News has emerged that a sub-contractor of A4e has gone out of business, unable to keep going under the Work Programme. The Guardian has the story of the demise of Eco Actif, a social enterprise in the chain of providers under A4e. The boss of the company, Amanda Palmer-Roye, was a political supporter of the government, but found that the payment system for the WP was impossible to live with; the firm couldn't get finance from the banks, which regard the WP as too "high-risk" and, she said, "its association with A4e had been a matter of great concern to potential investors". Eco Actif had other contracts; a specialist programme subcontracting to A4e, G4S and CDG for support to ex-offenders, which had not come up with a single referral; and one of those European Social Fund contracts for workless families. But now they've gone into liquidation. All this is of interest in the light of the Merlin assessment for A4e. This is the DWP's arrangement for monitoring how the primes are treating their sub-contractors, and A4e had their inspection recently. They scored an overall 70%.
All the optimism from Grayling about the Work Programme seems curious in light of new estimates for the number of people being put on it. As the This is Money website puts it, "More than half a million potential recruits seem to have disappeared" from the scheme. For Labour, this is an opportunity to shout about "chaos", and warn that jobs would be lost in the W2W industry. It's very hard to give any credibility to Liam Byrne on this, when the WP is just an extension of Labour's own programmes. But the ERSA, the trade body for the industry, is also very annoyed about the staffing difficulties that the wrong estimates create.
Sunday, 15 July 2012
The G4S fiasco - the wrong questions
Apart from a bit of confusion on the various forums between G4s and A4e, the outsourcing companies must be relieved that it's G4S that's taking all the flak at the moment. In all the outrage, however, the right questions are not being asked.
- Why was the security contract given to one company, rather than split between the different Olympic sites?
- How many companies bid for this contract? There are very few which would be in a position to bid, and that's a perennial problem in outsourcing. You create private monopolies.
- Why was the contract given to a company with a poor track record? That one is being asked. Apparently G4S mucked up the security at least year's Wimbledon. But the answer is one we know from W2W. The procurement process doesn't take a company's past record into account.
- Did G4S subcontract, or have arrangements with other companies, to supply or train the workers?
- Were they deliberately leaving things to the last minute so that people they trained didn't go off and get a job with someone else?
Most of those questions won't be answered this week. And Labour's outrage is necessarily limited by the fact that the contracts were given out under their administration. But it matters very much in the creeping advance of privatisation. Take the IT system for Universal Credit. The Telegraph reports that the project is in danger because the IT isn't ready. The DWP and HMRC are squabbling about whose responsibility this is, but behind it will be private contractors.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Where is the anger?
That's the question asked by John Harris in a Guardian article last week. He is provoked by the story we reported on that the W2W providers are demanding more and more "sanctions" - wanting to stop the incomes of clients. It's a long and eloquent piece, and he can't understand why people are not more angry about what's happening.
It's not a difficult question to answer. We could start with a story which appeared in the Express last week: "One Scot in 10 would rather skive than get a job". It's a story designed to misinform. It even quotes the odious Taxpayers' Alliance. But the point is that it feeds the belief, in people who know no better, that the welfare system allows the idle to live in comfort on the back of the industrious. Once this would have been seen as far-right propaganda. Now, people have been persuaded that it's true. They see their own insecurity not as the fault of the elites who have messed up the economies of the world in their own greed; they blame the people who are even lower down the ladder than they are.
Many of us know people who believe that there are vast numbers of "scroungers", living comfortably on benefits with no intention of working. They will tell you about families that have all the luxuries you could desire and don't want a job. There is just enough truth in the fiction to turn it into a generality. Never mind that all such families are up to their eyes in debt, or criminally inclined. It's no use telling them that many thousands are desperate for work. How many read such reports as this one in the Yorkshire Post: "Hull: City where 18 people chase every job vacancy". They don't believe it. Write about food charities and they don't believe it.
So cut welfare. The only people who will suffer don't matter. The reason that the government is reluctant to cut benefits for the elderly is that the elderly have an annoying habit of voting. As for the poorest, most of them don't vote, and the calculation is that more people will approve of "cracking down" on scroungers than will have sympathy with the sob stories.
G4S are getting a mauling in the press today. But rely on the BBC and you'd never know that the company has W2W contracts.
It's not a difficult question to answer. We could start with a story which appeared in the Express last week: "One Scot in 10 would rather skive than get a job". It's a story designed to misinform. It even quotes the odious Taxpayers' Alliance. But the point is that it feeds the belief, in people who know no better, that the welfare system allows the idle to live in comfort on the back of the industrious. Once this would have been seen as far-right propaganda. Now, people have been persuaded that it's true. They see their own insecurity not as the fault of the elites who have messed up the economies of the world in their own greed; they blame the people who are even lower down the ladder than they are.
Many of us know people who believe that there are vast numbers of "scroungers", living comfortably on benefits with no intention of working. They will tell you about families that have all the luxuries you could desire and don't want a job. There is just enough truth in the fiction to turn it into a generality. Never mind that all such families are up to their eyes in debt, or criminally inclined. It's no use telling them that many thousands are desperate for work. How many read such reports as this one in the Yorkshire Post: "Hull: City where 18 people chase every job vacancy". They don't believe it. Write about food charities and they don't believe it.
So cut welfare. The only people who will suffer don't matter. The reason that the government is reluctant to cut benefits for the elderly is that the elderly have an annoying habit of voting. As for the poorest, most of them don't vote, and the calculation is that more people will approve of "cracking down" on scroungers than will have sympathy with the sob stories.
G4S are getting a mauling in the press today. But rely on the BBC and you'd never know that the company has W2W contracts.
Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Reaction to the figures
There hasn't been much reaction to to those figures released yesterday. The Guardian has a long piece which airs the arguments about what the figures mean. They put to Grayling the point that the companies had "creamed off" the easiest groups, but he says they didn't. A couple of industry websites summarise the press release, which is what the government obviously wanted - a bald heading that 25% were off benefits after 36 weeks.
Channel 4 News' Factcheck blog does a reasonable job of analysis. They point out that the non-intervention rate (the numbers who would get work anyway) was supposed to be 28%, so a current figure of 24% is hardly brilliant. And, as they say, it's not even a figure for those who've found work, because people sign off for a variety of reasons. They point to ONS figures that show that in the last 3 months only 46% of those who left JSA actually went into work.
The political left naturally chooses to focus on the fact that the number of people out of work for two years has more than doubled under the current government. Left Foot Forward uses this to show that the WP is failing.
No one, apparently, can remember as far back as privatised New Deal (2006 - 2009), where the providers promised 50% job outcomes and delivered around 24%. Strange coincidence. But the WP was supposed to give the providers the ultimate incentive - payment by results. It's not working, is it?
Channel 4 News' Factcheck blog does a reasonable job of analysis. They point out that the non-intervention rate (the numbers who would get work anyway) was supposed to be 28%, so a current figure of 24% is hardly brilliant. And, as they say, it's not even a figure for those who've found work, because people sign off for a variety of reasons. They point to ONS figures that show that in the last 3 months only 46% of those who left JSA actually went into work.
The political left naturally chooses to focus on the fact that the number of people out of work for two years has more than doubled under the current government. Left Foot Forward uses this to show that the WP is failing.
No one, apparently, can remember as far back as privatised New Deal (2006 - 2009), where the providers promised 50% job outcomes and delivered around 24%. Strange coincidence. But the WP was supposed to give the providers the ultimate incentive - payment by results. It's not working, is it?
Monday, 9 July 2012
Work Programme figures
The DWP has published figures intended to show how well the WP is doing. You can find the release here.
The Independent has picked it up as "Chris Grayling hails employment programme". It says that the figures show that "around one in four of those who joined the Work Programme a year ago had stayed off benefits for at least three successive months. The signs were that the figure could have risen to 30%, which means the multi-billion pound scheme was 'on track' to deliver the help ministers had hoped for."
Look at the figures for yourself. We're told that "Of those who left benefits most quickly - in the first 10 weeks - 7 out of 10 were still off benefits 13 weeks later." No surprise there. They were the ones who would have got work anyway.
It's being spun as 25% getting long-term work. It doesn't mean that. Of the 26,800 sample size, people will have signed off for a variety of reasons, including death, emigration and marriage.
There is no breakdown by region or by provider. And how does this square with the leaked A4e performance figures which showed little more than a tenth of these figures?
PS: In answer to some of the comments below, I've been given the following information:
The Independent has picked it up as "Chris Grayling hails employment programme". It says that the figures show that "around one in four of those who joined the Work Programme a year ago had stayed off benefits for at least three successive months. The signs were that the figure could have risen to 30%, which means the multi-billion pound scheme was 'on track' to deliver the help ministers had hoped for."
Look at the figures for yourself. We're told that "Of those who left benefits most quickly - in the first 10 weeks - 7 out of 10 were still off benefits 13 weeks later." No surprise there. They were the ones who would have got work anyway.
It's being spun as 25% getting long-term work. It doesn't mean that. Of the 26,800 sample size, people will have signed off for a variety of reasons, including death, emigration and marriage.
There is no breakdown by region or by provider. And how does this square with the leaked A4e performance figures which showed little more than a tenth of these figures?
PS: In answer to some of the comments below, I've been given the following information:
- The Office for National Statistics say that 46% moved into jobs of more than 16 hours a week. That suggests that there's rather more sharing of information going on than some people would like.
- The DWP says "categorically" that the numbers signing off do NOT include those who were sanctioned.
Interesting.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Bits and pieces
Leaked figures are quickly forgotten as the media follow banking scandals. And the government maintains the line that the Work Programme will solve everything. ITV reported various groups which are concerned about growing levels of child poverty and even hunger. A government spokesman responded by talking about universal credit and said that: "Work is the best route out of poverty which is why the Work Programme will ensure that people will receive the personalised support they need." How comforting.
Other papers have carried stories about poverty. Patrick Butler in the Guardian reports plans to replace crisis loans with vouchers for Tesco or Sainsbury's. These could be limited to stop them being used for alcohol or tobacco. People who need to replace essential items like fridges will get chits redeemable only in accredited recycling stores. The Telegraph reports a speech by the chief operating officer at the DWP, Terry Moran. He would like to see photos of benefit cheats pinned to lamp posts, to name and shame them. He admitted that it wasn't likely to happen.
The Yorkshire Post has a story headed "Echoes of the 1930s". It's about Michael Hall, a 26-year-old from Leeds who stands at a road junction holding up a placard saying, "I'm looking for work." He worked up until 12 months ago, but has now had to move back in with his parents and lives on £60 pw JSA. This should be required reading for everyone at the DWP. But perhaps he's due to go on the WP and receive "personalised support".
There's some good news, again in the Guardian. The big five bus companies are planning a scheme to offer free or heavily discounted travel to NEETs. We know how important this could be to young people trying to find work; but sadly many of the people commenting on the article don't.
One more story, on A4e's own website. Three middle-aged men in Liverpool found work through a sub-contractor of A4e, Liverpool in Work, which is run by Liverpool City Council. Now, this is excellent news for the men concerned. For A4e it serves the two-fold purpose of reflecting well on A4e and showing the good relationship they have with their "partners". For the rest of us it begs the question, why are companies like A4e involved at all, taking their cut from the activities of sub-contractors? Some councils are carrying on their schemes alongside the WP, funding them themselves. Others have chosen to become sub-contractors of the primes. It would make much more sense to cut the primes out of the picture and put the money into local schemes.
Other papers have carried stories about poverty. Patrick Butler in the Guardian reports plans to replace crisis loans with vouchers for Tesco or Sainsbury's. These could be limited to stop them being used for alcohol or tobacco. People who need to replace essential items like fridges will get chits redeemable only in accredited recycling stores. The Telegraph reports a speech by the chief operating officer at the DWP, Terry Moran. He would like to see photos of benefit cheats pinned to lamp posts, to name and shame them. He admitted that it wasn't likely to happen.
The Yorkshire Post has a story headed "Echoes of the 1930s". It's about Michael Hall, a 26-year-old from Leeds who stands at a road junction holding up a placard saying, "I'm looking for work." He worked up until 12 months ago, but has now had to move back in with his parents and lives on £60 pw JSA. This should be required reading for everyone at the DWP. But perhaps he's due to go on the WP and receive "personalised support".
There's some good news, again in the Guardian. The big five bus companies are planning a scheme to offer free or heavily discounted travel to NEETs. We know how important this could be to young people trying to find work; but sadly many of the people commenting on the article don't.
One more story, on A4e's own website. Three middle-aged men in Liverpool found work through a sub-contractor of A4e, Liverpool in Work, which is run by Liverpool City Council. Now, this is excellent news for the men concerned. For A4e it serves the two-fold purpose of reflecting well on A4e and showing the good relationship they have with their "partners". For the rest of us it begs the question, why are companies like A4e involved at all, taking their cut from the activities of sub-contractors? Some councils are carrying on their schemes alongside the WP, funding them themselves. Others have chosen to become sub-contractors of the primes. It would make much more sense to cut the primes out of the picture and put the money into local schemes.
Monday, 2 July 2012
Give them more money
You may remember that when Channel 4 News revealed A4e's current performance figures last Thursday, they rolled out Ian Mulheirn to say what he thought of them. It didn't matter at the time who Ian Mulheirn is, but he pops up again today in the Guardian to give his take on what's wrong with the Work Programme. It's a bizarre analysis, which concludes that providers should get more money and have less expected of them. So who is this man who gets a newspaper article to air his views?
Mulheirn runs something called the Social Market Foundation - a think tank. It proclaims itself to be "a leading cross-party think tank, developing innovative ideas across a broad range of economic and social policy. We champion policy ideas which marry markets with social justice and take a pro-market rather than free-market approach. Our work is characterised by the belief that governments have an important role to play in correcting market failures and setting the framework within which markets can operate in a way that benefits individuals and society as a whole." Which sounds nice and cuddly. But with think tanks one should always follow the money. Where does their funding come from? They show it on their website. The money comes from a variety of sources, but nearly half of it comes from private business, including Avanta and G4S.
Mulheirn believes that the reason for the apparent failure of the WP is the state of the economy. The minimum performance targets are based on forecasts of growth done in 2010, but these have proved way too optimistic. The providers can't control the labour market. The solution, then, is to:
i) "tone down the proportion of payments made for achieving job outcomes. In the depths of recession, the priority must be to make sure jobseekers get the help they need. For that they need the money to provide it."
ii) "Second, it (the government) should reassess its expectations of what's achievable in a recession, and formally link minimum performance levels to the latest OBR forecast." And
iii) "the government should look at re-engineering the Work Programme so that a large proportion of the payment to providers is based on their performance compared with those of other providers, rather than judging them on inflexible targets and crucifying them when the economy falters."
Mulheirn seems to want a return to something like the on-programme payments of privatised New Deal and FND. That certainly created big profits for the companies but the outcomes were half what they forecast. The money did not go into providing the support or skills training that clients needed. There is no reason to suppose that it would be any different this time. And how would revising down the performance targets help? If the current 5.5% minimum was reduced to, say, 3.5% what is the point of the Work Programme at all? You are just shovelling money into private companies which could be used to create real jobs. As for comparing providers' performance with each other rather than with an objective standard; they have always performed similarly badly. They would go on comfortably doing so.
The comments which follow the Guardian article are mostly very sensible. What a pity that we can't engage Mulheirn in real debate.
Mulheirn runs something called the Social Market Foundation - a think tank. It proclaims itself to be "a leading cross-party think tank, developing innovative ideas across a broad range of economic and social policy. We champion policy ideas which marry markets with social justice and take a pro-market rather than free-market approach. Our work is characterised by the belief that governments have an important role to play in correcting market failures and setting the framework within which markets can operate in a way that benefits individuals and society as a whole." Which sounds nice and cuddly. But with think tanks one should always follow the money. Where does their funding come from? They show it on their website. The money comes from a variety of sources, but nearly half of it comes from private business, including Avanta and G4S.
Mulheirn believes that the reason for the apparent failure of the WP is the state of the economy. The minimum performance targets are based on forecasts of growth done in 2010, but these have proved way too optimistic. The providers can't control the labour market. The solution, then, is to:
i) "tone down the proportion of payments made for achieving job outcomes. In the depths of recession, the priority must be to make sure jobseekers get the help they need. For that they need the money to provide it."
ii) "Second, it (the government) should reassess its expectations of what's achievable in a recession, and formally link minimum performance levels to the latest OBR forecast." And
iii) "the government should look at re-engineering the Work Programme so that a large proportion of the payment to providers is based on their performance compared with those of other providers, rather than judging them on inflexible targets and crucifying them when the economy falters."
Mulheirn seems to want a return to something like the on-programme payments of privatised New Deal and FND. That certainly created big profits for the companies but the outcomes were half what they forecast. The money did not go into providing the support or skills training that clients needed. There is no reason to suppose that it would be any different this time. And how would revising down the performance targets help? If the current 5.5% minimum was reduced to, say, 3.5% what is the point of the Work Programme at all? You are just shovelling money into private companies which could be used to create real jobs. As for comparing providers' performance with each other rather than with an objective standard; they have always performed similarly badly. They would go on comfortably doing so.
The comments which follow the Guardian article are mostly very sensible. What a pity that we can't engage Mulheirn in real debate.
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