More lies v. truth

You couldn't have a better example today of this government's contempt for the truth, and how the media collude with them.
On the one hand there are two articles, in the Express and the Mail.  The very names tell you what's coming - a platform for Iain Duncan Smith to lie about some made-up figures.  They are the same article, really.  The Mail says: "Half of those caught out by benefits cap are 'spurred to seek work': New figures show the system is working".  This is based on an Ipsos Mori poll of "more than 1,600 capped households" showed that 28% did more to find work.  Pretty thin, you might say.  Even thinner is the finding that 11% of capped households have found work, although you'll have to get your calculator out to work that one out.  This gives IDS the excuse to claim that the cap is changing people's behaviour, etc, etc.  This is the sort of nonsense which he was rebuked for, but he takes no notice.  
The Express's version oozes hatred, as usual, referring to "handouts", "welfare bonanza", "workshy", "creaming off" and on and on, but it's the same lie based on the same dubious figures.  Bringing in Jonathan Isaby of the Taxpayers Alliance to parrot the right things hardly enhances the credibility of this rotten propaganda.
So for an antidote we turn to the Guardian, and first to an article by Patrick Wintour.  The same Ipsos Mori poll which delights IDS also shows that a third of people affected by the cap have had to cut back on essential items.  Just as important are the findings of Citizens Advice.  The increased ruthlessness of the sanctions regime is driving people to loan sharks and hindering them from looking for work.  They point out that on the Work Programme twice as many people are sanctioned as find work.
And then there's an excellent article by Polly Toynbee.  The latest employment figures will show that more people are in work; but in the last 3 months all the increase is down to self-employment.  And most of it is down to desperation.  Toynbee goes on to look at Help to Work.  Since nobody actually calls it that, let's refer to it as workfare.  She says: "For once, instead of rushing in, the DWP has done a good control trial on this with 15,000 unemployed. The pilot's results, however, were sneaked out just before Christmas with no press release. That's no surprise when you uncover the findings.  First the unemployed were given a 13-week warning period to act as a deterrent, and then 26 weeks of either 'intensive Jobcentre Plus support', or the workfare 'community action programme'. Or they went into the control group with nothing special. Here's what happened: exactly the same number in the control group – 18% – found themselves jobs as those doing the forced community work. Just 1% more found jobs from the group with jobcentre support. In other words, workfare didn't work. Although 68% of the control group were still on unemployment benefits at the end, so were 66% of those who did the community work and 64% of those given jobcentre support."
Help to Work is only two weeks from launch, but there hasn't even been an announcement of the contractors, and Toynbee couldn't get an answer out of the DWP.  She concludes that the only reason for going ahead with this is that it takes people out of the unemployment figures for 6 months.  " Incidently," she says, "these sad long-term cases will do more than twice the maximum any court can sentence a thief to on Community Payback. To be out of work is now officially morally worse than committing a crime."

Workfare

A4e's accounts for 2012 / 13 have been filed, but won't be available for a day or two.
The company will no doubt be hoping that it will get a big slice of the latest outsourcing pie, Community Work Placements (workfare to the rest of us).  The new issue of Private Eye details the provisions and payment structure of this pernicious scheme.   We knew that it would be the same companies which are involved in the Work Programme - that is government policy.  But the Eye points out that there is a potential clash of interests here.  Payment is in stages, for starting a placement, being on it for 12 weeks, 22 weeks on CWP or in work, and for staying in work for 6 months.  It's a clear disincentive to encouraging someone into short-term jobs before the 22 weeks is up.  The magazine also says that the charity sector has no use for the people who will be on workfare, and lists a few charities which have said they will have nothing to do with it.  Still, the providers are allowed to put people into placements in their own businesses, so there will be a lot of that, no doubt.   Many poor souls will find that they have spent two pointless years on the WP with, say, A4e, and then are given back to the same company for a workfare stint.  And since the DWP itself doesn't expect more than a fifth of those on workfare to find permanent jobs, it will be relatively cheap, and therefore not particularly profitable for the providers.  What is it for, then?
The fall in unemployment reported today has to be good news for those who have benefited.  Even long-term unemployment is down a bit; but everybody who is on a workfare scheme is recorded as employed, so it's not as clear as it should be.

Workfare - the government must come clean

The DWP refused Freedom of Information requests to reveal the organisations which were using free labour under the various schemes dubbed "workfare".  The Information Commissioner said they had to.  The DWP refused again, on the grounds that it would cause "damage to commercial interests", and charities would suffer from the "adverse publicity".  Now a tribunal led by three judges has ruled that the DWP must comply and publish the list.  (See the Guardian)
While the Boycott Workfare group is justifiably triumphant, I don't think they should rejoice too soon.  This government doesn't regard such legal rulings as binding.  As the Guardian says, they could appeal to the high court or use a ministerial veto to ban publication.  My bet would be that the list never will be published.
The DWP seems to assume that if they have to reveal the organisations taking part in these schemes it will effectively bring them to an end.  And that means, they say, that the firms paid to organise them would have to sack staff and lose money.  Ingeus said it would lose £1m in revenue, and Seetec said they would have to sack 53 people.  (A4e don't seem to have been asked.)  So the taxpayer is paying millions to force people into working for their benefits.  Crazy, isn't it?  There's another interesting fact in the Guardian piece.  The current Chief Executive of Ingeus is Dean James, who is a former senior DWP civil servant.  How very cosy.

"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.

Job Snobs, new contracts and another view of Emma

We're seeing crude government propaganda at work over "workfare".  First there was Chris Grayling using the Telegraph on 19 February to tell us that "critics of the government's work experience programme are 'job snobs'."  It's a thoroughly misleading and sanctimonious piece in which he castigates the BBC and the "left wing" newspapers for their reporting and tells us how wonderful it is that retailers like Tesco are offering experience to youngsters.  He focusses entirely on the scheme which is "voluntary" (for the first week) for young people.  Surprisingly, given that it's in the Telegraph, a lot of the comments which follow are scathing.  Then yesterday Iain Duncan Smith weighed in in the Daily Mail with exactly the same soundbite, except that now it's "sneering job snobs who betray the young".  It's very bad-tempered.  Critics of the scheme are "a commentating elite which seems determined to belittle and downgrade any opportunity for young people that doesn’t fit their pre-conceived notion of a ‘worthwhile job’."  He comes up with the extraordinary statement that "13 weeks after starting their placements, around 50 per cent of those taking part have either taken up permanent posts or have stopped claiming benefits."  Again the comments are short and to the point.  Today YouGov have put out a poll in which people are asked whether they approve of workfare, so the government will be able to see whether the fight-back is working. 

Meanwhile the Independent reports that, far from having their contracts suspended, A4e will be bidding for a share in the new contracts targeting Neets.  They are payment-by-results contracts, with up to £2,200 on offer for each youngster "helped".  "'Any organisation with a proven track record in the field will be able to apply in an open tender – the usual process,' a spokesman said."  I hope Margaret Hodge and the other PAC members read that bit carefully, because it is very misleading.  The committee were told, correctly, that the procurement process doesn't allow past performance to be taken into account.  So this spokesman is plain wrong.
The Independent also today runs a piece by James Cusick on the recent storm over Emma Harrison.   It adds little to our knowledge, except that in addition to Thornbridge Hall Harrison owns a £3m mews property in London.  But he does bring out her messianic delusions.  "She said recently: 'I've got another million people I want to help. I'm going to ... sort out the entire health system.'  She also claims to have 'a role in the Bank of England's regional consultations on behalf of the Monetary Policy Committee'. The Bank questioned the use of the word 'role', saying: 'I think Emma's website needs a bit of an update.' " 

Workfare

The Guardian is keeping up its interest in the subject of workfare with an article on those firms which have taken people on placement - including Waterstones, which has decided to make its branch managers end the practice "as it did not want to encourage working without pay".  Other companies involved say that they can't give figures because the placements are arranged locally. One point raised by an anonymous member of Holland and Barrett's staff was that they believe the placements are destroying paid work.  "We have had a number of placements in our store and have noticed that the hours for part-time staff have been reduced. Staff are upset because we are all struggling to make ends meet," the employee said.  "The real benefactors of this scheme are the companies who receive millions of pounds worth of labour absolutely free of charge and the losers are the jobseekers who see potential jobs being filled by workfare placements for months at a time and the loyal part-timers who find their regular overtime hours savagely cut."  The article also updates us on Cait Reilly's action against the DWP.  Court papers have now been filed.  The DWP's defence is "that having benefits docked does not equate to forcing the unemployed to work."  "Where a person is required to perform a task and, if he or she does not do so, loses benefit, that is not forcing a person to work."  Well, yes.  Very interesting.


That appearance by Emma Harrison yesterday on The Daily Politics - I'm still wondering how and why she came to be there.  

Emma Harrison on workfare and the WCA

It's hardly a surprise that Emma Harrison has a Facebook page - one of those you can "like" (only 327 people have, up to now). But there's an interesting exchange with someone who calls herself Willow Jacky, which ends in a statement of Emma's and A4e's position on a number of issues on A4e's website. The poster is concerned about "workfare" and about sick people being forced into the jobs market.

Harrison misses the poster's point about people being made to work for free in places like Tesco, and simply extols the benefits of working for such companies - "All employment provides really positive opportunities to develop." But then she goes on to talk about Workfare and its origins in America. She doesn't mention that the main point of Workfare is that it time-limits benefits, but she is right about its drawbacks, leaving many people in absolute destitution. But A4e's approach is much better. Evidence? None, of course.

On the second issue, Harrison states the government's line with approval, but agrees that "the current process is not adequate". Never fear, A4e is "working with the DWP to see if there is a better way of designing this process".

Gordon Brown and the unemployed

"But they shouldn’t be doing that, there is no life on the dole anymore for people, if you’re unemployed you’ve got to go back to work. At six months…" That's a quote from Gordon Brown's run-in with an elderly lady today. And, of course, it's gone unremarked. He didn't finish the sentence, but clearly the intention, if a Labour government is returned, is to copy the Tories' idea of Workfare - compulsory "training" or work-for-your-benefits, or even a cut-off point for benefits. There's nothing to distinguish Labour and the Conservatives, then, and whoever gets in we're going to see an increase in the resentment that so many unemployed people feel at being stigmatised. I see a growing number of posts and blogs on the internet from JSA claimants venting their anger. That is going to get worse.

There's a relevant article on CFE News saying that "Charity claims NEETs view employability courses with contempt".

"Barnardo’s Scotland director Martin Crewe claimed that young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) view courses designed to improve their job prospects with contempt. Mr Crewe stated that that was not what they wanted, and said: "What they want are real jobs and programmes that will get them employed - not a short-term placement which will leave them more or less back where they started. Sitting around in classrooms for long periods working on their CVs is not going to provide a major boost to the employability prospects of the young people we work with. They know it from day one and regard such schemes with contempt." He went on to say that the Barnardo's Works programme had got 80% of its young participants into sustained employment.