a jobless couple in Middlesborough with a debt problem. Hayley teaches them basic life skills, like how to shake hands, but what could feel condescending doesn't, thanks to the emotional warmth. She really cares."

If that isn't enough to put you off, the trailer is. The three episodes clearly deal with the sort of unemployed people who need those "basic life skills", thus insulting the hundreds of thousands who have skills, qualifications and experience which would leave Ms Taylor standing, and are desperate for work but who simply can't find it. I hope I'm wrong; but it seems set to reinforce the hugely dangerous stereotype of the dole scroungers and the dependency culture. And I have one question which I hope the programmes will answer: what are Ms Taylor's qualifications for this work, particularly for debt counselling? It may well be that she has the appropriate qualifications, but I'd like to be sure.

(It does seem that the programme Emma Harrison made for the channel has been shelved. What a shame!)