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.

A quiet time

It's a quiet time on the government contracts front, and there's little news from A4e. But their business continues. Earlier this month, for instance, Middlesborough put more work their way with the Middlesbrough Enterprise Gateway (MEG), which "is encouraging self-employment and small business start ups with one-to-one coaching." See the nebusiness website.

Meanwhile, various accounts are appearing on the internet of people's experience of Flexible New Deal. As with New Deal, such accounts are not necessarily representative of the whole; they are by people who feel strongly enough to vent their frustration. And clients are, by definition, people who have been unemployed for a long time. But some common themes are emerging. Clients feel patronised, and say that the promised respect is not forthcoming. They complain of inconsistent information and pointless occupation. This was, perhaps, inevitable. There is little hope that these huge, money-wasting contracts will end with a new government. The small contracts will probably proliferate. It's a depressing prospect.

Today Programme discussion

I've just listened to a short discussion on the BBC Today programme focussing on welfare-to-work. It was mainly about those on IB, with the usual vagueness about the distinction between those being shunted off IB onto JSA, and those who are simply out of work. We didn't learn anything. Jim Knight gave figures for back-to-work success which nobody could or would challenge. Theresa May for the Tories pressed their line that claimants would start "individualised programmes" immediately with private providers, with the focus on "sustainable" jobs, i.e. lasting at least a year. Steve Webb for the Lib Dems was asked whether they would use private companies and, disappointingly, dodged the question, saying they wanted to harness bright ideas from everywhere; but he did say that they want to make the benefits system more flexible so that people can work less than full-time without losing their benefits, rather than the current, all-or-nothing approach. Jim Knight for Labour talked about a "better off in work guarantee", meaning people would be at least £40 per week better off when working. He also stressed the Future Jobs Fund and various other measures, which May scorned, re-stating her previous point about immediate help into sustainable work. Steve Webb made a good point about not blaming the victims.

From the point of view of the providers there's little to worry about, it seems, unless the Tories get in and stick with their determination to pay them only on sustainable outcomes.

More lazy journalism

A minor story from a London local paper, the Islington Tribune, illustrates the carelessness with which the press treats unemployment issues. "Finsbury Business Forum (FinFuture) are providing five new Community Marshals – part of a group of 20 – whose job will be to help travellers with their luggage and give directions and information about the locality." Fine so far; but then comes the confusion. "The marshals are all unemployed men and women whose wages will be paid jointly by the local Job Centre and employment agency A4e. The public will not be charged for the service." What does that mean? It seems likely that this is being classed as a work placement, so they're not receiving wages at all. They will be getting JSA, and that isn't paid by A4e.

The inaccuracy in the story probably isn't A4e's fault; but nobody will be rushing to put the paper right - and even if they did, there almost certainly wouldn't be a correction. It just adds to the general ignorance of how the system works.

FND Results

A4e have published figures for the first six months of FND on their news page.

• Nearly 30,000 starters in 6 months.
• Over 2,630 into work.

That's less than 9%, but that's irrelevant. Only jobs lasting 13 weeks or more are counted as outcomes, and so only those clients who started in the first 3 months can have possibly been in work for 13 weeks or more. We don't know how many did start in the first 3 months, but let's halve the total and call it 15,000. And A4e say that the figure for "sustained" jobs is nearly 200. That's 1.3%.

Okay, that's a bit unfair. Clients can be on FND for a year, and the figures are bound to rise. But they'll have to rise considerably to prove that the programme is worthwhile for providers and clients, as well as for the government. And it doesn't augur well for the Tories' plan to pay only on outcomes. It will be interesting to see what other providers have achieved.

Response to a complaint

There were some who felt that the "Famous, Rich and Jobless" programme gave some very helpful free publicity to Emma Harrison and A4e. At least one person made a formal complaint to the BBC about it, and has passed on the interesting response he got:

"I understand that you have concerns regarding what you believe was one particular company being promoted.
We've discussed your concerns with the production team who've confirmed that the programme didn't make reference to A4e in this series at all. We describe Emma as founder of UK's biggest independent employment provider. She is an expert in her field, with direct, first hand experience dealing unemployed people, understanding them and helping them along their way. Her contribution to the programme has nothing to do with A4e and we don't feel the company was promoted in any way. We did film a scene in an A4e office in Wolverhampton, though we did not tell the audience that is was A4e, or suggest it was Emma's company. I hope this addresses your concerns."

(I'm assured that the errors in this were in the original.)

It's true, of course, that the company wasn't mentioned in the programme itself, and they were careful that there was no identification of A4e in the Wolverhampton office shots. But this is disingenuous. All the previews in the press mentioned A4e; they could hardly avoid it. And was it pure coincidence that the day before the first programme went out, Mrs Harrison was a guest on the BBC's "Working Lunch"? Perhaps it was, since in the BBC the right hand often doesn't know what the left hand is doing. But there you have it.

Invest to Save

I really must monitor the DWP website more closely.

We mentioned the other day the report which advocated cutting out the private sector and funding local councils to do the welfare-to-work stuff. Just how far the government is from this approach is shown by a programme called Invest to Save. You can read the supplier information on the DWP site but a simpler explanation is: "ItS is in effect a new way of financing back to work support whereby Treasury will transfer funding for benefit payments to DWP for the 3 years of the contract (from March 2011). DWP will contract with providers to deliver back to work support. If a provider helps a customer to move into work the benefit savings will be used to pay the provider." It's due to start in 2011, in Glasgow, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Norfolk and London, and providers, including A4e, are gearing up to put in their bids. All the electioneering rhetoric, on all sides, about giving power back to communities is clearly empty. As the DWP says, "The programme would utilise the funding arrangements outlined in David Freud's report 'Reducing Dependency, Increasing Opportunity' which was published in March 2007." Freud is now advising the Conservatives, because Labour wouldn't go far enough for his liking.