Minimum service, minimum wage and a Labour proposal

Some of you will be familiar with this, but the minimum service delivery promises by the various Work Programme providers have been published on the government's whizzy new website.  I'm particularly interested in A4e's promises, of course.  I'm intrigued to see that they include "A fully personalised service: including (minimum) monthly 1:1 contact with a named advisor and a tailored journey that address their broader needs."  Maximus, Working Links, Prospects, NCG, Serco, Best and G4S say they will see people fortnightly, CDG  monthly.  The others don't specify.  It's amazing that the DWP thought a brief interview once a month was enough, and how that squares with the idea of "a tailored journey".

Labour, as we know, has been struggling to come up with coherent alternatives to the Tory measures, but there is a plan published in the Observer.  It would restore the link between contributions and benefits by paying newly out of work people up to 70% of their previous salaries for up to 6 months (with a cap of £200 a week).  The downside is that the extra would be repayable when the person returned to work.  I'm not sure how that would work if you got a minimum wage job and needed tax credits.  What do you think?

And talking of the minimum wage, there are estimates that anything between 100,000 and half a million workers are receiving less than minimum wage, according to the Independent.  They list a whole raft of scams by which this is done, including deducting money for clothing or benefits in kind; not paying for travel time between sites (something which is common for care workers); and paying piece rates rather than an hourly rate.  The article asks why so few prosecutions have occurred for this - just 8 in the 13 years of the MW's existence - and says that Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, is now taking the issue seriously.  Let's hope so.  But what happens when someone who is unemployed takes one of these jobs before discovering the truth, that it doesn't meet MW?  Can they leave it without being punished?

Turning the tide?

Thanks to a correspondent for drawing my attention to this item on Channel 4 News tonight; I missed it.  It vindicates what many people have been saying, on this blog and elsewhere.  The Universal Jobmatch website is vulnerable to hackers stealing your personal data, simply because no one is checking whether the vacancies advertised are genuine.  And people are being told, by Jobcentre and Work Programme staff, that they were obliged to sign up when they're not.  A good bit of work by a group of "hackers" - though they didn't have to actually hack the site to expose its failures, just register as employers using clearly false details.

You will not have noticed any references to the Work Programme in all the discussion of the Chancellor's financial plans this week.  I wonder why that is.  But when you got over the blow about benefits effectively being cut, you may have noticed something of a backlash in the media.  Osborne began his attack with the usual reference to hard-working people going off to work in the morning while their neighbours, "living a life on benefits", slept in.  But the opposition and commentators were quick to point out that 60% of working age benefits go to people who are in work.  Not that that bothered Osborne, who talked about "fairness".  And it didn't bother the Express, which talked about "Britain's benefits free-for-all" and "state handouts", deliberately ignoring the truth (so what else is new?).  Now the Guardian has reported that Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary, didn't like Osborne's rhetoric much.  "Cable ....  distanced himself from the way in which the chancellor had sold his squeeze on welfare benefits in his autumn statement, saying he identified with those claimants who resented being regarded as a scrounger. 'I think that kind of approach and language is completely wrong.  I made it fairly clear that that stuff about people being unemployed at home with the curtains drawn is not the way, certainly, I would have addressed it. I think most people out there are looking for work, most people in this country are very conscientious, and we should do what we can to support them.'"  Good.  It needs more people to say that.  The government is playing a game with the Labour party by introducing legislation on this below-inflation rise in benefits, daring them to oppose it.  Maybe they'll have the courage to do so.

The Huffington Post has published an interesting article headed "Work Programme increases hardship and makes little difference to compliance".  At last, some common sense.

So are we beginning to see just a glimmer of the turning of the tide?  Maybe not.  But we live in hope.

A stellar line-up for the IoD

Should you be in London on 28 April and eligible to attend the Institute of Directors Annual Conference at the Royal Albert Hall you may be interested in the star-studded line-up of speakers. They include Vince Cable MP, Dame Kelly Holmes and Archbishop Desmond Tutu - and A4e's Emma Harrison. If you're not a member the cheapest ticket for the event will cost you £360. But no doubt it will be well worth it.