Outsourcing Jobcentre Plus - the first steps?

When a report comes out of the Centre for Social Justice, one can assume that it's with the approval of Iain Duncan Smith, who set up the outfit and has close links with its people.  So its latest proposals could well be seen as the floating of something the government wants to do.  "Break state monopoly of failing £1.4 billion job centres" is the heading of their press release.
It's an extraordinarily muddled analysis to support their wish to move to the Australian model, which uses lots of private and voluntary sector bodies (the code is "market-based") rather than a public sector jobcentre system.  For Conservatives this is axiomatic, needing no justification.  But the CSJ obviously has to come up with reasons.  So what do they find is wrong with our current system?
Well, "Thousands of claimants lack an up-to-date CV".  This preoccupation with CVs puzzles many unemployed people.  Most of the jobs they apply for don't require a piece of paper headed "CV"; they want an application form completed, on paper or online.
Then there's the claim that "40 per cent of claimants who move off Jobseekers Allowance make another benefits claim within six months".  Er .... yes.  How many jobs today are temporary or even casual?  How is this the fault of the Jobcentres?  And how does this compare with the private sector Work Programme figures?
"JCP focusses far too much on arranging benefits for claimants instead of identifying the factors that are preventing them from getting work and staying in work."  This is a ridiculous statement.  When someone loses their job and signs on, the first role of the Jobcentre is to ensure that they get the benefits to which they are entitled.  That doesn't always work properly; but I would far rather entrust that role to a civil servant than to the employee of a private company like, for instance, A4e.  After that, they are supposed to help you back into work.  In recent years, jobcentres have been starved of resources and money has been diverted to the private companies to deliver programmes like the Work Programme.  So, does the CSJ want the money restored?  Well, they admit that JCP staff are underpaid, and advocate "increased pay for effective advisers" i.e. performance-related pay based on getting people into sustained work - the private sector model.
There's more of the same in the report.  But to pick holes in it is to miss the point.  We are on the way to handing the unemployed to the private sector from the moment they sign on.

The Work Programme - not working

The Work and Pensions Committee has reported on the Work Programme, and its verdict is that it's not working for the long term unemployed and the most disadvantaged.  The official account of it is here.  The main points which I've picked out of it are:

• The government spent about £248m less than it anticipated on the WP in 2012 / 13 because the results were poorer than they expected.  
• They support the "black box" approach (they shouldn't) but they want it balanced by minimum service standards.  They point out that the providers are allowed to set their own standards which are currently "so vague as to allow providers to virtually ignore some jobseekers if they so choose".
• There are no figures for the numbers being referred to specialist sub-contractors.
• They want "a review of Work Programme sanctioning activity as a matter of urgency".

The media have picked up on various aspects of the report.  The Mirror quotes the committee's chair, Dame Anne Begg, who said, "Too often, the reality seems to be Work Programme advisers swamped by caseloads of 120 to 180 jobseekers, and employers deluged with poorly matched CVs and under-prepared candidates."  This is significant.  We know that people are being made to apply for jobs they know they can't possibly get, and suspect that WP advisers are sending out CVs off their own bats.

The Telegraph picks out the fact that the WP is "failing single parents".  The Independent talks about the problem of people who are "parked" because they're too difficult to help.  The BBC news website picks up the "poorly matched CVs" point.

The BBC's Today Programme on Radio 4 this morning ran an item on the report - but bodged it as usual.  They had a homeless man, Billy, whose experience of the WP was horrible.  He'd been sanctioned for missing an appointment which had actually been cancelled.  The interviewer, Sarah Montague, didn't know enough to bring this out, and Kirsty McHugh for the ERSA (the industry's trade body) was able to get away with blaming Jobcentre Plus for the "mistake".  McHugh has copied the politicians' technique of talking fast and throwing out misleading "facts".  She talked about 300,000 people being "helped into jobs" so far.  When Montague questioned whether these were long-term jobs the answer was a fudge.  And McHugh even stated that if a number of short-term jobs added up to 6 months, this was an outcome.  Is it?  Does anyone know whether the providers get paid for this?

I really hope that journalists (and I know that there are some who read this blog) will get the facts straight when the figures are finally published.

There have been some critical reactions to the Centre for Social Justice's report on "welfare ghettos".  Chris Goulden of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation picks the CSJ's figures to bits in an excellent article on the Foundation's website, and insists that it's not people's attitudes which drive worklessness, but what he calls "decayed job markets".  There's an angry response to the report by the leader of Birmingham City Council,  in the Birmingham Mail.  He talks about "character assassination" and emphasises the lack of jobs.  The Guardian went to Hull, to the offices of the WP subcontractor Pertemps, and concluded that the jobs simply weren't there.  But, of course, that's not the message which the government wants put out.  Blame the victims, it's so much easier than doing something positive.

A lesson in propaganda

The latest exercise in propaganda by combined right-wing forces in this country is a classic of its kind.
It starts with a report by the Centre for Social Justice, the "think-tank" set up by Iain Duncan Smith and run by his adviser Philippa Stroud.  This is reported in detail by the Telegraph.  The phrase "welfare ghettos" is prominent.  That's important.  The word "ghetto" is innocent enough in its original meaning ("a part of a city, esp. a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups") but of course it's a very loaded word now.  The report is full of figures purporting to show that almost 7 million people live in these "welfare ghettos" where more than half the working age population is dependent on benefits.
I haven't looked at the report itself, but I suppose that the Telegraph has reported it faithfully.  If so, there are a great many question marks over it.  It talks about "areas" of various cities.  How is an area defined?  At one point they talk about "neighbourhoods"; again, how do you define that?  This isn't nit-picking.  You can draw lines on a map to produce whatever figures you want.  48 charities were consulted.  96% of them (why can't they just say "46 charities"?) said that "they had come across families where unemployment was intergenerational".  All that means is that both the kids and the parents were out of work.  It tells us nothing else - certainly not how many families were involved.
They do make an important point about aspiration.  Lots of youngsters do not expect to ever have a job, and don't aspire to anything better than they have now, except to become a celebrity.  But the CSJ manage to link that with the benefits cap.
The Express's account is less nuanced, as you would expect.  The headline is "Welcome to the benefit ghettos where the majority live on state handouts".  There's a photo of a young woman pushing a toddler in a buggy; we are, of course, meant to take the point about teenage single mothers.  There is a familiar response from the DWP about welfare reforms improving the lives of these people.
The Mail is, as usual, hysterical.  It uses the same phraseology about "benefit ghettos" but there are graphics for those who need pictures with their reading.  My earlier point about the definition of an area is important in  the context of the Mail's version.  They list 6 places where there are a large number of "neighbourhoods" with more than 30% unemployed.  But to say that there are "nearly 70 neighbourhoods" in Liverpool" in this state is a nonsense.  Are we talking about a large housing estate or a small street?  The article ends by saying that the CSJ is working on a follow-up report with its recommendations.
So a minister's pet think-tank comes up with a report with the message which the minister wants to convey, and the right-wing press runs with it in its own inimitable way.  Goebbels would be proud.

Universal Credit - and a sinister development in social housing

The vow of silence on the subject of the Work Programme continues in place, while the government works out how to fiddle the figures.  Perhaps the idea is to blame the "customers" for not being willing to work.  At the moment the spotlight is on Universal Credit, which begins with a tiny "pathfinder" in Ashton under Lyne tomorrow.  Amelia Gentleman in the Guardian on Friday described the pilot and its limitations; and the BBC's Sunday news programme has looked at the problems.  The pilot will include only a very few people, about 300 a month; all of them will be new claimants, not on any other benefits than JSA, single and with no dependants, but with bank accounts.  It would be hard to get that wrong, you would think.  Even when it rolls out nationally in October, families and children will not be included.  But plenty of people anticipate the problems.  A charity which works with young men under 25 says that lots of them can't use a computer.  The local council has installed computer hubs, but points out that the online form, which takes about 45 minutes to complete, has no "save" function.  Tameside CAB is worried about people falling into debt because of monthly payments.
The IT is the worry, of course.  There are so many different interfaces and databases which have to be meshed.  And it's been costing £500,000 a day to develop the systems.  The BBC piece said that Iain Duncan Smith has complained about the way UC is being presented, so they asked him or someone else from the DWP onto the programme - but no one was available.
Nick Cohen in the Observer has a different take on UC.  He says that it "poses a serious threat to women's independence".  That's because it will lump all benefits, including tax credits (but not child benefit) into one payment made into one bank account.  And that is far more likely to be the man's.  If you doubt that, read the article and the link it has to the Women's Budget Group.  Cohen links this attitude to the religious background of IDS's special adviser, Phillippa Stroud, who is also head of his think tank, the Centre for Social Justice.  She's an evangelical Christian, married to the boss of a church which teaches "male servant leadership and joyful female submission".  Whether this is relevant or not, I don't know.

If you're looking for a home in Somerset, you might want to avoid the Yarlington Housing Group.  This housing association, according to the Independent, makes its new residents sign a Household Ambition Plan.  It's so sinister that it has caused a storm of anger.  But expect more of this sort of thing.  Unless you own your own home and don't claim any sort of benefits, you must learn to tug your forelock and obey your masters.

Sanctions

Following on from my previous post, the item on the BBC's "World at One" didn't add much. The focus was on the need to simplify the benefits system and make it worthwhile to take a job. A chap from the Centre for Social Justice talked about increasing the amount one can earn before benefits start to be withdrawn, and getting rid of the 16 hour rule. A Labour spokesman, while agreeing with the aims, said that simplification, reducing the number of benefits to two, would inevitably mean that some people were worse off, and that is hard to deal with politically. Equally tricky is the question of sanctions. It's one thing to stop the benefits of someone who isn't willing to work, but what about his wife and children?

Iain Duncan Smith, in a recorded piece, talked about the real and perceived risks to the unemployed of taking up jobs, and the need to make it worth working. Asked about sanctions, he agreed that sanctions already exist but have not, he said, been implemented, but now will be.

This doesn't answer the question raised by Labour about the dependants of someone who is sanctioned. It ignores the fact that people do indeed lose benefits when they don't comply with, for instance, attendance on a programme.

There is a great deal still to be worked out in this legislation. On the one hand, they have to come up with a viable benefits system; on the other, they have to renegotiate the welfare-to-work contracts. It could be a while before we see any changes.