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.  

"Contractorisation"

"Contractorisation" - a hideous word coined by David Cameron when he was questioned recently by a parliamentary committee.  He was asked about Chris Grayling's statement that companies which are guilty of malpractice or gross failure could be ruled out of future contracts.  (Think Serco and G4S.)  Would this happen?  Cameron was vague, but said he was in favour of more "contractorisation".  Of course he was vague.  Because it won't happen.  For one thing it would be a legal minefield, and for another, who else is there?  He was also asked about the timetable for bringing in Universal Credit, and was equally vague, leading people to conclude that he and the government know it's not remotely on schedule, and only Iain Duncan Smith thinks it is.
With the start of the party conference season, we can see very clearly that there is consensus among the main parties about welfare and outsourcing.  Clegg waffled this morning about "making work pay" and dodged a question about the deepening poverty of those on benefits.  This is the Tory attitude as well; they believe that they have won the argument.  Tales of hardship can be brushed aside, because a majority of the electorate have accepted the propaganda.  Michael Gove caused a bit of a fuss by saying that he thought people who used food banks were just bad at managing their money.  Various Labour MPs are willing to put a different point of view, but their party would not alter anything the Tories have done.  Nor would they call a halt to the outsourcing.
Cameron, Gove, Clegg et al are not necessarily bad people.  They have good intentions towards people whose lives they cannot begin to understand.  When they are confronted with the truth they can't accept it.  And now that the economic figures aren't quite as bad as they were, they can proclaim that they were right.  It's grim.

PMQs again

Fiona Mactaggart MP had another go at A4e today, raising at Prime Minister's Questions the subject of A4e's two new contracts.  She said that she has received "40 or 50" emails from members of the public alleging fraud by the company, so why had they been given these contracts.  Nick Clegg (it was the deputies doing PMQs today) said the only thing he could say, that an audit has been launched and any evidence of systematic fraud would put an end to all the contracts.
I wonder what Ms Mactaggart has done with all those emails.  Have they been passed to the DWP?

The bad publicity rolls on

The Guardian started it with their report of the Public Accounts Committee grilling of A4e's Andrew Dutton about the company's record and the money paid to its chairman Emma Harrison.  When the Daily Mail took up the story the next day there was a huge wave of interest (four times the average number of hits on this blog testify to that).  Other papers chipped in.  The Express had "Fury over familes tsar's £8m payout".  Unfortunately they chose to quote the Taxpayers' Alliance, not a good way of boosting your case.  But they also summarised A4e's reaction: "“Some members of the Public accounts Committee unhelpfully referred to early performance figures in the previous Pathways to Work contract without looking at performance during the life of that contract.  They also confused A4e performance with another contractor, whose performance level was significantly lower than that of A4e.”  Well, they didn't protest when the 9% figure was given at that first PAC meeting.  And they didn't protest when it was repeated on Wednesday.  I think they mean that Reed did even worse.

The Yorkshire Post  went with a simple summary, but also had a reaction from A4e: "For the past 21 years, Ms Harrison has taken substantial and significant risks in growing the company.  Like all entrepreneurs, she has provided personal guarantees and invested a significant amount of her personal capital into the company during its lifetime.  Having built a private company with her own resources, and continued to invest and take risks, her remuneration is in line with that of a successful entrepreneur.”  But that simply won't do.  There has been no risk whatever in these contracts.  In the 2006 and 2009 contracts providers made substantial profits despite achieving roughly half of the outcomes promised.  In the numerous other contracts A4e has secured, the money comes in however good or bad the performance turns out to be.  This is not entrepreneurship.  The Telegraph headlines "David Cameron's families adviser 'shares £11m dividends pot'"  Their take on it is that "The disclosure is likely to prove embarrassing for the Prime Minister, who has urged restraint on pay among companies which rely on state contracts.  Mr Cameron has previously heaped praise on Mrs Harrison, claiming he had confidence in her to deliver on its targets to get people into work."

 

The Star, Sheffield's local paper,has a short summary, but also quotes Nick Clegg, a Sheffield MP.   “I know the work of A4e very well. The payments a private company makes are something the Government cannot stop. I will be asking through the Treasury that every department in Whitehall has a very close look at whether they are getting the best value for money with companies paid through the public purse.”  

Clegg is right, and the "outrage" of some politicians is a little forced.  It was Labour's David Blunkett who decided that private profit was going to be the best incentive for New Deal.  It was a Labour government which designed the contracts, unworried by how much money the companies were making.  No doubt all the fuss seems terribly unfair to A4e.  Why aren't they getting at Serco, G4S or any of the others?  They have made the same sort of profits.  Well, if you seek publicity as avidly as Emma Harrison has always done it can come back to bite you.  If you own 85% (or is it 87%) of the company your personal income comes under scrutiny.  If you bandy about phrases like "social purpose company" and "doing well by doing good", while the other companies just get on with business, you invite the sort of publicity you're now enjoying.

 

The Independent on Sunday has a leading article which uses the affair to illustrate why the government's welfare reforms are going wrong.  After expressing doubts about the benefits cap they say: " while we support many of the fine principles set out by Mr Duncan Smith, we fear that the design of his reforms will cause needless hardship, while the spending cuts of which they are part will hurt the economy and mean that there will be fewer jobs into which people can be helped."  They then say that while Labour's privatisation of New Deal was "a plausible idea" but, "Unfortunately, the contracts seem to have allowed some private providers to cream off large profits. The Public Accounts Committee last week criticised the £8.6m dividend paid to Emma Harrison by her "social purpose" company A4e, which used to be called Action for Employment. Her company's record on getting people into work seems unimpressive, yet Ms Harrison was appointed the Prime Minister's adviser on "problem families", and her generous pay derives entirely from public contracts.  She stands as a symbol of how hard it is for governments to get people off welfare and into work, and how hard it is for this government in particular to do it in such a way as to convince us that we are 'all in it together.' "

 

The Guardian has moved on to a related issue, unpaid work schemes. Sainsbury's have followed Waterstones in deciding to have nothing to do with any of these compulsory free labour schemes, and the unions are calling on the other high street chains to do the same.  "John Hannett, Usdaw general secretary, said: 'Usdaw is not opposed to schemes that genuinely aim to give young people  appropriate work experience or help long-term unemployed people get back into work, but schemes should be voluntary, participants should receive the rate for the job, and there needs to be transparent checks and balances in place.'"  The TUC says that it could simply encourage employers to use free labour rather than recruit young people into jobs.  Tesco comes up with some figures.  In the last 4 months they have had 1,400 people working free for a month, and have taken on 300 "jobseekers".  Even assuming the figures are correct, that means that 4 out of 5 don't get a job.  We are going to need really detailed figures on this, from individual stores.  And there's a very important news item by the BBC's Paul Mason showing that even those who do get jobs in supermarkets will still have to be subsidised by the state because the wages are so low.  It puts Emma Harrison's pay into perspective, doesn't it?

Competing on compulsion

The leaders' debate tonight saw Cameron and Brown competing on how tough they are going to be on the unemployed. Brown said people will be forced to work. Cameron repeated what he has said many times about cutting off benefits for people who refuse a job. He also said that 3 years without benefit would be the penalty. Neither said where these compulsory jobs would come from. Clegg didn't compete with them. He said that people should have the incentive to work, and that raising the tax threshold would provide that incentive. Take your pick.