Work, of various kinds

The noises coming out of the Conservative party conference suggest strongly that something like "Work for your Benefit" is on the cards. While that might satisfy a lot of voters, the question remains, as always, of what work the unemployed are supposed to do. Perhaps they will be the "volunteers" creating the Big Society. And that's something that A4e's Mark Lovell is keen to get the company involved with, having been in talks with Paul Twivy, a PR man who runs something called the Big Society Network. There's no reason, of course, why private companies shouldn't get involved, and they won't make money out of it, but for most of them it will be part of their PR strategy.

A4e has been at fringe meetings at both the Labour and Conservative conferences, as usual. And they've also been in Spain, where, the Financial Times reports, the government has started taking an interest in the unemployed and is talking to A4e "about what a programme to help the unemployed might look like."

A4e has another website called Tomorrow seeking contacts with employers who are faced with making people redundant. The language is somewhat startling, and the music on the home page very irritating. And shouldn't this be the role of Jobcentre Plus?

Ministerial statement

Chris Grayling has issued a written statement giving a bit more detail about the transition to the Work Programme. There are details on the Indus Delta site and on the CarleyConsult site. It contains nothing really new, but we now know that FND1 providers (Flexible New Deal phase 1) are being given 12 months' notice of the termination of their contracts. The worry now for those providers is whether they will be the preferred bidders for the new Work Programme contracts. A4e's Emma Harrison certainly gave the impression on Sunday that she expected that to be the case; and Graham Hoyle, Chief Executive of the Association of Learning Providers, has said that Freud has suggested as much, and wouldn't it be odd if they weren't, "unless of course any had not been able to cope with the current opportunities". It will be interesting to see whether a provider's record will be taken into account.

No decision has apparently been made about the future of Work for your Benefit.

The new buzzword is "framework". This appears to mean that a number of selected providers will do not only the basic WP stuff but also any other work-focussed services required by other "public service commissioners". How this framework will help to include smaller organisations, except as sub-contractors, is not clear.

Limbo

First we note that Jim Knight, who had to defend the last government's actions on welfare-to-work, lost his seat at the general election. He is no longer an MP but it's fascinating that he is still a minister, because they all remain in office until a new government is in place.

The private companies which profit from government contracts are in limbo, like the rest of us. If, as seems likely, Conservative Theresa May becomes Work & Pensions secretary, contracts for phase 2 of FND will not be signed. Work for Your Benefit, Community Task Force Phase 2, Invest to Save, and the Personalised Employment Programme are also under threat if a Tory government carries out its promise / threat to implement the Work Programme. The problem with that is that it means asking bidders for FND phase 2 to revise their bids, and that could result in legal challenges. We can only wait and see.

Gordon Brown and the unemployed

"But they shouldn’t be doing that, there is no life on the dole anymore for people, if you’re unemployed you’ve got to go back to work. At six months…" That's a quote from Gordon Brown's run-in with an elderly lady today. And, of course, it's gone unremarked. He didn't finish the sentence, but clearly the intention, if a Labour government is returned, is to copy the Tories' idea of Workfare - compulsory "training" or work-for-your-benefits, or even a cut-off point for benefits. There's nothing to distinguish Labour and the Conservatives, then, and whoever gets in we're going to see an increase in the resentment that so many unemployed people feel at being stigmatised. I see a growing number of posts and blogs on the internet from JSA claimants venting their anger. That is going to get worse.

There's a relevant article on CFE News saying that "Charity claims NEETs view employability courses with contempt".

"Barnardo’s Scotland director Martin Crewe claimed that young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) view courses designed to improve their job prospects with contempt. Mr Crewe stated that that was not what they wanted, and said: "What they want are real jobs and programmes that will get them employed - not a short-term placement which will leave them more or less back where they started. Sitting around in classrooms for long periods working on their CVs is not going to provide a major boost to the employability prospects of the young people we work with. They know it from day one and regard such schemes with contempt." He went on to say that the Barnardo's Works programme had got 80% of its young participants into sustained employment.

New business and old

We learn (thanks, Roy) that A4e have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government. That makes, I think, 12 countries in which A4e does business. One country they haven't cracked is the US. Indeed, the traffic is the other way, with an American company getting contracts here. Perhaps it's because the system is different there, much like what the Conservatives want to bring in here. And that brings us to current contracts. Phase 2 of FND has been revised, as we reported, with the government cutting by half the number of expected clients. It had to give the bidding companies more time to work out their figures again, and now we hear that the deadline for revised bids has been extended to 23 April; and that the companies can bid for areas which they didn't previously bid for. Presumably that's because they expect some of the companies to pull out of the process. And the Jobseeker's Allowance (Work for your Benefit Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2010 went before the House of Lords for approval yesterday. It was an interesting debate which you can read here.

Work for your Benefit

"Work for your Benefit" is a pilot scheme cooked up by Yvette Cooper and the DWP aimed at people who have been out of work for two years. It's explained on the DWP website. It consists of "up to six months" of "intensive work experience which will help improve their employability." You may suspect that this is punitive, or pandering to the "make 'em work" brigade, but of course that's not how it's portrayed.

The two pilot areas are Greater Manchester and East Anglia, and the PQQ results have been published. Twelve providers have been successful at this stage in each area, and they include A4e as well as other companies like Serco and Seetec that we're becoming familiar with.

As the Indus Delta site says, "The future of WfYB is uncertain under a Conservative government, so shortlisted organisations will have to decide whether it's worthwhile bidding for the contracts." But even without a change of government, this scheme seems unlikely to survive. It's hard enough to find work placements for the recently unemployed, and any contract that depends on guaranteeing getting people into such placements is not very attractive.