More unravelling

I'm sorry to post only links to news items, but they are coming thick and fast, and showing how Iain Duncan Smith's grand plans continue to unravel.
First, there's an article on the Guardian's website with more evidence that the "There are no targets and no league tables" claim doesn't hold water.  It includes a link to the "scorecard" - a league table by any other name - and full accounts by two different JCP staff on how the system works.  The figures are interesting; 85,000 sanctions in January alone, with 24,000 of these coming from Work Programme providers.  So are Duncan Smith, Mark Hoban, Lord Freud and Neil Couling (the Jobcentre Plus manager) knowingly telling porkies?  Probably not.  They have never issued an instruction explicitly saying, "You must punish at least x per cent of claimants to get them 'off-flow'".  The pressure is more subtle than that.  But the effect is the same.  What's needed now is a full response from Duncan Smith
Universal Credit is also in trouble.  A report tonight (see the Independent) says that the trial of this will be scaled down.  There were going to be 4 areas piloting it in a month's time; now it's going to be just one, a jobcentre in Ashton under Lyne.  They don't have the experience, training or computer programmes in place to do any more at present.  Embarrassing.
And with the bedroom tax starting on Monday, the National Housing Federation, representing 1,200 housing associations, says that it will hurt the most vulnerable (also in the Independent).  There's no need for it in many areas, and nowhere for the displaced to move to.  They also point out that where disabled people have to move out of specially adapted homes, it will cost millions more to adapt their new homes.  This all comes on top of Frank Field MP telling councils to brick up doors or knock down walls to avoid the tax, and Nottingham apparently re-designating lots of properties as one-bedroom.
One wonders whether any of the media have invited Iain Duncan Smith to be interviewed, particularly by someone who knows the subject.

Who cares?

If it weren't for the Guardian we would know nothing about the retroactive legislation to save Iain Duncan Smith's face, nor the mealy-mouthed response of Labour.  We wouldn't have heard about the argument about sanctions.  Today, for instance, we read that the head of Jobcentre Plus, Neil Couling, has sent a letter to staff reminding them that "there are no national targets for applying sanctions and individual targets should not appear in performance agreements."  The article says, "Numerous jobcentre staff have contacted the Guardian since last Friday's story on targets for sanctions to claim such targets are part of the jobcentre culture. There may be a dispute about definitions that is fuelling the disjuncture about what is being said at national level, and what is reported at local level."  

But we learn that 40-odd Labour MPs had the gumption to vote against the bill – good for them. Labour's line is that they have secured an enquiry into sanctions. Well, unless they ask the people who have been, and are being, affected by these punishments, any enquiry will be at best pointless and at worst a whitewash.

Why are the rest of the media so silent on the issue?  I did hear the legislation raised briefly on BBC Radio 4's The Westminster Hour last night, but it was skated over very quickly.  The rest of the press has no interest at all.  I think it's because it's complicated.  The Guardian has a political editor, Patrick Wintour, who  knows the subject; and the Guardian is "left wing".  Occasionally the Independent publishes a considered story.  But that's about it.

Targets - what about the Work Programme?

The revelations about targets for punishing the unemployed were raised in Parliament yesterday, as the Guardian published more evidence.  They've been receiving information from Jobcentre staff around the country showing how widespread the practice is.  "It was also reported that staff in a jobcentre in the West Midlands were this week told that the team who submitted the most Stricter Benefit Regime 'Refusal of Employment' referrals would be rewarded with Easter eggs. The staff were told there was drive on this particular type of sanction."
Labour's Liam Byrne asked about all this in the Commons.  Now, Labour is in a difficult position.  They are refusing to oppose the retroactive legislation to legitimise the £130m wrongly taken from people in sanctions.  Apparently the DWP is setting up an independent enquiry into the use of sanctions in return for this co-operation.  But Byrne asked the question, and Iain Duncan Smith repeated that there are no targets; and the head of JCP has issued reminders.  The original leaked email came from Walthamstow, and the MP for that area, Stella Creasey, after reading it out, asked who was responsible?  IDS repeated that there are no targets.  Another Tory, David Gauke, congratulated IDS on cutting the benefits bill.
So far this has all been about Jobcentres.  No one has mentioned Work Programme providers.  There will be no official targets, of course.  But if staff at the DWP have been ignoring their ministerial bosses and issuing league tables and incentives to make people destitute, it seems unlikely that they've confined this practice to Jobcentres.

Targets and definitions

In an outsourced society, targets are, apparently, vital.  You can't measure the success or failure of a contract without them.  When companies bid, they have to agree to meet targets.  But as we've seen so often, not meeting them doesn't matter much.  There's no penalty.  You just don't make as much profit.  But if that's already factored into your calculations, who cares?  All the Work Programme primes missed the first year target, which was pitifully low anyway.  Even delaying publication of the data for a couple of months didn't push the figures up enough.  So what happens now?  A stern letter from Mark Hoban.  Well, what else can he do?  If they've all performed equally badly, or if the differences between them are minimal, you can't penalise one and not the others.  And anyway, the only suggested penalty is to cut down the number of referrals to the worst performing companies.  For some, that would be welcome, since they can't cope with the numbers they've got.
There are other targets, unofficial ones, which do have an impact, but on clients rather than the companies.  Think of Atos.  Both the DWP and Atos have denied that there are any targets for getting people off incapacity benefits.  But whistle-blowers among Atos staff have said that they are indeed given targets and are pressured to meet them.  And now we have the Universal Jobmatch site.  Again, the official line, in all the guidance, is that it's not compulsory for people on JSA to register with it.  But we know that people are being told, by both JC and Work Programme advisers, that it is compulsory, because they have been given targets, and it's easier to give orders than to persuade.

Two other words have become part of the language of welfare-to-work, and in the process have been neutralised.  The first is "mandatory".  We all know what it means in practice.  But it somehow sounds better than its dictionary definition (a real, physical dictionary, my copy of the Concise Oxford, 8th edition) which is simply "compulsory".  So let's not talk about people being "mandated".  They are compelled.
Even more weasly is the word "sanction".  It's an interesting word, because it can mean two very different, almost opposite, things.  One meaning is approval.  The other is penalty.  And it's the second meaning, of course, which pertains here.  When people don't do what they are compelled to do they are penalised - punished.

So if you're an outsourcing company which has failed to meet its targets, you can't be penalised.  But if you're a client, you can be told that something is compulsory when it isn't and penalised for not doing it.