Feeding Britain

The report on hunger came and went.  For the media it was a one-day wonder and then they moved on.  The coverage elicited the expected denial and incomprehension, and nothing will be done.

The report, unfortunately, conflated two unrelated issues; the huge wastage of food, and the fact that large numbers of people can't afford food at all.  This allowed the media to focus on the first and to give the impression that the surplus food now thrown out could feed the poor.  There are, in fact, several organisations such as Fareshare which collect surplus food from the producers and retailers and pass it on for distribution to those charities which feed people; but they can't pass it on to food banks because it's fresh food which can't be stored by those food banks.  And anyway, that would not solve the problem of why people are going hungry.

It was important that the report brought out the reasons for food poverty.  It drew on the figures collected by the Trussell Trust to show that the majority of users are suffering from benefit delays and sanctions.  How did Iain Duncan Smith respond?  According to a Guardian report, he "promised to respond positively, telling MPs "“We want to do everything we can to make sure that people do not stumble into a process of sanctions”.  But on the same day the paper reported, "It is also unlikely that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will shift its stance on the administration of benefit sanctions, even though the report says they are the single biggest reason for the poor resorting to food banks. DWP sources said it was very clear at the start of a benefit claim what was required of a claimant and there would be consequences for failing to meet that commitment."  The FT commented on a suggestion by Nick Clegg, among others, that there should be a sort of "yellow card" system for sanctions, a warning before an actual sanction was imposed.  Many of us would endorse that, and could come up with detailed plans for how it could work.  But, "aides to Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary, argued that the yellow card warning system was 'not necessary' because jobseeker’s allowance claimants were now required to sign a 'claimant commitment'. This left them in no doubt as to the obligations they were required to fulfil in return for their social security."  So IDS's pious words in the House of Commons were nothing more than pious words.  He did say that he would ensure that people are informed about hardship payments; but neglected to tell his colleagues that such payments are a pittance and don't kick in immediately anyway.
At least we know where Business Minister Matthew Hancock stands.  He said that that food banks had only increased “because more people know about them” and that poverty in Britain “coming down”.

I could point you to numerous articles about the report and the fall-out from it.  But you can find them for yourself.  The fact is that nothing will change.  At PMQs today Clegg, standing in for Cameron, reeled off lie after lie, apparently believing what he was saying.  

Negativity

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could ever call anybody was a liar.  Even when they clearly were.  Even when it was Iain Duncan Smith.  But (I'm sorry, Mum) I have to say it.  Esther McVey lied today in the Mail and the Express.  Since the quote is the same in both I have to assume that it's her lie, not the papers'.  "‘I meet with thousands of young people a year and they all say the negative picture painted by opposition politicians about young people and their bleak future has a very negative effect on them."
You can imagine it.  She's got a captive audience of unemployed kids in a jobcentre or somewhere, and every single one of them says, "Well, it's Labour telling us how bad things are, and there's no future."  
You may say it was just exaggeration.  But what about the substance of this mendacious piece?  Try the Mail's lengthy version.  Count the number of assertions which are simply not true.  The Express resorts to quoting the Mail, but at least it gives Rachel Reeves the chance to describe the comments as "pathetic".
We could dismiss all this as tripe, and rather desperate tripe at that, were it not for a piece on the Huffington Post site which makes it look like part of a concerted effort directed by Lynton Crosby, the Tories' campaign guru.  We heard this week that self-employment is at its highest level since records began, and that of the 1.1 million people who have started a job since January 2008, two thirds are self-employed.  (The figures are on the BBC news site.)  Over the last year it's over half of new "jobs".  But all is wonderful according to scary Tory MP Matthew (call me Matt) Hancock.  "There are more jobs available than ever before in this country, the vast majority of the jobs are full-time contracts of employment, and there has also been a very strong growth in self-employment. " [my italics]  This is simply not true.  The article gives plenty of space to voices refuting Hancock's claims.
But it seems that the tactic is simple.  Get out there and lie.  Blame Labour.  Deny the figures.  Just lie.

That PAC meeting

You can read the transcript of the Public Accounts Committee meeting on Tuesday here.  Not the bit that was held in secret.  But we did learn that there was another witness besides Eddie Hutchinson whose evidence was heard in private.  She was a whistle-blower who was complaining about what had happened.  For those who don't want to plough through the entire piece I have made notes below.  The characters involved are, on the committee, Margaret Hodge, Fiona Mctaggart, Austin Mitchell, Matthew Hancock and Richard Bacon and, as witnesses, Robert Devereux, Permanent Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions, and Alan Cave, Delivery Director, Department for Work and Pensions, along with Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office.

MH not happy with RD.  She sent him the A4e internal report and some emails.  He said there wasn't enough specific information in them to do a proper investigation.  She says he should have come back to her for that info.  He says that Grayling announced his enquiry.  She persists, he is infuriating.  What about the internal report?  He accepted A4e's word that of the 9 cases only 3 were actually fraud, and they related to one person.  But they are going to investigate all the cases.  He says they can't investigate where a company has gone out of business.  R Bacon points out that you can.  MH asks about the audit Grayling asked for.  RD says that it won't be published.  "This is a whole lot of good chaps-I understand that the Chairman is an ex-Permanent Secretary, whom, no doubt, you have conversations with. It is a big company with an expensive PR machine, which we have seen in operation over the past few weeks. They are bound to be good citizens, so we don’t need to have open and transparent oversight of them." - MH.  RD gives the official answer about possible litigation.  Lot of discussion with committee members about this.  RD says all the evidence is that A4e is not fraudulent.  Hillier keen to link value for money to the service her constituents are getting.  RD says the WP is not about the service - if they don't provide the service they won't get paid.  FM wants the evidence that A4e " has in place a system for staff to report improper behaviour or performance management systems that avoid perverse incentives".  

AM: "You have just sat through a long closed session, which produced some fairly damning indictments of both the structures and the practices in A4e and Working Links and which gave several indications of possible fraud. Some evidence has been submitted to us as well-to the Chair-by the people who gave evidence in that closed session. Will those allegations be investigated?"  He is keen to talk about what they do to avoid fraud - mentions Private Eye, about which RD is sarcastic.  He describes controls now in place to ensure claims are correct.  MH: "So is A4e fit and proper to undertake the Work Programme ?"  RD says yes.  

RD goes through all the checking process in detail.  Matthew Hancock asks him the questions which allow him to show how watertight the WP is.  Hodge raises issue of bonuses.  RD says it's not an incentive to fraud because they can't now commit fraud.  Hodge describes the case of a woman who already had a job lined up but was persuaded to sign the forms for A4e in return for £50 for herself.  She thinks this is wrong because A4e did nothing for the money.  RD says the £50 was A4e's and it's within the rules.  Some argument about this.  How can you measure what help was given?  They get on to complaints and argue about that.  

Hillier wants a single hotline for complaints and whistleblowers.  RD says he wants people to go to the provider first then the JC.  FM says: "The reason that I first wrote to the Comptroller and Auditor General about how A4e were behaving was that there was no process where the concerns of my constituents, who were referred to A4e, could properly be dealt with. I just got brush-off letters and there was no process where I could advocate on their behalf. Now that was not always about fraud, but there is a lack of a process."  RD bats that aside.  

Cave admits that they didn't ask for the 2009 report and should have done.  Conversation shows that there were two earlier witnesses, not just Hutchinson.  He later admits that he doesn't know who the other 4 shareholders of A4e are.  FM presses the point about controls needing to be not just financial.  She returns to this.  "What struck me from my contact with people is that a large proportion of those customers are very often not reluctant, but are very keen on getting into work, very keen that the public’s money is properly spent and feel that what they see is not spending the public’s money properly."  (Hancock again feeds RD nice questions.)    RM: "We keep hearing from people that they do not know how they can complain and that they have bullying managers who prevent complaints. I accept that you have not been able to investigate all these cases, but one of the things that I have learned as an MP is that while you get green ink complainers, when you get the same complaint from all ends of the constituency, there is something that you should be alert to, and one of the things that I am very struck by is the number of people who have worked for these companies and say that bullying management means that there isn’t a way in which they feel that they can safely make complaints when they are asked to do things. We have had evidence from people who have been asked to do things that include making up evidence and telling lies. We have not been able to test that evidence in a court of law. Nevertheless, it is quite perturbing that people feel that that is what they have been asked to do and that there is no way they can whistleblow about it."  She refers to a previous witness: "She was talking about a different programme, but it was in this period, and therefore she did not know how to complain. While you are right that the programme that she was asked to lie about was not the Work Programme , if she had known of a safe way of passing it up, that would have equally applied to people who worked on other programmes at that time in that company."  

Mitchell:  " I think Mr Devereux has said that one of these companies could go bankrupt. That is about equivalent to the Governor of the Bank of England saying moral hazard could discipline the banks because they might go bankrupt, too. They are already too big to fail. It is so unlikely. Here is a new category of capitalism that was set up to milk the state. It is not facing the competition of the market; it’s got a safe contract, which just goes on, so the threat of bankruptcy is really hypothetical."

Argument about what "systemic" means.  Then Hodge: " Finally, a public sector contract to build houses, hospitals or schools is pretty straightforward. I am thinking of payment by results-the school is there-and you can keep a little bit of money back to make sure that if anything has gone wrong, you can get it back. Would you accept that a contract that provides human services is qualitatively different? It will work only if you build trust. I think that that is the key thing-there has to be trust in the system. It is partly about the outcome but also about-this is the Fiona point, really-how well the customers are treated. That has to be part of the mix in these sorts of contracts. So it is about the how as well as the how much-I hope that you accept that. If I put it to you that I think that trust has broken down here, in particular in relation to A4e, how can you rebuild it?" Just stonewalling from RD, helped by Hancock.

 

Several points stand out for me.  There is Devereux's determination that anything before the Work Programme doesn't really matter; and the WP is fraud-proof.  Hodge and Mctaggart in particular want to focus on the service customers get, but Devereux thinks that's irrelevant because the companies only get paid if they deliver a service which gets results.  

It's frustrating to read, but not as frustrating as it must have been for the committee members.

 

Meanwhile, Chris Grayling is assuring us that the Work Programme is doing splendidly.  In the Express he says that 100,000 people have found work through it.    

The secret evidence disclosed

Thanks to the Telegraph, we now know some of what Matthew Hancock MP and his Tory colleagues wanted to keep private at the Public Accounts Committee meeting yesterday.  The whistle blower is Eddie Hutchinson, an accountant who was appointed head of internal audit at A4e in 2010.  The paper has put the whole of his evidence online here.
Hutchinson had previously worked for Working Links, where he uncovered a level of fraud which he described as "farcical" and which was ignored by management.  As later with A4e, he said that the bonus system was to blame.  Hutchinson was made redundant by Working Links and then went to work for A4e.  He found a similar situation there.  By February 2011 he was dealing with the Slough case, which, he said, should have been referred to the police earlier.  "He claimed he also became aware of a fraud on the New Deal for Disabled People contract from A4e’s Glasgow office. In this case, he said, an employee resigned, saying she had falsified evidence and misappropriated cash. At the time, he made a note it was a 'regular occurrence' that no action was taken against people admitting to fraud."  There were numerous other cases in different contracts.  He was supposed to be helping A4e to develop watertight risk controls, but noticed no "significant enhancements".  His advice was not heeded.  "After seven months at A4e, Mr Hutchinson said in evidence that he was convinced he had seen 'unethical behaviour, mismanagement, inadequate corporate governance, and risk management, and excessive payments in the form of salaries and bonuses'. He has told MPs: 'In my professional view, it was systemic.'"  A4e denies this, of course.  It's all in the past.
Surely this sort of evidence can't be brushed under the carpet.


The Exaro website has published the 2009 internal A4e report.  It can be downloaded from the site here (you will have to register with the site).   We'll be examining that soon.

Gagged

This is Matthew Hancock, the Conservative MP and member of the Public Accounts Committee, who insisted that the whistle-blowers' evidence on fraud in A4e and Working Links was not made public.  (On the same day Hancock appeared on BBC's The Daily Politics.  He was not asked about this, but did manage to quote the party line on how wonderful the Work Programme is.)  The whistle-blowers worked with or for the two private companies.  According to the Guardian, "One of the whistleblowers said: 'It has taken a lot for us to come and speak in public about what we see as fraud. We have been silenced.'"  Two of the witnesses' evidence was previewed in the Guardian on Monday.  One of them was "a senior figure in A4e's risk and audit department in 2011" and "claims there was evidence of fraudulent activity in many of the firm's offices."  The paper reports, "During the public session held later, Labour MP Austin Mitchell called for an investigation into the claims made in private. He said: 'We have just sat through a long closed session which produced some fairly damning indictments of the structures and the practices in A4e and in Working Links and gave several indications of possible fraud.'"
The Independent also reports the story:  "Another [whistle-blower] said they believed that pressure had been applied to the Tory MPs by the Government to ensure that more damaging evidence about the fraud on the programmes was not placed in the public domain."
So is this evidence going to be made public?  Or do Hancock and his mates have a vested interest in making sure that it's kept secret?