New business and old

We learn (thanks, Roy) that A4e have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government. That makes, I think, 12 countries in which A4e does business. One country they haven't cracked is the US. Indeed, the traffic is the other way, with an American company getting contracts here. Perhaps it's because the system is different there, much like what the Conservatives want to bring in here. And that brings us to current contracts. Phase 2 of FND has been revised, as we reported, with the government cutting by half the number of expected clients. It had to give the bidding companies more time to work out their figures again, and now we hear that the deadline for revised bids has been extended to 23 April; and that the companies can bid for areas which they didn't previously bid for. Presumably that's because they expect some of the companies to pull out of the process. And the Jobseeker's Allowance (Work for your Benefit Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2010 went before the House of Lords for approval yesterday. It was an interesting debate which you can read here.

What a good idea!

It's always nice when influential people agree with you. Today we learn that "the Local Democracy think tank LGiU has proposed a radical devolution of responsibility for back-to-work services from central government to local councils." See the egovmonitor site. Their report says that local councils are much better placed to understand the needs of their areas, and cites the Dutch model which rewards councils for cutting the benefits bill by getting people into work. The article ends: "The report argues that a large financial incentive would help mobilise all local authority services around the goal of helping people get jobs and keep them there. The money would be re-invested in local communities in ways that would further support opportunities for work, rather than at present under the Flexible New Deal, where it is absorbed by private profit. It is a self-financing scheme for local investment, aimed at both tackling the human tragedy of long-term worklessness and restoring public finances."

It's common sense, really. I wonder why no one in government or opposition is listening.

Accountability

Last night's File on Four programme raised an important point about accountability when public services are privatised. The ERSA declined to take part in the programme. The producers had clearly intended to use the experiences of clients of ND and FND but in the end didn't. This may have been, as a comment suggests, because the providers would not engage with this; or it may have been simply that the programme was trying to cover a great deal of ground, and this was the segment most easily dropped. But private companies have the luxury of being able to do what governments can't do; they can refuse to enter into debate.

It was Thatcher's government which discovered the benefits of creating "arms-length" agencies, starting with the Benefits Agency. It enabled ministers to distance themselves, to say, "Not me, gov," when anything went wrong. Privatisation compounds that lack of accountability. In the sphere of welfare-to-work Jim Knight, or whichever minister is in office, can be wheeled out to face questions, whether in Parliament or in the media, but can always claim that the figures are not available or waffle meaninglessly. Ofsted can produce poor inspection reports; parliamentary committees can take evidence from the companies' spokespeople and produce critical reports; but the companies are unaffected.

Obviously A4e is one of those companies which (unlike, for instance, Serco) thinks that publicity is a good thing - but on its own terms. "Benefit Busters" no doubt seemed like a good idea at the time. Emma Harrison can be turned into a media personality. A4e can use that, and its claim to be the largest welfare-to-work provider in the UK (is that still true?) to procure business abroad. But at the same time the system protects it from too much scrutiny of its practices, and protects the government from real accountability. No wonder the politicians don't want to change the system.

File on Four

This Radio 4 programme tonight looked at what help is available for people looking for work, in view of the fact that unemployment is set to rise sharply. As is usual with the media, it lacked a historical perspective.

It started in the North East, where the loss of jobs in the steel industry has had knock-on effects. The programme followed a 42-year-old redundant professional to the Jobcentre. Here, it picked up the fact that most of the local job vacancies advertised are either not local at all or are entirely spurious. Figures for vacancies are being fiddled with "speculative" jobs. Zero hours jobs are still being advertised in disguised form, although outlawed. It was said that many employers will not advertise vacancies through the Jobcentres because they are seen as serving the bottom end of the skills market; and private recruitment agencies would object to losing upmarket vacancies to JCP. Jim Knight MP stated that JCP has the largest jobs database in Europe, and he's aware of the issues.

The programme visited a Jobcentre in Birmingham, where the manager is proud of the transformation the service has undergone. But a client, a former PR man, spoke of spending 3 or 4 hours a day looking for work and not getting any help or support. He found that other people were being offered training courses etc., but he wasn't. He wants to start his own business but nobody at the Jobcentre knew what help was available. He found out himself that there was a course of training. JCP, said the interviewer to the manager, has been criticised for being unresponsive to the needs of professionals. Things are getting better, said the manager - and then a Press Officer for the DWP intervened.

Consumer Focus has been equally critical of the service. The DWP produced a customer charter, but CF says that this has not improved things. Jim Knight said that JCP staff have been increased by 16,000 in the recession, but the system needs to adapt. A Professor Finn (an adviser) said that JCP has had to re-tool, but new services are fairly minimal. The government thinks people should be able to look after themselves in the early stages of unemployment.

The programme then turned to the rising numbers of long-term unemployed, and the fact that welfare-to-work is run by the private sector. It called FND the big brother of New Deal (and here the lack of a historical perspective was irritating). Payment by results means that much of the risk has been shifted onto providers; and managers on the ground have to make decisions about who to help. The report of the enquiry we reported on the other day was cited; it complained about the "creaming and parking" going on. This was linked to the numbers of people who had been shifted from Incapacity Benefit onto JSA. A Liberal Democrat member of the committee, Jenny Willott, said that because no one is close to hitting their targets the people who are most likely to find work are being pushed into the first job which comes up. She said that the DWP doesn't have a clue what is going on, and that a better breakdown of the figures is needed, and better oversight.

The ERSA (the trade body for the providers) declined to put anyone up for interview, but in a statement said that the providers wanted more money to help the most difficult cases. Jim Knight was not concerned about the lack of safeguards, and was happy with the customer charter. The Personalised Employment Programme will test a new model of payment. The programme concluded with a look at the policies of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, but both intend to adjust rather than scrap the private provider model. There is more pain to come, particularly as public sector jobs go.

All this makes an announcement by the DWP even more startling. Reported on the Indus Delta site, it says that they have reduced by half the numbers of people expected on the FND Phase 2 contracts, and has asked the bidders for their revised pricing proposals. No one can make out how they have arrived at these revised figures.

More tweets

Some tweets from A4e's Roy Newey:

• India is the most exciting place on earth for skills development, get involved in our consortiums now.
• How do you choose which starving child to help? Answer - you don't. Help us to help all children in poverty in India
• Kasia (A4e) is presented to Prince Charles in Poland in recognition of her work to help unemployed. Congratulations, fantastic.
• Looking forward to review International Development tomorrow. Do you have any thoughts about where in the world A4e should be?
• World Water day. What has that to do with A4e? It is a major driver of poverty in India. Our work must support those affected.
• Yes you did. Well done. Now let's tackle the 50% of children in London living in poverty.
• A4e breaks new ground in Australia.
• Poland enters an exciting phase are you able to partner with a4e Polska to give skills and match into work?

Let's be charitable. Let's assume that Mr Newey is sincere in his belief that by expanding its business through more of the world's poorest areas it can help them out of poverty. I would suggest that he needs to do some reading. He could start with Benny Dembritzer's "The Attack on World Poverty". Unless Mr Newey begins to understand the causes of poverty he will continue to sound ridiculous.

The Good News and the Bad News

The preferred bidders have been announced for Work Choices, the new contract for supported employment. And A4e isn't one of them. We reported that A4e had been shortlisted in 11 of the 19 contract areas. Today's list shows 28 contract areas, and The Shaw Trust has won 16 of those, with Working Links getting 5. Is this the first time that A4e haven't been successful anywhere?

But all that happy tweeting about India is confirmed on A4e's website. India is a massive market, so it's not surprising that A4e's people are thrilled to bits.

The report is out of the Parliamentary Select Committee into the "Management and Administration of Contracted Employment Programmes". That was the enquiry prompted by disclosures of fraud and other concerns. The Committee is not best pleased. The summary makes the following points, among others:

• We note that levels of detected fraud in contracted employment programmes are low, and that we were told there is little evidence that there is a problem with undetected fraud. However we feel that there is no room for complacency; the frauds uncovered to date have highlighted the extent of the risk that could be exploited because of weaknesses in the system. The Department must ensure that processes for the detection of fraud are rigorous and robust.
• We call for customer rights to be given a much higher status, and for a universal, monitored,and enforceable customer charter to be introduced. We also call for the Department to carry out a “Customer Survey” of customers of contracted employment programmes to enable standards of service to be compared between providers and with Jobcentre Plus. Advisers also need to talk to customers on contracted provision about their experiences and ensure these are fed back to providers and the Department.

A4e was one of the companies which gave oral and written evidence to the Committee. One section of the report deals with "Poor service and complaints". It cites the Manchester Evening News article of March 2008 which focussed on what was happening in A4e's offices there, and also the Benefit Busters programme which drew attention to customers who "were dissatisfied with A4e staff offering them short-term and zero hour contracts, often through agencies, rather than focusing on helping them to find sustainable employment." Several providers agreed that the DWP's approach to customer feedback was wrong. Ae's evidence said, sensibly, "Current systems across contracted programmes are more focused on compliance rather than continual improvement and we believe it is to the benefit of future service quality that this balance is redressed. […] Systems across the board need to be more engaged with customers so that they have a real voice and impact on service quality measures. This is essential if employment services are to become service led treating service users as both experts and customers."

It's worth reading the entire report.

New Deal on the BBC

The Radio 4 File on Four programme on 23 March (8.00 pm) will be dealing with unemployment. The website says: "The government is promising extra help for people out of work during the recession. But, as Britain braces itself for a rise in unemployment, Allan Urry reports from the communities already hardest hit and asks what redundant steelmakers, public sector workers and others joining the dole queue can really expect at the Jobcentre." Since they've been asking for people to tell them about recent experiences with New Deal and FND, we should expect that they will be focussing on that. Which will be a novelty. Until today it was never mentioned, either by the BBC or by politicians. Last night BBC1's Newsnight had a discussion about the latest unemployment figures. They are unexpectedly down in some places, up in others; but there has been a big rise in the number of people who are not working, for whatever reason, and a 10% rise in the number of long-term unemployed. Jim Knight MP was wheeled out, as usual, to defend the government's record, and said that they had to "keep up the investment", mentioning the Future Jobs Fund but not New Deal. What about the fact that there's a real shortage of skills in the new industries? Apparently new "skills academies" are being set up (who'll be running them, I wonder?). So why, one might ask, is so much money being spent on the privatised New Deal and FND if it's so irrelevant that it's never mentioned?

But today the BBC's business news pages carry an article based on the experience of a 53-year-old unemployed man in Wolverhampton. And towards the end it mentions New Deal. "The New Deal 50 plus scheme, which is aimed specifically at older jobseekers, was replaced in many areas of the UK in October 2009 with the Flexible New Deal which caters for unemployed people of all ages. One of the differences between the two is that you can join New Deal 50 plus after six months of unemployment but most people cannot join the Flexible New Deal until they have been unemployed for 12 months. So some people over 50 are getting unemployment help sooner than others simply because of where they live."

It may all become irrelevant after 6 May. But then again, it may not.