The Mail has waded in again today with its own whistle-blower revelations. But the piece shows the danger of not having done your research.
They focus on A4e's Edinburgh office. This is interesting because we have received a number of complaints about events there. But the "former team manager", Amy Rae, tells us that all the blame lies with A4e. Faced with an inspection they had to fake courses, because there was no money for real ones. Then the specific allegations begin. "‘People would be found a job on a construction site that only lasted a day,’ she says, ‘and that was enough to claim the money. It was easy because there was just a tick-box on the form to say the job was “expected to last at least 13 weeks”, but often labourers were being put out of work again after 24 hours.’" As we've pointed out before, this was perfectly okay in the terms of the contracts. And it was more often the case that a client would start a job and disappear after a day or a shift, thinking that now the JC would be off his back.
We are then told that "In the A4e office in Bradford, one whistleblower alleged staff went to Staples, the stationery store, to buy ‘make-your-own’ stamp kits to use on paperwork staff filled out if they found someone a job." The Mail makes much of these rubber stamps, but again there is not necessarily fraud here. The forms produced by the DWP required either a company stamp or a piece of headed notepaper. Many small employers had neither. It was not uncommon for providers to make a rubber stamp, with the full agreement of the employer. Towards the end of the article A4e is quoted explaining this. But it's a very different matter from the next allegation: "Some employers’ signatures were allegedly faked electronically, using a scanner to copy a signature off one sheet and print it on to another. On other occasions, signatures of employers were allegedly copied by hand from the signing-in book at reception." That's fraud, straightforwardly.
In Newcastle, we're told, employees had to take basic literacy and numeracy papers to fill the targets A4e had to meet for these tests. The whistle-blower there talks about the appalling conditions the clients there had to endure. There are frequent allegations of forged timesheets, according to the Mail. As we've said before, this is often an indication of incompetent admin rather than deliberate fraud, but it's surprising that it was so widespread.
The Edinburgh woman also talks about the rewards and prizes on offer for meeting targets, including an invitation to tea at Emma Harrison's mansion.
The Mail has, naturally, been more strident than the Guardian in its whistle-blowing. And there are probably more journalists out there busily compiling similar allegations. We have to welcome that. But there is a need to separate what went on under the old privatised contracts from what is happening under the Work Programme. The old contracts were deeply flawed, and the DWP is to blame for that. Some providers obviously stepped over the line separating expediency from fraud. A4e's focus on the bottom line drove people to dishonesty. Is it still going on?
The Mail has, naturally, been more strident than the Guardian in its whistle-blowing. And there are probably more journalists out there busily compiling similar allegations. We have to welcome that. But there is a need to separate what went on under the old privatised contracts from what is happening under the Work Programme. The old contracts were deeply flawed, and the DWP is to blame for that. Some providers obviously stepped over the line separating expediency from fraud. A4e's focus on the bottom line drove people to dishonesty. Is it still going on?
