Showing posts with label X in the City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label X in the City. Show all posts

Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Fraud and lap-dancing

The Exaro website has got hold of the leaked internal A4e report of 2009 which demonstrated that the company knew that more than a quarter of its job outcome claims were potentially fraudulent.  This has already been publicised by the BBC's Paul Mason, but it's salutary to remind ourselves that Grayling claims that there was "no evidence of fraud" in A4e contracts.  Exaro also has what it calls a "shock discovery" - an instance of this potential fraud in the report.  "The Bootle office of A4e sent the job-seeker to work at ‘X In The City’, a Liverpool lap-dance club favoured by football stars."  If you're not acquainted with what goes on in such places, we read that, "The bar advertises lap dances at £5 a time, and offers a ‘VIP’ deal in private rooms where a half-hour lap dance with champagne costs £50."  The auditors found that "a jobseeker was working at the club for more than 16 hours a week for 13 weeks in 2009."  But they couldn't verify the job placement because the club wasn't open during working hours!
There will be some of you thinking, why not?  It's a job.  And actually, at the time no rules were being broken.  But they wouldn't be allowed to do it now.  Said the DWP, "The secretary of state, Chris Grayling, issued a ban on job centres carrying advertisements for jobs in sex clubs and sex shops. Therefore, we are hardly likely to sanction a job provider placing a person in a sex or lap-dance club. It would be banned."