Blunkett's Johannesburg trip

If our favourite minister is Jim Knight, our favourite ex-minister must be David Blunkett MP, who was once Secretary for Work and Pensions then went on to work for A4e. The Times carries a piece today about a trip he took to Johannesburg in South Africa in 2008 on behalf of A4e. The story isn't about his job with A4e; it concerns the fact that he turned up at the airport with his son only to find that the travel agent had failed to book the tickets; so "an embarrassed Blunkett contacted Julia Simpson, director of corporate communications at British Airways, who was previously his head of press at the Home Office and an adviser to Tony Blair. She arranged for him and his son to board the plane without tickets. They were given upgrades from premium economy to club class for the trip to Johannesburg and from premium economy to first class on the return leg. Blunkett’s travel agent went on to pay £4,468 for tickets for him and his son that were worth £12,676." Well, why not use your contacts?

As the story continues: "Blunkett, who is leading Labour’s attempts to raise £10m for the general election campaign, made the trip on behalf of A4E, an employment and training firm. It pays him £30,000 a year to act as an adviser. It paid the £4,468." The trip was obviously successful. A4e's South Africa website describes how they are "Bridging the skills gap - City Of Johannesburg". "We are working with the municipality," they say, "as they prepare to issue a tender for the delivery of a Welfare to Work program for 10,000 unemployed people, through the Jobs Pathways programme following a pilot."

Spin

There's a fascinating example of spin this week in the tale of our favourite minister, Jim Knight MP, and his visit to Plymouth. The local paper, the Plymouth Herald, reports it in a straightforward way, no doubt aided by a hand-out from the minister's press secretary. There is something called a "Backing Young Britain roadshow" which is "touring Britain's cities, encouraging employers to give jobs to people aged 18 to 24." There is no mention of Flexible New Deal or A4e.

The local MP, Linda Gilroy, has her own spin on this event on her website. Here we learn that "the Minister also called in to A4E Plymouth." To prove her interest in the topic of young people and unemployment she cites a speech she made last year and provides a link to it. The only mention of A4e in that speech is: "I want to mention the work that the local strategic partnership has developed, bringing together the public, private and voluntary sectors to identify our strengths and to develop action plans that play to them. The DWP values its work. Partnership working between the DWP and organisations such as Working Links and A4e in my constituency is important, and making common cause with the Learning and Skills Council is also part of the recipe."

So far A4e is hardly central to the story. But the company's own website sees it differently. Mr Knight, we're told, had a brief meeting with Paul Dingle, A4e Pathways operations Manager, who said that, "The Minister told local A4e bosses he was very positive at the work being done across the region & especially Pathways to Work." Then Linda Gilroy is quoted: “A4e are delivering some fantastic programmes in the city and I wanted the Minister to hear directly how unemployed people are being helped to find sustainable job opportunities through training, educational and work placement schemes being organised by A4e.”

Same story, slightly different interpretations.

Report on the Jobseekers' Regime

Anyone concerned with Flexible New Deal will be interested in a report by the DWP on "early findings from the evaluation of the revised Jobseekers Regime and Flexible New Deal (JRFND), the Six Month Offer (6MO) and Support for the Newly Unemployed (SNU), all of which went live in April 2009. The JRFND is being rolled out in two phases; the first from April 2009; the second from April 2010." The report can be downloaded from this site; but beware, it's 196 pages long. There are detailed analyses of the early stages, but not, of course, of the stage at which "customers" are referred to private contractors. One conclusion it reaches (and I confess I haven't read the whole lot) is that the longer someone is unemployed the less likely they are to get a job.

The Waiting Time

This is a waiting time for private contractors. We're eight weeks from a general election, the outcome of which is still anyone's guess; and local councils are finalising budgets and working out how to save money. We can be certain that a great deal of lobbying is going on behind the scenes, with companies like A4e seeking to influence decision-makers both locally and nationally. But nothing much is happening at the moment.

I suspect that, whoever is in power after 6 May, New Deal (Flexible or otherwise) is dead. If Labour is returned they must surely try to bring some coherence to the various programmes aimed at getting the unemployed into work. Contracts will either be renegotiated or allowed to run down. We have no figures as yet for FND but we know that, ironically, it has cost jobs. The providers need fewer staff because clients only have to put in the occasional appearance; and sub-contractors are largely redundant, except where the specialist skills of sub-contractors like FE colleges have been picked up by those running local schemes. The Conservatives are determined on their "Work Programme" but this will not be viable (and will attract no bidders) unless it embraces all the unemployed, not only the long-term, and that would drive out local initiatives. If there is a hung parliament, it's all up for grabs.

Local councils will be more promising ground. We've already seen Tory councils contracting out all their services to the likes of IBM, and more are promising to do so. This may well be where the action is for A4e and others.

Jim Knight answers a question

Jim Knight couldn't tell Mark Lancaster MP the figures for A4e programmes in his own constituency of Milton Keynes or for England as a whole. But he could tell Hazel Blears MP (coincidentally, no doubt, a member of his own party) "how many young people in the City of Salford have participated in the New Deal for Young People in each year since its introduction." (See TheyWorkForYou.com) Not that the table of figures he provided enlighten us about its success or otherwise. But perhaps that was the point. The DWP certainly keeps stats on outcomes, and it analyses them by provider. The information is published, but not in a constituency by constituency form. It appears that the Department is happy to provide information to MPs on participation in New Deal in their constituencies, but not on outcomes.

No answers

The Conservative MP for North East Milton Keynes has been quite persistent lately in asking written questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about unemployment issues, with a particular focus on A4e. On 25 January he asked "how many hours of training A4e staff working on contracts let by her Department undertake annually" and was told by Jim Knight that "Staff training is an internal matter for A4E and therefore not one that the Secretary of State can offer information about, or comment on." Yesterday Mr Lancaster homed in on results, asking more or less the same question in two ways: "what percentage of people who have attended A4e meetings as part of programmes delivered under contract to her Department have found work within six months since the inception of those contracts in (a) England and (b) Milton Keynes?" and "how many people who have attended A4e meetings in Milton Keynes as part of programmes delivered under contract to her Department have found work within six months since the inception of those contracts?" Reasonable questions, one might think. But he got the same answer from Jim Knight to both: "This information is not available in the format requested." One hopes that Mr Lancaster is not satisfied with this non-answer.

Petition

My attention has been drawn to a petition which has been accepted by the 10 Downing Street website, submitted by R Ravji. It can be found here and reads: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to call a Public Inquiry to establish whether paying private companies to reduce UK unemployment represents good value for the taxpayer?" Under "more details" he says, "Private companies like A4e have been paid millions of pounds of taxpayers money to run programs like New Deal (now replaced by Flexible New Deal) to help the unemployed find work. But these private companies only found employment for about 20% of particpants. And much of that employment was part-time and short term (less than 6 months) whch resulted in many of them claiming benefits again!"

There's little doubt what the response will be, but anything which encourages scrutiny is welcome.