Inadequate

David Cameron was made to look foolish in his dazzled admiration of A4e's Emma Harrison.  But, as the Morning Star points out, Labour had been just as convinced of A4e's ability to solve the nation's problems.  We know about David Blunkett, of course.  And the CBE.  And we have noted that A4e's Mark Lovell has been a guest of the Young Fabians.  But the article points out another connection with Labour.  A4e contributed an article to a Labour pamphlet last year meant to show how business-friendly the party is.  The article was about A4e's work at Blundeston prison.  But as Morning Star points out, Ofsted rated the company's work at Blundeston, and at another prison, "inadequate".  Yet A4e was recently awarded two new prison education contracts.

Some good news.  We've told the story of the fight by an Edinburgh group, ECAP, to get A4e to recognise claimants' right to have a representative with them at interviews.  You can read the story here.  They've won, and A4e have backed down, but not before people like Peter and Ram were put through huge pressure.  Congratulations to them and all the group.

Please remember that if you send me a comment which is critical of a named A4e office or identifiable staff member, I can't publish it.  It may be true, but unless I can back it up, it's libellous.  And to the anonymous poster who has twice pointed out to me the links between A4e, Carley Consult and the DWP.  Thanks, it's interesting, but not unusual, sadly.  I'm hanging on to your post.

Half a page in Private Eye

Yes, the latest edition of Private Eye devotes half a page to the continuing saga of A4e.  While there's nothing new, there are some interesting elaborations on what we already know.

There has been speculation that the system of giving bonuses to staff who get somebody into a job fuelled the temptation to cut corners and even commit fraud.  A4e actually admitted to MPs that the practice "may have been a driver for individual malpractice".  But Rob Murdoch said that he thought the problem had been solved by moving to group bonuses.  I doubt it.  It doesn't cure the culture of relentless pressure to reach targets and make money.  As we have said, A4e isn't the only company to use bonuses for job outcomes, but it seems to be the only one in which the practice has resulted in scandal.

The article cites what happened in Edinburgh over local claimants' battle to be represented by a support group known as ECAP.  This is something we reported on in the past.  Two people were "sanctioned" simply because they insisted on having an ECAP member with them at interviews with A4e.  Both won their cases at tribunal.

Finally the writer turns to the two new contracts for prison education, provisionally awarded to A4e.  He reports that the two most recent Ofsted inspections of A4e's prison contracts were pretty damning and wonders how they could be given new ones.

I'm sad to see that the owner of a blog which has been tireless in its criticism of the treatment of the unemployed has decided to wage war on Watching A4e.  His conclusions are bizarre, and I won't waste time trying to answer them.  I don't suppose it will help to say that we are both on the same side, although our approaches are different.

There seems to have been a hiccup in the comments notification recently, so apologies to anyone who left a reasonable comment which was published late or not at all.  

Round-up, 22 April 2011

There is a group in Edinburgh called the Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty which reports victories in what it calls its war against A4e. This is obviously not an impartial account, and I haven't seen any other reporting of it, so I can't vouch for its accuracy. How many people does the group represent, for example? But it's an interesting development.

I was amused by the title of an article in an Australian journal - "Therese Rein the $1.4bn queen of British welfare". Sounds like there's been a coup! Rein is the wife of a former Australian Prime Minister. The article reports that, as owner of Ingeus, she stands to make a great deal of money. The firm won all seven contracts that it bid for, giving it 23% of the market, while A4e only has 13%. Concerns are reported: "Two failed bidders shown details of the winning bids said they believed Ingeus had discounted its prices by up to 50 per cent in some areas. Perhaps the company was banking on the economies of scale that would come from being the largest provider, or maybe even hoping that the government would later be forced to raise the promised payments."

The big story of the last few days has been the announcement, as part of the election campaign, of figures purporting to show that more than 80,000 people are claiming incapacity benefits for being addicts, alcoholics or obese. No mention was made of addicts who are not on IB but on the smaller JSA. And, of course, the reporting played into the hands of the Tories who want to appeal to the Mail and Express readership. Instead of sensible discussion we had the usual chat from experts.

Meanwhile, Emma Harrison has been in discussions at the Swedish Embassy and Mark Lovell has been to a meeting with the Local Government Association about crisis loans, debt and public service reform.