Some thoughts on the sell-off

Whoever tweets on A4e's behalf was merrily going on about apprenticeships today, and that was the news on their website.  It's not surprising that there's nothing about the impending sale.  But I'm now wondering whether potential buyers might hold off until after the election.  The result could be a big influence on how much the parts of the business are worth.
Take welfare-to-work.  Labour has said that it would not renew the current Work Programme contracts, but would instead give the organisation to local bodies such as councils and LEPs.  This would still mean the involvement of private companies, but not on the same scale.  A Conservative government would just produce a new variation of the WP.  Would Labour carry on with workfare?  It was a Labour government which started it, after all.  They are pledged to stop it for young people, replacing it with guaranteed (although temporary) paid jobs, but have said nothing about older people.
As for prison education, that depends on getting a government which stops cutting the numbers of prison staff, leaving prisoners unable to attend classes.  And then there's the Money Advice service, another unknown prospect.
The Tories are saying that 30,000 staff are to go from the DWP.  Given how utterly shambolic that department is now, that is frightening.  But could this mean the outsourcing of Jobcentre Plus?  ("We've created [make up a number] private sector jobs .....")  They've been hankering after doing that for some time, and any company in the sector would be scrambling for contracts.  That would make A4e's assets attractive.
Labour intends to subject outsourcing companies to the same transparency rules as public sector bodies, but it wouldn't stop outsourcing.  However, a Tory government would be a much more attractive prospect for potential buyers of A4e.

Changes at A4e

We knew that various directors of A4e had come and gone, having done their stints on the board.  However, separately from that, Mark Lovell has gone.  His job was terminated at the end of May (yes, I know it's July now, but I've only just picked it up.)  He had been with A4e since the start in 1991, and there were those who said that he was the brains behind the business rather than Emma Harrison.  Lovell kept a low profile, in contrast to Ms Harrison, and I only remember seeing him on TV once.  He was Executive Chairman of A4e for over 22 years, but in September last year he stepped down and became a non exec director.  He's now become the principal of something called The Social Assistance Partnership.   So all the old guard has gone.

There could be some new business for A4e if the Conservatives win in 2015.  The "think tank" Policy Exchange, which is actually a Tory brand, wants to privatise jobcentres.  There's a useful article in the Belfast Telegraph, and another on the Huffington Post site.  The service would be split and the "employment services arm" privatised while the rest would be renamed Citizen Support.  It's inevitable that any service still in the public sector will be outsourced sharpish if the Tories get in.

The future of JCP

You may have missed it.  It certainly wasn't well publicised.  But then the report into Jobcentre Plus by the Work & Pensions select committee wasn't going to excite the media.  You can read the full report and a good summary on parliament's own site.  The few news sites which did pick this up highlighted the judgement that jobcentres assess claimants "haphazardly" (BBC) and that "Jobcentre staff are sanctioning benefits claimants inappropriately for minor infringements" (the Independent).
One of the most important of its recommendations was that JCP should continue to be a public service, i.e. not outsourced.  The committee also picked up on the fact that its targets are focussed on getting people off benefits, rather than into work.  They recognise that the two aims are different, and the focus should be on helping claimants to find work, not pushing them off the books by means of sanctions or putting them on another benefit.  The jobcentres often don't know enough about the "barriers" which individuals face, such as homelessness.
The report is scathing about sanctions.  The committee wants an independent enquiry into the regime, as well as the urgent monitoring of the financial hardship they cause.  They say that data on the numbers "signposted" by JCP to food banks should be collected and published (Iain Duncan Smith has refused to do this).  And the stress on conditionality must be balanced by greater efforts to actually help and support people.
Finally, they point to the increasing work-load being pushed onto the jobcentres (including making people on in-work benefits sign on), with no indication of what extra resources will be put in to cope with it.
It's a good report.  What a pity that it will be ignored.

We've all noticed the rubbish uttered by the anonymous DWP spokeswoman (or, occasionally, spokesperson) in response to media stories.  None of the media ever name her, although they will all know who she is.  She is part of a sinister trend in the DWP, well covered by Simon Barrow on the Ekklesia website, for people who are paid to be neutral civil servants to, instead, play a party-political role in the way it churns out propaganda.  Since this is so obvious, there is no reason to maintain the anonymity.

Those getting by on £71 a week JSA will have been amused (or not) to read about the £75,000 of taxpayers' money spent on media training for Lord Freud and others at the DWP.  The Huffington Post lists what it calls "the 5 crassest statements made by ministers" at the DWP, to show how much they need this training.  Alternatively, of course, you could just sack them and hire somebody competent.

A good read

A couple of publications from the DWP might prove interesting reading for those who are unemployed.

The first is entitled "Jobseeker's Allowance Back to Work Schemes" and tells you how Jobcentre Plus "will help you find work".  It doesn't get off to a good start, since there's a grammatical clanger in the second paragraph, but then, in seven sections, it tells you what to expect.  I won't go through all of it, but the section on the Work Programme might cause some amusement to those of my readers who have experience of it.  Then we come to a section entitled "Explaining benefit sanctions".  Read it carefully, after reading the WP section, and it's clear that the DWP is perfectly happy that someone can be made destitute on the whim of an "adviser".

The second document is a final evaluation of what they're calling "The Jobcentre Plus Offer".  (The use of buzz words like "Offer" is supposed to make it sound more like the private sector.)  Half of it is about how the "Offer" is perceived by claimants.  It's upbeat about the finding that "Most claimants gave a positive assessment of the support on offer by Jobcentre Plus".  But then it says that "most" is actually three fifths, or 60%, which means that 40% were not happy.  But hey ....

Iain Duncan Smith is appearing in front of the Work and Pensions Select Committee on Wednesday (unless he manages to postpone it again).  Let's hope that the members of the committee ask the right questions.

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.

Just an idea ....

This is pure fantasy, because it depends on the closing down of the Work Programme and all such private-profit schemes, and that's not going to happen.  But just suppose ....
Start by ending the WP and strengthening the Jobcentres, with more staff, retraining and more resources; put them into partnership with local councils.  They would do the basic stuff where necessary, like CVs and interview techniques.
Now, that £400 attachment fee which the WP providers have been getting.  Instead, put that into a notional account for every person who has been out of work for, say, 6 months.  The claimant and JCP adviser together decide what needs to be done to enhance the claimant's job prospects.  It could be a training course (a real one) up to the value of £400.  I know some training costs a lot more then that, but I think you'd find FE colleges and genuine training bodies willing to put together proper courses for that when the money was sitting there.  It could be used for driving lessons; after all, so many jobs depend on having a driving license.  Any other ideas?  It wouldn't have to be spent all in one go.
Of course, if the claimant signs up for something expensive and then doesn't complete it, there would have to be a good reason.  But I don't think there would be many defaulters if it was clear that this was genuinely useful.  And those outcome payments?  Well, they could go to restoring the money which used to help someone bridge the gap between starting a job and getting paid.
As I said, it's not going to happen.  Pity.

A4e gives its opinion

Some time back people told us here that they had encountered Jobcentre advisers in A4e offices, accessing their personal details alongside the A4e "advisers".  Now we know why.  And we know A4e's thinking on how they can get more fully involved with JCP's business.
A4e often submits written evidence to parliamentary committees; it's not clear whether that's by invitation or not.  The latest document was submitted to the Work and Pensions Select Committee earlier this month, and can be read here.  The committee is holding an inquiry into the role of JCP in "the reformed welfare system".    A4e's document stresses first how it has supported "tens of thousands of people into work" and worked closely with JCP.  Then it talks about how it has worked with JCP over a number of different schemes.  "A better functioning JCP," it says, "results in better services for A4e's customers."
That sounds innocuous enough; but it ignores the fact that it was the outsourcing of New Deal in 2006 which caused intense problems for JCP, including large-scale staff redundancies and a souring of relationships between JCP staff and the providers.  It also uses that totally misleading word, "customers".
There's a glitch in para 1.2, with a sentence repeated; rubbish proof-reading by somebody.  But paras 1.2 to 1.4 tell us that every claimant should have an initial assessment and those with the "biggest barriers to employment" should be put on the Work Programme immediately so that they can receive the "depth of tailored service" which A4e provides.  
The notion of "barriers" permeates this document, enabling them to play the government's tune of unemployment being the fault of the jobless.  Paras 2.0 to 2.2 detail how A4e wants JCP to be the "gateway" to the services provided by the private sector, and the need, as they see it, to integrate (or join up, in their terminology) with the services of "GP surgeries, housing associations and other local authority services".  In pursuit of this integration A4e has been locating JCP advisers in A4e offices and vice versa.  "This co-location has improved communications between our organisations", improved data sharing and reduced paperwork.  They are going to do more of it.
Finally, they want JCP to learn from A4e how to engage with employers, citing the company's links with the Co-operative Group in the North West.  "JCP should attempt a more strategic approach by working to ensure that they are helping claimants into growth industries while directing them away from occupational areas in decline. A ‘one size fits all’ approach limits effectiveness and as we know through delivering the Work Programme, it is vital that JCP has the capacity to strategically react to different employers, of different sizes, in different locations."  This will anger a lot of Jobcentre managers, who know the difficulties of getting claimants into any sort of job, and don't need advice from the likes of A4e.
We hear in this document some familiar ambitions from A4e, and some new ones.  They haven't directly said, "Outsource the jobcentres so that we can bid for the contracts", but the logic is inescapable.  In their scenario, what would be the point of JCP at all, except as a signing-on point, and with Universal Credit even that role can go.

Exit Report

This is something which could only have been dreamed up in an office in Whitehall or Westminster by people whose connection to those it affects is non-existent.  It's the Exit Report now required by the DWP on claimants leaving the Work Programme from the providers.  Here's the memo.  
If you've ever had to get a reference from a previous employer you'll know that such references are now usually very brief and factual; so-and-so worked here from date to date as a whatever.  There will be no judgement as to your character - too risky.  Even teachers these days are wary of what they put in a child's report, and they are qualified professionals who know the child very well.  But the DWP wants somebody working for a WP provider like A4e, someone who may well have no qualifications at all, to pass judgement on their alumni.  They want JCP to be provided with "an insight to the participant" (yes, I know it doesn't make sense - perhaps they mean "into" - but they've written it twice).  Here's what's required:

"Please state below any further information which will provide Jobcentre Plus with an insight to the participant, include for example:

• Employability – your opinion on the participants employment prospects, the type of employment which might be most appropriate.

• Attitude – any changes in attitude and background you have noticed whilst having worked with the participant for 2 years and any known reasons for these changes.

• Barriers to employment – any barriers that you have seen the participant overcome / are still to be addressed / have arisen whilst on Work Programme. Any health conditions or substance dependency the participant may have.

• Compliance – the level of compliance you have seen from the participant, including any possible reasons you might consider to be behind this behaviour and which may be useful in determining further support for the participant.

• Any other information you feel might be useful to Jobcentre Plus and give an insight to the participant."

This is very, very dangerous.  It asks for subjective judgements which an employee of a WP provider is not qualified to make, into someone's attitudes and behaviour.  It specifically asks that employee to give an "opinion", to have "noticed" something, to "consider", even, heaven help us, to "feel".  And the claimant has no right to dispute those opinions.

Claimants should ensure that they get a copy of the report (quite rightly, they are not being sent out in the post).  Make sure that the adviser name is filled in on the form and legible, so that an individual can be held to account for what has been written.  If there is anything negative with which you disagree, make that clear to the Jobcentre and seek advice from the CAB as to how you can challenge it.

Playing games with welfare

The Telegraph has just put up an article which shows just how cynical the political games have become, as people's lives are used as counters by Iain Duncan Smith and others.  He has offered to cut another £3bn from the welfare bill in order to protect the armed forces.  This would mean, it's thought, revisiting the cuts which were proposed by the Tories and blocked by the Lib Dems; restricting housing benefit for the under-25s and limiting payments to people with more than two children.  The game works like this: further down we read, "A senior Conservative source said: 'It is now a simple choice, Iain Duncan Smith has offered a deal which will protect the country’s security. The Liberal Democrats will block it — and it will be for them to explain why it is more important for teenagers to be given council flats rather than for the nation and its citizens to be protected.'"  Under-25s have become "teenagers", versus the armed forces who are protecting the nation.  It's hardly subtle.  But: "The Lib Dems have indicated that they will not allow working-age handouts to be reduced again unless the Conservatives drop their opposition to means-testing some benefits paid to pensioners, including the winter fuel allowance."  So that's the other part of the game; hit those of working age or hit pensioners, which do you want?

If you're wondering where all this is going to end up, the Guardian has a disturbing article on the growth of food banks.  Read the whole thing to find the answer; as charities take over from the state, the state - including mainstream society - doesn't feel the need to address the root cause of hardship and poverty, and the foodbanks become part of what an academic calls "a secondary food system for the poor".

It occurred to me today that we haven't heard any more about what appeared to be inevitable a year or two ago; the privatisation of Jobcentre Plus.  Could it be that government realised that the bidders would be the very same companies which were failing so dismally with the Work Programme?

Two stories

A couple of news stories:

We learned yesterday that most bus companies, including the big ones, have agreed to provide free bus travel for unemployed people who can produce a Jobcentre Plus travel card.  But, as the Independent points out, it's for one month only - January.  It's unlikely to help you get a job, but enjoy it.

Then there's the story in the Guardian about the mess which the Universal Jobmatch site has become.  "The Universal Jobmatch site, which has so far cost taxpayers more than £17m, has advertised fake jobs including for an MI6 "target elimination specialist" and "international couriers" for CosaNostra Holdings, as well as listing pornographic websites. There are fears that jobseekers could become victims of identity theft. On Tuesday, the Department of Work and Pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith admitted 6,000 jobs had been blocked since the site launched on 19 November and scores of employer accounts had been blocked."  And we learn that "Monster, the company that operates the site, had been previously caught out by Ukraine-based hackers in 2007 when the confidential details of more than 1.3 million people were stolen."  You couldn't make it up.  And it's apparently putting off genuine employers.  But still people are being told, wrongly, that they have to register with the site.

How the untruths spread

There's a Jobcentre manager in Hull who might be regretting the "facts" he gave to the local paper.  He certainly should be.  The Hull Daily Mail reported today "2,000 jobs on offer in Hull, but no takers, Jobcentre says".  Hull has double the national average of people on JSA, so this would be a big story if true. But the comments in reaction show that it isn't.  Somebody went on the direct.gov website and found only 250 vacancies within 15 miles of Hull, and most of those were for people with specific qualifications like an HGV licence.  Other people pointed out that many listed vacancies are not jobs at all.  And so on; I don't need to labour the point for many of my readers.  But it's been repeated on the BBC's website as "Concern over Hull's 2,000 unfilled job vacancies", and again on the local news.  I can't imagine that unemployed people in Hull are too thrilled about this.  Is it happening where you are?
This sort of very damaging myth helps the government.  The Guardian reports that Iain Duncan Smith is about to put his proposals for welfare cuts before the government.  They will include "freezing the up-rating of benefits for two years and then linking it to pay as opposed to inflation".  Because, of course, if there are all those workshy people out there they don't deserve any more.

What hope for 2012?

What does 2012 have in store? For A4e, who knows? They will certainly continue to bid for every contract going; and with this government intent on dismantling the whole notion of public service and privatising everything in sight, there will be no shortage of contracts. But there's a lot more competition now, in all the sectors once dominated by A4e. And the emphasis on payment by results (already jargonised as PBR) puts more pressure on the companies to deliver. The Work Programme has been criticised from the start, and the Financial Times keeps on the case. Far fewer people, it reports, will be referred from Incapacity Benefit or ESA than was forecast, and this impacts on the smaller organisations and charities who were signed up as sub-contractors for that purpose. But the numbers of referrals from JSA will substantially increase, as unemployment rises and the number of vacancies slumps. The government remains adamant that no figures will be produced until the spring. A4e will no doubt look to its overseas operations to provide profit. If anyone needs reminding of the scope of A4e's operations, look at their factsheet.

For those on the receiving end of the services of such companies as A4e, the prospects for 2012 look bleak. We already have Workfare, and no one is bothering to call it anything else. One council, Westminster, is going ahead with docking benefits from those deemed guilty of anti-social behaviour. Read the story in the Telegraph.

The most disturbing bit of this story: "Westminster is also considering docking the council tax benefits of people who are not making an effort to get a job. Cllr Roe said that for every Westminster resident on council tax benefits, there were 'seven vacancies in low-skilled jobs like shelf-stacking, waitressing and window cleaning. That implies at least some of those people were not working as hard as they could be to get jobs.' If agreed after a consultation, the proposals would come into force in just over a year and would affect all claimants except for pensioners." The implications of that are dreadful. It's a short step from that to what most Tories would really like - time-limited benefits. I'm not sure they would dare to bring it in this side of a general election, but it's on the cards. Another strong possibility is the privatisation of Jobcentre Plus.

Try to have a happy New Year!

Reactions

Reactions to the contracts awards are interesting. G4S, with 3 contracts (and the contract for running Birmingham prison, announced yesterday) saw its share price go up, while Serco, with only 2, saw a fall. A4e doesn't have shareholders - but if it had, the shares would surely have risen. The Guardian reports that, "Small voluntary groups complained ministers had undermined the 'big society' by handing the £5bn-plus contracts to big providers." The Association of Learning Providers, a trade body for the industry, wants the government to go the whole hog and privatise Jobcentre Plus. Put that alongside another Guardian piece, "Jobcentres tricking people out of benefits to cut costs, says whistleblower" which is quite horrifying, and you see that it's a real possibility.

A4e has been named by a Dutch outfit as one of Britain's top employers. "The research shows that A4e has outstanding HR policies and excellent working conditions." That could come as a surprise to some.

Don't mention New Deal

I caught a fascinating Radio 4 programme on Saturday morning. Called "Give us a Job", it was marking the centenary of the institution of Job Centres. They were called Labour Exchanges then, of course. You can hear it on iplayer. After looking at the history, Michael Portillo (yes, I know, but he's out of politics now) spoke to Mark Serwotka and then asked Yvette Cooper about the new Welfare Reform Bill. I waited, naturally, for any mention of the New Deal or Jobcentre Support contracts, but all we got were a couple of cliches about how the Bill was "to take forward more support" for people looking for work and, "We're a society that cares for people." Either the omission was deliberate, or it reflected the irrelevance of these hugely expensive contracts.

This morning the Guardian reports the results of a survey by the Federation of Small Businesses, called "The Jobcentre is not working". Again, there is absolutely nothing about New Deal and the private companies. All the burden of expectation is on Jobcentre Plus, despite the fact that the government is spending vast amounts of money on private companies like A4e to take on much of JCP's role. This is a curious situation, to say the least.

PS. The One Show tonight had a piece about youth unemployment, from Hull which has the highest incidence, and has for years had this dubious honour. The focus was the Young Person's Guarantee. Yvette Cooper was given a few brief lines to say; notably that any young person signing on today is guaranteed not to be signing on a year from now. What they're carefully not saying is that the jobs will be only temporary, and that many youngsters will get only "training". Again, the privatised New Deal situation is unmentioned. The real point of the piece, I felt, was that the only body actually doing something about youth unemployment is the local Council, which funds apprenticeships.

PPS. With all the current talk of cutting non-essential programmes, can we dare to hope that the decidedly non-essential FND contracts will be cut?