Bizarre PR

We are used to A4e sprinkling PR pieces all over the internet, but the latest effort is particularly bizarre. Foodbuzz is a "food blog community" site; but this month A4e joined and on 23rd posted 14 links to pieces on its own website (which, of course, have nothing to do with food).

Note: they've now been removed - see comment below.

One of A4e's Business Improvement Managers has his CV on a jobs site. One intriguing statement on it is that in Flexible New Deal in his contract area he moved "over 45% of referred customers into full time employment". But the DWP has published the figures. In that particular area, between October 2009 and October 2011, A4e had 14,810 starts, of which 3,230 got short-term jobs and 2,150 got "sustained" jobs. Now, even if you add short and long-term together, it only comes to 36.3%. So I wonder where the 45% figure came from.

Lists, pamphlets and the WP

Another of those lists of important people has been produced by the Big Issue in the North. A panel decided on the 50 most influential people in the region and, sure enough, A4e's Emma Harrison gets in at no. 13 (Sir Alex Ferguson is only 21st). It's a meaningless list of business people, politicians and other worthies, but no doubt those on it (and not on it) will find it important.

But while Harrison gets onto such lists, it's Mark Lovell who seeks to provide the intellectual underpinning for A4e's business. Harrison may be "advising" this government, but he is writing for a Labour party policy pamphlet on his current favourite subject of helping unemployed people to start their own businesses. This is something of a hostage to fortune for the Labour MPs who also contributed to the pamphlet. Recent governments have been happy to align themselves with business leaders to whom they have subsequently given large contracts; but it is a dangerous habit.

The reputation of many firms is staked on the Work Programme. We are not to have any figures until next March, so the evidence is largely anecdotal. We don't even know how many people have started on the WP. At least the Youth Contract fulfils Harrison's wish to get young people onto the programme earlier. But already we hear that several providers are unable to cope properly with the numbers of clients being referred, and that staff are inadequately trained. CVs are being sent out to employers without the knowledge, let alone permission, of the clients, and they are often one-size-fits-all CVs imposed on the clients. Has any actual training started? One area where we really need figures now is the companies taking people on work placements. Are there companies taking free labour on a large scale with no intention of employing people? The DWP should draw up a list of employers, number of placements and number of jobs.

Youth Contract, income and the voluntary sector

The newly announced "youth contract" promises more profit opportunities for A4e and the other providers. Money is going into wage subsidies but it's all being done through the Work Programme and Grayling has said that providers will only be paid for long-term jobs, as usual. And it's threats as usual too. Don't take a placement or a job and you lose your benefit.

The Learning and Performance Insitute has compiled a list of the "top 50" UK training organisations. This is top only in the sense of fiscal success i.e. revenue. A4e comes second with revenue of £191m last year, only £4m behind Babcock International. Note that this is revenue, not profit, and presumably includes A4e's international business as well as its UK contracts. But it's a lot of money.

The complaints about the relationship of the voluntary organisations to the the private providers in the WP rumble on. But Kevin Curley, who has been the top professional in the voluntary sector (there are a lot of well-paid people running it) has weighed in. "He cited the Work Programme as a prime example (of strange relationships) , asking: 'Is this what an independent local voluntary sector should be doing in any case – helping G4S and A4e to maximise their profits from welfare-to-work schemes? Do we really want our relationship with the state brokered by the private sector?' "

Inspirational

The CBI's Annual Conference recently held a panel debate with the title "Good for Britain, good for business, good for growth". A4e's Emma Harrison was on the panel. Two other members are also bosses of outsourcing companies (Circle Health and Apetito, which provides catering services to hospitals). So you can see why the word "good" was being stressed. The Yorkshire Post described Harrison as "chairman of Sheffield social purpose firm A4e, which gets people into work", and reports that "Ms Harrison urged firms to 'do well by doing good'." This is a familiar mantra of Harrison. It doesn't seem to have been her only contribution. Michael Gillick, boss of a company called Paritas Ltd, tweeted to her, "A colleague said your speech at the CBI conference was inspirational. Is it published anywhere?" Emma replied that they were filming so it could be on the CBI's website.

BBC cameras were in the Liverpool A4e office for a news item about the Work Programme shown on 7 November. A4e say that the two young people filmed are being followed by the reporter, Mark Easton. So can we expect that all the stops will be pulled out to get these two into jobs? I hope so, for their sakes. Meanwhile, another contract enables A4e to say that it is "assisting in helping service heroes start their own business". This involves money from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills awarded to the Royal British Legion to help service leavers start their own businesses. The RBL have naturally sub-contracted this to firms like A4e.

Emma Harrison on Newsnight - and volunteers

Newsnight is currently running a major piece on youth unemployment. And in the introduction, up pops Emma Harrison, described as chairman of A4e and a government advisor. She says that the problem is entrenched, young people need one on one support, and they need it earlier. It's A4e's latest argument, that they should be put on the Work Programme well before the current 12 months period.

The young people in the studio discussion are not happy with the attitude of the Jobcentres. They talk about the demoralising effect of sending off hundreds of applications with no result. Chris Grayling talks about the government's work experience scheme, but the young people are not impressed. A young man who talks about the problems of expecting people to live on apprenticeship money when they don't have parents to depend on - he is ignored. Paxman talks about the effects of immigration. David Milliband favours the previous government's Future Jobs Fund, and a guarantee of a job. One man says work trials don't lead to jobs, but Grayling says that more than half do get jobs. He says that the WP is the answer to everything. It will match individuals to the vacancies. The discussion goes on, but gets nowhere.

The spat between the voluntary sector and the WP providers goes on. The Third Sector website expands on the story that A4e asked a local volunteer centre to provide people to work with their clients on CVs. It turns out that it was the Oxford A4e which asked for volunteers with good IT skills and a lot of patience. The volunteer centre refused because, without payment, it would be taking advantage of volunteers. The response of A4e's Nigel Lemmon is interesting: "We are investigating these allegations thoroughly. We only work with volunteer agencies where they are happy to work with us to support our customers back into work – improving the lives of those individuals and benefiting their communities." Dan Sumners of Volunteering England said that it was potentially exploitation to expect volunteers to help to deliver a service for a profit-making company. Yet there are voluntary sector organisations contracted to A4e and the others. So it apparently okay, as Lemmon suggests, for volunteers to be used if the organisation is getting paid.

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".

Weird and Wonderful - and IDS

If you're curious about Thornbridge Hall, the Derbyshire mansion home of Emma Harrison, you can see it on the latest of Nigel Slater's "Simple Cooking" programmes. Slater went there to see a farmer, Tom Clarke, who farms wild boar there. We also met Jim Harrison, Emma's husband, who brews beer. The episode is called Weird and Wonderful.

Earlier today Iain Duncan Smith was on The World at One on Radio 4. It should be here. He was talking to people in Hackney about unemployment and what the government is doing about it. Naturally, everything is pinned on the Work Programme. The payment method will ensure its success. There was the usual casual statistic - there are half a million jobs in the Jobcentres each week. We need a dynamic workforce, he said. The representative of one organisation said they had not bid for the WP contracts because it was too risky, but would continue to help people. One man, with a criminal record, said it was hopeless and, when IDS disagreed, said he couldn't even get a work trial. Once again the solution was the WP, which would provide mentors to help him all the way. Another man, with a string of qualifications, said he couldn't find work either. IDS personally guaranteed that he could get him a job. (Of course he can; but that doesn't help all the others in the same position.) The interviewer asked him if it was fair that benefits are to go up in line with inflation (a line that other BBC people are also pushing). IDS said there were no plans to change that, but it was a long way short of a guarantee.

I wonder if he will come on next year to explain why the WP isn't delivering.