More oddments

I hear that one of the regional news programmes, Look North, did a pre-election debate in which Emma Harrison of A4e joined three politicians on the panel. It's not available on iplayer. Did anyone see it?

The Halifax and Calderdale Evening Courier has published an interesting piece about Pathways, the scheme to get people off Incapacity Benefit and into work. So keen is A4e to encourage people onto this programme that they are offering "£100 shopping vouchers to anyone who signs up voluntarily with A4e until September 30".

In the new government it appears that Chris Grayling is the minister who will be to Iain Duncan Smith what Jim Knight was to Yvette Cooper (if you see what I mean).

A new government - the implications

As a coalition government forms and the cabinet appointments are announced, contractors like A4e may well feel both apprehensive and hopeful. Michael Gove is education secretary, so there's going to be scope for the private sector in schools. Theresa May is not, as we expected, Work & Pensions secretary; that job has apparently gone to Ian Duncan Smith. What that will mean for the Work Programme is anyone's guess at the moment. But IDS does understand the benefits system and, more importantly, its effects on real people, and he will probably stand up to the private sector.

Benefits claimants should be worried but not, I think, frightened. The worst Tory attitudes should be tempered by their coalition partners.