Reflections on those accounts

It's very telling that no one in the media has shown the slightest interest in A4e's latest accounts.  How different from the furore nearly three years ago which brought down Emma Harrison and very nearly destroyed the company.
How have they done it?  They've scraped their way back to profit, just, from a dire situation, and they've done it by not trying to compete with the big boys.  The chairman talked about "discipline".  They've put in realistic bids for contracts but withdrawn when they could see that they were going to be undercut by companies which could afford to lose money initially and then get the contract changed to allow them a profit.  It's not a game A4e wants to play any more.  And they've pulled out of foreign parts (except for Australia), presumably because it was costing too much to keep up that international presence.  From a company with limitless ambition they've become a medium-sized outfit looking to make a living.
I suppose we should be pleased.  But there's no comfort in the fact that a few huge companies now run the bulk of our public services and behave as if there are no risks or consequences of failure.

Meanwhile, there was an interesting story on the Disability News Service website last month.  A former A4e employee, Chris Loder, took the company to a tribunal claiming constructive dismissal.  He alleged that he had been forced to work with vulnerable ESA clients, some with mental health problems, when he had no experience in this area and was given no training.  A former colleague, supporting him, described the policy as "incredibly dangerous".  The article prints a long statement from A4e refuting the claims.  The tribunal's verdict is due this month.

And speaking of verdicts, there still isn't one in the Slough fraud case, being heard in Reading.  Before the holidays it was reported on the courts' website that the jury was out, but today there's no further news.

Do you remember A4e's Hayley Taylor and her 5 minutes of fame as the "Fairy Jobmother"?  It seemed the company might have another star in the offing.  ITV have a programme starting this Thursday called Bring Back Borstal, and A4e were publicising the fact that one of their managers, a woman connected with their prison education contracts, was going to be on it.  That link has now disappeared, so I've no idea what's happening.

Sanctions and lies

The Work & Pensions Select Committee has launched its inquiry into benefit sanctions, something which owes a lot to the tireless pressure of Debbie Abrahams MP.  But if you read its terms of reference (here) you notice some important things missing.  First there's the actual process of sanctioning; the automatic stoppage of money which can't be reversed if it's found to be a mistake.  This is crucial to expose the lie that sanctions are only ever used as a last resort.  And then there's the question of arbitrary sanctions applied by JC or WP staff just because they feel like it or have targets to meet.  The inquiry must hear from victims and whistle-blowers or it's pointless.  The page makes it clear that they can't investigate individual cases, but don't let that stop you if you want to submit evidence.

It gets wearisome to report on Iain Duncan Smith's character and lies.  He knows that he is untouchable and his arrogance has grown to monstrous proportions - as has his rudeness.  There was an incident this week in the House of Commons which demonstrated what one MP called his boorishness.  He had remarked that Rachel Reeves MP, his Labour shadow, "couldn't be bothered" to turn up to vote in a particular debate.  She raised a point of order demanding an apology; he had no knowledge, she said, of why she wasn't there.  IDS showed his contempt by saying something about her being in Rochester (for the by-election).  Reeves denied this and repeated her demand for an apology.  She didn't get one, of course.  This wretched man just smirked.

Then there were the "angry scenes" described in the Mirror at the Work & Pensions Select Committee's hearing yesterday.  Now, I missed this part of IDS's "evidence".  I'd stuck it out for an hour, but couldn't bear any more.  So I didn't hear Debbie Abrahams' ask him about the numbers not included in the unemployment figures because they were sanctioned.  According to an Oxford University study this figure could be as high as 500,000.  IDS's response was that this was "ludicrous".  Ms Abrahams said, "People have died after being sanctioned, Minister."  The response?  "No, I don't agree with that."  The last line of the Mirror's story is, "A DWP spokesman dismissed the study, saying 'It looks to be partially based on unreliable data.'"

This disgusting man and his disgusting department put out a press release today which claims: "More than 12,000 households have made the choice to move into work or stop claiming Housing Benefit because of the benefit cap".  He's been warned about this before; it's a complete falsification of the data.  But the London Evening Standard allows him space to amplify this claim, with the arrogance of the seriously deluded.

Ironically, the Public Accounts Committee reported today on the "scandalous" failure of the Work Programme to help ESA claimants.  The Independent covers this.  It also ends with a meaningless quote from "a DWP spokesman".  I do wish papers would stop giving space to this person.

Nothing is going to change.  And if there is a Conservative majority next May it will get much, much worse.

Everything must go

The government is in a desperate hurry to sell off whatever it can of the remaining shreds of the public sector.  Yesterday it announced the winning bidders for the Transforming Rehabilitation contracts, that hugely dangerous outsourcing of probation services.  As we can see from the Guardian's report on this, two companies get more than half the business.  Sodexo gets six areas, Interserve five; of the rest of the 21 areas, Working Links gets three and Ingeus two.  All have signed up charities to do the work.  Between them they will handle more than half of the probation service work, with supposedly medium and low risk offenders.  Their profits will be on a payment by results basis, albeit under a more complicated system than that of the Work Programme.  G4S and Serco had to withdraw their bids because they are still under investigation for fraud.  A4e, we understand, also withdrew from the process.
It's bad enough that such we have to watch this vital work flogged off for private profit.  Worse is the fact that the companies' profits have been insured against a new government pulling the plug on these contracts.  They are guaranteed their expected profits for 10 years!  So it would be ruinously expensive to cancel them.

We also heard yesterday of the company replacing Atos in the WCA contracts.  It's Maximus, an American company with as dreadful a record in the US as G4S and Serco have here.  For details, look at this piece on the Disability News Service site.  We can't know the financial arrangements that brought Maximus into this, but we should.

We learn from the Guardian that the government is pressing ahead with another disturbing outsourcing scheme; that of child protection services, currently the responsibility of local councils.  A lot of people are not aware that private companies already run children's homes, looking after the most vulnerable children for profit.  Now the government wants to take child protection out of the councils' hands altogether.  It might be thought that, given the stream of news recently of councils' failings in this area, it couldn't be any worse.  But councils are accountable for what they do.  Private companies just want to make a profit.

You will have read today that the government has considered cutting ESA to only pennies above JSA level.  It denies that it's actually going to do it, and the cries of protest will probably stop it this side of an election.

Why Iain Duncan Smith should go

Someone yesterday started a story of a conversation supposedly overheard on a train to the effect that in the forthcoming reshuffle "Ian" was to be replaced by "Esther".  Despite there being no substance to this story at all it's made it as far as the BBC website.  One thing that this demonstrates is that Iain Duncan Smith's future is the biggest talking point in the reshuffle.  Will Cameron move him?  Will he have the guts to fire him if he refuses to be moved?  Who would replace him?

I have blogged before about IDS's failures, as have a great many people.  There's an excellent piece on the Labour Left website which lists "Iain Duncan Smith's 100 biggest failures".  It's a heroic effort, well worth study.  But let's distil it into the most obvious areas where his ambition has far exceeded his competence.

• The Work Programme.  This was the first of IDS's grand schemes to be put in place.  It was going to solve unemployment; and the most revolutionary aspect of it was "payment by results".  But it was never that.  The providers were guaranteed an "attachment fee" which would keep them going if they did nothing; and they were able to look forward to an "incentive" payment even if they failed badly.  And fail badly they did.  After 4 years it's clear that job outcomes (below even the minimum performance demanded and way below the providers' promises) depend on the economy and not on anything the companies do.  Helping to drag down the WP is:-
• ESA.  The companies were never going to be able to help those on ESA into work.  Indeed, most have been parked.  And overall, the companies have spent less than half the amount per client which they promised.  Remember, they get contracts because of the promises made in the bid documents.  And now they've got contracts to scoop up the people they've failed into:-
• Community Work Placements.  Okay, these appear not to have actually started yet.  But that's because a huge chunk of the voluntary sector want nothing to do with them, and a growing number of councils have also refused to take part.

There were a number of other, almost incidental, schemes along the way which have also been disasters, notably

• The bedroom tax.  (Let's face it, no one was ever going to call it "the removal of the spare room subsidy".)  It has cost councils a fortune, saved no one any money and inflicted huge distress and misery on thousands.
• Universal Jobmatch.  This was, it seems, entirely IDS's baby.  A grand one-stop-shop for employers and jobseekers alike which would have the added advantage of monitoring the activities of claimants.  The contract was given to a company with a poor record but which claims that much of what went wrong with UJM could have been prevented - but they were told not to put the necessary refinements into the software.  The system has been used to control and punish claimants without ever being the wondrous solution IDS envisaged.  But its costs are enormous.
• The sanctions regime.  A ludicrously impractical "claimant commitment" has been coupled with a vicious imposition of punishments which breach people's human rights.  Yet time and again IDS and his ministers have simply lied about sanctions; McVey repeated again this week in Parliament that they are "a last resort".  The human cost is appalling.  

The biggest failure of all, however, is:-

• Universal Credit.  This was to be the lasting legacy of Iain Duncan Smith, transforming "welfare".  At the outset opposition parties said yes, great idea, but it's never been done because it's too difficult.  Not for IDS, though.  Millions have been spent on IT that didn't work, more millions on trying a different IT system, and on patching up the problems thrown up by the very limited trials of UC.  We needn't rehearse all the problems.  But through them all IDS has insisted that it will all be fine.

We're told that it's Osborne who is keen to get IDS out because the Chancellor wants to slash the welfare budget and IDS resists that.  We're also told (in the Mail today) that Smith will again refuse to go.  This man's failures have cost us dear.  Surely he must go.

Welfare week

The subject of welfare (which I will stubbornly continue to call social security) has been prominent this week.  It wasn't only Labour's announcement of its policy, although that may well have sparked it off.  The BBC belatedly discovered the scandal of ESA, the delays and the failure of the Work Programme to help those supposedly able to work.  Of course, being the BBC, it headed the story with the speculation that the cost would mean that the government breaches its self-imposed cap on total welfare spend.
Then the Public Accounts Committee reported on the even bigger mess of PIPs.  An embarrassed Mike Penning was allowed to get away with blaming Labour, and insisting that it was now fixed.  But it all added to the impression of government that "something must be done".
Where was Iain Duncan Smith?  He was proudly announcing that Universal Credit is being "rolled out" to 90 Jobcentres in the North West.  But it will still only apply to single unemployed people with no complications, and there are no predictions beyond that.  It was unfortunate timing; another major failure was added to the list.  The Economist, normally Tory-supporting, published a devastating article headed "Universal discredit" rubbishing everything this government has done on "welfare reform".
Last night BBC's Newsnight had a discussion on the subject between Owen Jones and Nadhim Zahawi.  The former is a socialist and columnist who is often critical of Labour.  The latter is an ultra-loyal Tory whose expenses claims caused a furore and who will trot out the party line.  The innate bias of the BBC was evident in the use, several times, of the term "welfare dependency" and in using a clip from Benefits Street as if it was an appropriate illustration.  And IDS's lackey Christian Guy from the Centre for Social Justice was presented on the film as he was an independent expert.  Who "won" the argument depends on who you agree with.  These discussions rarely change opinions.  But at least the subject is now being discussed.

Work Programme data

The figures have been published.  There's a summary here or a detailed analysis here.  Unless you're a glutton for statistics, it takes some ploughing through, but one significant point is that only 18 out of 40 contracts achieved their minimum performance targets, and the performance for ESA claimants is terrible.  I'll wait for someone else to analyse these figures properly and extract the meat, but it's much as we expected - not very good.
As several readers have already pointed out, A4e is one of the companies being penalised for poor performance, as the BBC reports.  But all that happens is that they see a small cut in the number of referrals in three areas.

They've got away with it

It must be congratulations all round at the DWP.  The Work Programme results are terrible but hardly anyone has noticed, because the raw numbers are impressively big, and a week of spinning has convinced the largely gullible media that failure is actually success.  Well done, chaps.
But these are the figures (in percentages):

Why are there no headlines this time around about "its worse than doing nothing", as indeed it is for more than half the providers?  Leaving ESA aside for the moment, the minimum contracted figures - what the providers contracted to deliver - were only a tiny amount above the dead weight figure - what the DWP assumed would happen with no intervention at all, which means no money spent.  But half the companies couldn't even deliver that.  For JSA 18-24 the wooden spoon goes to A4e in South Yorkshire, which managed just 15.5%.  Yet Mark Hoban says, "The improvement in performance over the past year has been profound and the scheme is getting better and better."
The failure with ESA is inescapable, and some publications, like the Independent, choose to headline that.  But it's been spun for a week that this is down to lack of "resources", i.e. those on ESA need more money spent on them than the programme provides.  The excuses are somewhat tortured.  An outfit calling itself Inclusion (it describes itself as a "cutting-edge thought leader" but doesn't say where its funding comes from) wants to move the goalposts and take the economy into account.  It recognises that poor performance means less income so even poorer performance.  Another think-tank, the Social Market Foundation (equally cagey about where its funding comes from) says, confusingly, "Poor performance against the DWP's minimum levels cannot be taken as evidence that providers are doing a bad job or that the scheme offers poor value for money," because we don't know how a different approach would have fared.  The ERSA, the mouthpiece for the providers, declares that the government's way of measuring performance is wrong and that the targets should take the state of the economy into account.
The Financial Times tells us that "several providers have been put on watch for having their contract terminated."  12 contracts, they say, have been put under a "performance improvement notice".  But I would be very surprised if any providers do actually lose contracts.  In another piece the FT points out that the WP is "cheap and it isn't working".  The bidding process meant that companies said they could do it "at a lower cost than was probably wise", and so the profits aren't coming in which would enable them to spend enough to be successful.  It's that negative spiral which those actually experiencing the WP know only too well.  The article concludes with the opinion that Osborne is shifting money from the WP to the jobcentres.  Yet JCP has suffered big staff cuts recently.
In real business, as opposed to outsourcing, contracts have a legal reality.  They come with penalty clauses, punishing the contractor for failure to deliver.  In this business, the companies know that the minimum contractual requirements mean little or nothing.  The likes of A4e are used to missing their targets and still making loads of money.  The government has an interest in pretending that failure is, in fact, success.  When the model is payment by results (but not really) the contractors make less money; but the casualties are not the businesses but the people who have not received the service.
It is nonsense to blame the economic situation.  If the number of unemployed people who can get back into work depends on the state of the economy (and it probably does) then what is the point of a scheme like the Work Programme?  The companies are adding little or nothing to what would be happening anyway.
However, it appears that Iain Duncan Smith has got away with it.

Weekend thoughts

As we await the Work Programme performance data, we can see that the excuses are already prepared.  The figures for the number of long-term unemployed show that, far from being reduced by the WP, they are going up.  In September there was a 2% increase on the previous month for those out of work for 12 months or more, and that's a 128% increase on the same time last year.  That is a huge indictment of the scheme that was going to solve everything.  Yet we read (in the Telegraph, for example) that providers are complaining that not enough "hard to help" claimants are being put on the programme.  Those on ESA are not being referred in the numbers expected, and that cuts the possible profits of the providers.  We often read that Jobcentres are not referring people in the expected numbers, but nobody seems to have asked the Jobcentre managers why that is.
Are the providers really concerned that they're not getting enough of the most difficult clients?  They appear to be doing little or nothing to help those they do get.  We know (from the whistle-blower on Channel 4 News) that A4e's advisers have huge caseloads and have to concentrate on those most likely to get work i.e. those who've been out of work for the shortest time.  Perhaps that's because so few people are getting work.  Instead of getting them off the books, providers have to maintain contact with all these clients.  It's a mess, and it will be very difficult to present it as anything else.
We are not to be allowed to know which organisations are taking part in "workfare" programmes.  The DWP has defied the verdict of the Information Commissioner, asserting that the hostile action which would follow that disclosure would make those organisations withdraw.  That would be particularly true, they say, of MWA, the mandatory work activity programme.  The quote (in the Guardian) is that it would collapse "with incalculable losses to the taxpayer and many thousands of persons in long-term unemployment who are supported by the scheme."  I don't get the "losses to the taxpayer" bit.  And as the article says, "The government's own research also showed that the scheme does not help the unemployed to get a job once they've finished the four weeks of work.  It also had no effect on getting people off benefits in the long term." It seems, though, that most of the organisations involved in MWA are in the voluntary sector.
The government is fast approaching a formal return to the age-old concept of deserving and undeserving poor.  It's going ahead with plans to give priority in council housing lists to "working families, ex-servicemen and people who volunteer".  (See another Guardian article.)  This may not work in Labour-controlled areas.  And what constitutes volunteering?  Everybody else who is homeless would be shoved into private rented accommodation, perhaps miles from where they've always lived.
Critics talk about a return to the workhouse.  No, there won't be workhouses.  But the mindset is very similar to that which produced the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.

That informal survey - results. And another survey

Thank you for the responses to my informal survey.  Here's my interpretation of what you said.

1.  I asked about pressure to avoid part-time or temporary work.  The charge was that providers were steering clients away from anything other than full-time, permanent jobs because they wouldn't get outcome payments for anything less.  Only two people said that they had experienced this, although several others pointed out that they agreed with the adviser that they couldn't take part-time work because of the benefits system.

2.  The second question was about inappropriate demands.  One person said that an adviser had demanded his bank statement, and another said that he had been asked about his faith, but no one else reported any such demands.

3.  It was the third question, about "tailored support", which attracted the most agreement.  If respondents are typical, the concept of tailored support is something of a joke.  Several of you talked about sub-contractors saying that they couldn't afford to provide any such support.  No one reported receiving any actual training.  Some people realised that they had much better educational and professional qualifications than the people supposedly advising them.  One respondent had experience of clients with special needs, now on ESA, who are not receiving the appropriate support or understanding from the w2w companies.

So from this entirely unscientific survey it appears that some of the accusations against A4e and other providers arise from isolated incidents rather than a general culture, but that the notion of tailored support is largely a fiction.

 

I want to try a more focussed experiment.  Chris Grayling said recently that " Jobcentre Plus takes 10,000 vacancies every working day".  But all of us who have ever had to look for work know that some of the advertised vacancies turn out to be cons.  They may to be for home-working scams; or working on commission without this being made clear at the outset; or non-existent vacancies advertised by agencies to get people to register with them.  Let's see if we can collect these and get a true picture of the situation.  If you find an advert that's obviously not for a real job, send me the link (as a comment to this post - I won't publish it).  If you only discover the con later, send me the details.  I'll leave this open for a month or two, so please help to get some useful information from this.