Those good folks at the Guardian have published the WP performance data by provider.
A4e have 5 areas. Their best performance was in South Yorkshire, with 3.55%. Their worst was in the Thames Valley, with 2.78%. The average for all 5 areas is 3.28%. A4e isn't the worst but it's far from the best.
Krishnan Guru-Murty has tweeted: "A4e founder Emma Harrison not available to explain why her claim #c4news figures were wrong turned out to be, er, wrong."
Showing posts with label Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Thursday, 25 October 2012
It "needs throwing out"
Channel 4 News tonight followed up it's piece on A4e and interview with Emma Harrison last night with an interview with Anna Burke, former head of Eco-Actif. This was a social enterprise which was a sub-contractor of A4e until it went out of business. Ms Burke was shown the figures which Harrison claimed were wrong, and she agreed that they looked accurate and were "highly typical". She said that clients were divided into red, green and amber; the red ones being those who were shelved as being too hard to help.
Krishnan Guru-Murty said that a number of A4e clients had contacted the programme, and they showed a few of the comments, which were very critical. They then replayed Harrison's "very improbable statement" description of a similar comment made on last night's programme. Ms Burke referred to the "bullying" contention of Harrison, and said that the reputation throughout the Work Programme was that it was the clients who were being bullied. It "needs throwing out," she said.
I don't think this story is going to go away.
Krishnan Guru-Murty said that a number of A4e clients had contacted the programme, and they showed a few of the comments, which were very critical. They then replayed Harrison's "very improbable statement" description of a similar comment made on last night's programme. Ms Burke referred to the "bullying" contention of Harrison, and said that the reputation throughout the Work Programme was that it was the clients who were being bullied. It "needs throwing out," she said.
I don't think this story is going to go away.
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
She was bullied and the figures are wrong - Emma on Channel 4 News
There has just been an astonishing interview with Emma Harrison on Channel 4 News. There's an account of the facts on which it's based here. It revolved around leaked performance data for the first year of the Work Programme - you can read the analysis on the Factcheck blog - which show that out of 93,127 attachments (new clients) there were only 3,400 outcomes. Just 4%. For that they've got £46m in fees. The government's minimum target is 5.5%. There was a brief explanation of who Emma Harrison is. Then we heard from two clients. Roland said it had taken 8 months for him to get even basic training; his sessions with A4e lasted 15 minutes and he was simply made to apply, under threat of sanctions, for jobs he knew he had no hope of getting. Gill, a former solicitor with a 20-year career break, said that A4e were not interested in anything she said and didn't have the skills to enable them to tailor support.
A former senior manager with A4e, with his identity hidden, said that staff had "unmanageable caseloads" and were having to focus on their "top 10 targets". He also said that customers often found their own jobs but A4e could claim for them if they showed some input, so might pay bus fares for the first week.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy revealed that in addition to the £8.6m dividend that Harrison took last year, she took a further £250,000 before stepping down. What, he asked her, did she have to say to those customers? The interview became an odd exchange. Harrison insisted that a lot of the detail was wrong, including the numbers and the 4% outcomes. A4e had told her that the numbers were wrong. But she didn't know what the right numbers were. She then accused Guru-Murthy of bullying her, and that word kept recurring. They were making up stories for political reasons. Asked about the extra dividend when they were not meeting their target, she said that she had invested £50m in the Work Programme (she appeared a bit confused at this point about what was her own money and what was A4e profits). She is an entrepreneur who has helped tens of thousands. She was sorry that the customers featured were not happy with the service, but then said that Roland's was "an improbable statement".
Harrison insisted that Channel 4 is biassed, having not reported that the fraud allegations had been shown to be untrue. KGM said that they'd reported it at the start of the programme. This was, he said, about value for money. They appeared to disagree about why she had been asked onto the programme. She kept using the word "bullying" and saying that figures were not true. Why, asked KGM, did A4e say that it was a different company from 2 years ago? She said that you could read that statement how you wanted. Was the Work Programme set up to fail, he asked. It was the most successful programme they've ever run, she said. Would she like to apologise to anyone else? She said that her staff had been bullied, it had been a political maelstrom, and she was "useful to have a got at".
It was quite extraordinary, and I wonder how the current A4e bosses feel about it. Not best pleased, I bet.
A former senior manager with A4e, with his identity hidden, said that staff had "unmanageable caseloads" and were having to focus on their "top 10 targets". He also said that customers often found their own jobs but A4e could claim for them if they showed some input, so might pay bus fares for the first week.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy revealed that in addition to the £8.6m dividend that Harrison took last year, she took a further £250,000 before stepping down. What, he asked her, did she have to say to those customers? The interview became an odd exchange. Harrison insisted that a lot of the detail was wrong, including the numbers and the 4% outcomes. A4e had told her that the numbers were wrong. But she didn't know what the right numbers were. She then accused Guru-Murthy of bullying her, and that word kept recurring. They were making up stories for political reasons. Asked about the extra dividend when they were not meeting their target, she said that she had invested £50m in the Work Programme (she appeared a bit confused at this point about what was her own money and what was A4e profits). She is an entrepreneur who has helped tens of thousands. She was sorry that the customers featured were not happy with the service, but then said that Roland's was "an improbable statement".
Harrison insisted that Channel 4 is biassed, having not reported that the fraud allegations had been shown to be untrue. KGM said that they'd reported it at the start of the programme. This was, he said, about value for money. They appeared to disagree about why she had been asked onto the programme. She kept using the word "bullying" and saying that figures were not true. Why, asked KGM, did A4e say that it was a different company from 2 years ago? She said that you could read that statement how you wanted. Was the Work Programme set up to fail, he asked. It was the most successful programme they've ever run, she said. Would she like to apologise to anyone else? She said that her staff had been bullied, it had been a political maelstrom, and she was "useful to have a got at".
It was quite extraordinary, and I wonder how the current A4e bosses feel about it. Not best pleased, I bet.
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