More tweets

Some tweets from A4e's Roy Newey:

• India is the most exciting place on earth for skills development, get involved in our consortiums now.
• How do you choose which starving child to help? Answer - you don't. Help us to help all children in poverty in India
• Kasia (A4e) is presented to Prince Charles in Poland in recognition of her work to help unemployed. Congratulations, fantastic.
• Looking forward to review International Development tomorrow. Do you have any thoughts about where in the world A4e should be?
• World Water day. What has that to do with A4e? It is a major driver of poverty in India. Our work must support those affected.
• Yes you did. Well done. Now let's tackle the 50% of children in London living in poverty.
• A4e breaks new ground in Australia.
• Poland enters an exciting phase are you able to partner with a4e Polska to give skills and match into work?

Let's be charitable. Let's assume that Mr Newey is sincere in his belief that by expanding its business through more of the world's poorest areas it can help them out of poverty. I would suggest that he needs to do some reading. He could start with Benny Dembritzer's "The Attack on World Poverty". Unless Mr Newey begins to understand the causes of poverty he will continue to sound ridiculous.

The Good News and the Bad News

The preferred bidders have been announced for Work Choices, the new contract for supported employment. And A4e isn't one of them. We reported that A4e had been shortlisted in 11 of the 19 contract areas. Today's list shows 28 contract areas, and The Shaw Trust has won 16 of those, with Working Links getting 5. Is this the first time that A4e haven't been successful anywhere?

But all that happy tweeting about India is confirmed on A4e's website. India is a massive market, so it's not surprising that A4e's people are thrilled to bits.

The report is out of the Parliamentary Select Committee into the "Management and Administration of Contracted Employment Programmes". That was the enquiry prompted by disclosures of fraud and other concerns. The Committee is not best pleased. The summary makes the following points, among others:

• We note that levels of detected fraud in contracted employment programmes are low, and that we were told there is little evidence that there is a problem with undetected fraud. However we feel that there is no room for complacency; the frauds uncovered to date have highlighted the extent of the risk that could be exploited because of weaknesses in the system. The Department must ensure that processes for the detection of fraud are rigorous and robust.
• We call for customer rights to be given a much higher status, and for a universal, monitored,and enforceable customer charter to be introduced. We also call for the Department to carry out a “Customer Survey” of customers of contracted employment programmes to enable standards of service to be compared between providers and with Jobcentre Plus. Advisers also need to talk to customers on contracted provision about their experiences and ensure these are fed back to providers and the Department.

A4e was one of the companies which gave oral and written evidence to the Committee. One section of the report deals with "Poor service and complaints". It cites the Manchester Evening News article of March 2008 which focussed on what was happening in A4e's offices there, and also the Benefit Busters programme which drew attention to customers who "were dissatisfied with A4e staff offering them short-term and zero hour contracts, often through agencies, rather than focusing on helping them to find sustainable employment." Several providers agreed that the DWP's approach to customer feedback was wrong. Ae's evidence said, sensibly, "Current systems across contracted programmes are more focused on compliance rather than continual improvement and we believe it is to the benefit of future service quality that this balance is redressed. […] Systems across the board need to be more engaged with customers so that they have a real voice and impact on service quality measures. This is essential if employment services are to become service led treating service users as both experts and customers."

It's worth reading the entire report.

Tweeting about India

A4e's Roy Newey has been in India and Twitter records his apparent success:

• Off to London looking for new opportunities in India. Bringing a4e to lift people out of poverty is such a buzz.
• Duke of York salutes A4e work in india. Well done Sidharth and Pooja. Enjoy the praise.
• RT YIPEEEE!!! Thanks @roynewey: Duke of York salutes A4e work in india. Well done Sidharth and Pooja. Enjoy the praise.
• India presents A4e with the biggest opportunity to Improve Peoples Lives. Join us working with the rural poor.

Two Indian representatives of the company have joined the tweeting:

• So much to gain from u and being inspired to make A4e a success in India!!
• Great energy in India...Team A4e India got another dose of Roy's energy drug...Thank you Roy! We are addicted to his energy doses.Lot to do!

We also learn from Twitter that A4e is doing well in Buckinghamshire. Somebody known as Yesteam says: "We are so excited about being accepted into schools in Bucks and have our fingers crossed on the A4E bid to win YES workshops!"

India, Cambridge and the bank

News from India: "In a pilot project, A4e (the first international company to work on this project) will work alongside the Ministry of Rural Development to provide sectorally tailored employment-oriented vocational skills training, certification and job placements to 9,000 people below the poverty line (BPL) between the age group of 16-35 years in Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan,Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa." (http://ukinindia.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/general/EducationBrochure110110)

Back at home, a group calling themselves the UWU, "a newly formed group whose mission is to represent and defend the rights of those who are currently out of work, as well as fighting the Welfare Reform Act" were picketing A4e's Cambridge offices last week.

And the bank. You may remember that last year A4e set up a company called Capitec UK Ltd to be a bank for poor people. See here. (The relationship with the South African bank, Capitec, is unclear.) Presumably that £1m grant was never handed over, because the company remains dormant; and, incidentally, the body which made the award has since been disbanded.