"Living off the state - and how"

I brought the week to an end too soon.  The Daily Mail hasn't finished with Emma Harrison.  Its long article headlined, "Living off the state - and how: Inside the 16 bedroom, 42-loo mansion of Government's families tsar whose £8.5m payday provoked outrage" is a real demolition job.  They've homed in on the opulence of her home, Thornbridge Hall; her personal wealth, an estimated £70 million; and the history of A4e.  They've spoken to the neighbours, and to some clients.  It's painful.  And it's not all accurate.  They haven't grasped the history of New Deal, for instance.  But it really is so devastating that one could almost feel sorry for Harrison.  Is there a danger of overkill here?  It won't deprive A4e of any contracts.  All it will do is drive her off the TV for a while.

Emma gets the Daily Mail treatment

The unemployed are used to it.  Being demonised by the Daily Mail is something you have to put up with if you're out of work.  But today the paper turns its fire on Emma Harrison, following the Public Accounts Committee hearing.   "Fury as families tsar gets £8.6m in one year (and the bulk of it comes from taxpayers)" is the headline.  And the focus is on money.  She "pocketed £8.6m", which was up 300 per cent on the year before".  Margaret Hodge is quoted as saying it's an outrage.  There's an insert on Thornbridge Hall, her home, and we're told that, "She is now worth an estimated £70million, putting her at 968 on The Sunday Times rich list. A4e is worth £80million, with her stake put at £68million."  There is then a write-up of the committee's proceedings, and the response of Andrew Dutton.  The article has no less than 4 photos of Ms Harrison, a signal that they're targeting an individual.  Last night A4e put out a statement saying that their performance was better than the industry average.  


I doubt it will bother Harrison too much.  Two days ago she was at a charity reception at 10 Downing Street.  And don't they say, "all publicity is good publicity"?

Weird and Wonderful - and IDS

If you're curious about Thornbridge Hall, the Derbyshire mansion home of Emma Harrison, you can see it on the latest of Nigel Slater's "Simple Cooking" programmes. Slater went there to see a farmer, Tom Clarke, who farms wild boar there. We also met Jim Harrison, Emma's husband, who brews beer. The episode is called Weird and Wonderful.

Earlier today Iain Duncan Smith was on The World at One on Radio 4. It should be here. He was talking to people in Hackney about unemployment and what the government is doing about it. Naturally, everything is pinned on the Work Programme. The payment method will ensure its success. There was the usual casual statistic - there are half a million jobs in the Jobcentres each week. We need a dynamic workforce, he said. The representative of one organisation said they had not bid for the WP contracts because it was too risky, but would continue to help people. One man, with a criminal record, said it was hopeless and, when IDS disagreed, said he couldn't even get a work trial. Once again the solution was the WP, which would provide mentors to help him all the way. Another man, with a string of qualifications, said he couldn't find work either. IDS personally guaranteed that he could get him a job. (Of course he can; but that doesn't help all the others in the same position.) The interviewer asked him if it was fair that benefits are to go up in line with inflation (a line that other BBC people are also pushing). IDS said there were no plans to change that, but it was a long way short of a guarantee.

I wonder if he will come on next year to explain why the WP isn't delivering.

£1.4 million a year for Emma Harrison

This is a must-read article for anyone interested in A4e. In the Guardian, Toby Helm and Daniel Boffey have been going over A4e's accounts and report that Harrison and her husband have a joint income of £1.4m from government contracts.

The writers give the incomes of Serco bosses and point out that a recent report for the government called for a fair pay code for company executives. Then they turn to A4e. "A4e's latest accounts show that Harrison, who lives with her husband in Thornbridge Hall, a 12th-century stately home in the heart of the Peak District, has an 85.5% shareholding in the Sheffield-based company. She receives a salary of £365,000 a year. On top of this, last year she and her husband received an additional £462,000 from A4e for the company's use of her home for conferences and administrative work. .Her husband received an additional £626,856 for the lease of another property to A4e." The company's "turnover hit £190,990,000 and its profit increased 80% to £6.2m in the last financial year". The accounts take an upbeat view of the "opportunities" to be had from the "pressure on public spending".

Union leaders are quoted. Understandably, they're not happy. But, "A spokesman for A4e said the £462,000 paid to Harrison and her husband for the use of Thornbridge Hall last year was part of a leasing arrangement covering several years. The spokesman added: 'Over the past 20 years Emma Harrison has grown A4e from a small, Sheffield-based training business to one of the largest social purpose companies in the UK, helping unemployed people back into work. This has been a long journey, at times involving significant personal financial risk.'"

This is a timely article. It's just a pity that it won't change anything.

The house she grew up in

If you're interested in Emma Harrison's childhood, this BBC Radio 4 programme is for you. But you won't learn anything about A4e. The programme starts at Thornbridge Hall, with its 100 acres of land. Emma describes it as a "mini Versailles" and enthuses over how big everything is. They then move to her childhood home in Belgrave Road, Sheffield, where she talks about her father, her largely absent mother, and the influences on her. Next it's to her secondary school, where she turned into an entrepreneur. And they finish up back at Thornbridge Hall, which she describes as a community of friends. All quite interesting. She is "one of the UK's wealthiest self-made women". But the only mention of A4e is as having government contracts for welfare to work. No other contracts are listed. The scope of the company's interests is ignored.

Okay, this wasn't a programme about the business. But that's the problem. All this publicity for Emma Harrison takes the place of any scrutiny of her company.

"We've got the funk!"

That's the title of a story in the Star, Sheffield's local paper. I really can't think of anything sensible to say about it, so I'll leave you to read it here.

The Emma Harrison Story

The business world likes big, colourful personalities like Sir Richard Branson, Sir Alan Sugar and Sir James Dyson. Some entrepreneurs achieve huge status because of their ethical stance; Dame Anita Roddick comes to mind. It's harder to gain that kind of reputation if your business depends on government contracts and your income is mainly from the public purse. But A4e's Emma Harrison is trying.

Back in 2005 the Independent published an article "Lord and Lady of the Dance". "Putting on a 'Strictly Come Dancing' bash for 300-odd guests is par for the course for the party-mad Harrisons, says Simon Beckett". It was "in aid of the NSPCC Full Stop Campaign, of which Emma is chair of all the regions."

Thornbridge Hall, the Harrisons' Derbyshire mansion, is featured on another website where we can read not only about the house itself but about the Thornbridge Country House Brewing Company that's part of the Harrisons' business. Jim Harrison, Emma's husband, also has a small food company, Novantia.

Lately, the Emma Harrison story is appearing more often. A year ago the BBC Local website for Sheffield and South Yorkshire published a long piece about her by Stephanie Barnard which is unashamedly sycophantic (and not very literate): "I’m sat there without an agenda, no questions. I just want to know who Emma Harrison is…" she writes. This must be the definitive version of Emma's autobiography. In September this year another rehash of it appeared on a website called Sooperarticles. Curiously, the article is way out of date. Its last paragraph reads "In addition to Make Me A Millionaire, Harrison is also chair of the NSPCC's Full Stop campaign, for which she aims to raise £1,000,000 by 2006. She is also starting a project with Anita Roddick to enable women victims of abuse to create their own small businesses." Anita Roddick died in 2007.

I'm sure that Emma is aware that there are dangers in all this.