Pathways results

Pathways to Work is the programme aimed at getting people on incapacity benefits back to work. The results, published today, are well below target. The average of all the providers is 12% job outcomes. A4e actually did better than its main rivals (Ingeus and Shaw Trust, which had similar numbers of clients) with 14% outcomes. The totals include both those who volunteered for the programme, and those who were "mandated" onto it; and, not surprisingly, the volunteers did much better then the coerced. But the overall results show once again that these contracts are not value for money.

Pathways doesn't pay

You'll remember that the third episode of Benefit Busters focussed on the Pathways programme, getting people off incapacity and disability benefits and, hopefully, into work. The prime contractor shown was the Shaw Trust, but other providers like A4e also have the Pathways to Work and New Deal for Disabled People contracts, and they subcontract them to some specialist organisations. Now we learn that several of these specialists, including the RNIB, the RNID and Action for Blind People, have withdrawn from these contracts because they say they are not financially viable. They blame the recession and the complex needs of their clients for their inability to make them pay. So presumably A4e isn't making them pay either. Jim Knight MP, who always has to answer in these circumstances (where is Yvette?), said it was up to the prime contractors to manage things. "Providers may have underestimated challenges and set high targets but we are working to improve performance," he said. "Many of the contracts run for three years and, due to start-up costs, providers would not be expected to make a profit immediately." That's all right then.

Payment by results

Some people watching Benefit Busters episode 2 may have been surprised by the way in which some of A4e's employees are paid for achieving job outcomes. I was even more surprised that the Shaw Trust do the same thing. The justification rests on the idea that a job - any job - is what it's all about, so put the pressure on staff to get them with financial incentives. But there are providers which don't have that system; and while I can't quote figures, I'm sure that their results are no worse than A4e's, and may well be better. The danger with payment by results, of course, were clearly seen in what happened in Hull, when casual agency jobs were claimed as permanent. Not only was the pressure there on the company to get the percentages up; it was on the individual to earn his bonus. And in all that, it's the client who gets forgotten.

Which political party is going to have the gumption to say that this whole business is a colossal waste of money? That all the cash which is going in private profit should be put into real skills training via colleges and specialist training companies? Perhaps when young people who think they have been guaranteed a job or training discover that it's not quite what they had in mind.

Work Choice

Work Choice is the new name for contracts to provide support into work to disabled people. It's a specialist area that some people will remember as Workstep. For the purposes of these contracts the country (including Scotland and Wales) is divided into 28 regions, and the shortlists have now been published of providers. A4e is shortlisted in 9 regions, including what might be considered their heartlands. The BASE website (a voice for supported employment) points out that "the majority of bidders have little or no experience of meeting the needs of these customer groups". A few specialist providers are shortlisted; The Pluss Organisation gets 9 mentions, Advance Housing gets 11. But it's the big-name generalists that loom largest. The Shaw Trust is shortlisted in 17 areas; Working Links in 16; Pinnacle People, a newcomer, gets 14; Work Directions gets 10; and Seetec gets 9. (Seetec's website proclaims, with no doubt conscious echoes of A4e, that it is "one of the UK’s leading providers of Employment, Training and IT services. Working in partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions, Jobcentre Plus, the Learning and Skills Council. employers and partners we are passionate about moving people into sustainable employment, increasing skills and changing lives for the better." )