A depressing prospect

If there was any doubt about the purpose of "The Fairy Jobmother" it has been dispelled by the Sun's headline, "Why work? Dole pays us £1,150 every month." It's a preview of tonight's programme designed to evoke all the standard prejudices against the unemployed; and the comments from readers (is that the right word when applied to the Sun?) bear that out. But of course, this series is not designed to bring light or thought to the problem of joblessness. Ms Taylor, we're told, lived with each family for three weeks. That ruled out all the single people living in tiny flats. There had to be the likelihood of success, so that ruled out all the chaps in their late 50s or early 60s who have to undergo these "courses" although everyone knows they will never work again. There had to be something which Ms Taylor could teach them; so that ruled out all the qualified, skilled and experienced people who've been made redundant and can't find work. All that were left were the stereotypical families, apparently coining it for being idle. How very depressing. And the thing hasn't even been screened yet.

Let's not make it personal

This blog is not going to join in the personal jibes at Hayley Taylor; there are quite enough of them out there, and I'm rejecting all the comments which are insulting. Some of the comments have been provoked by a Guardian article: "Hayley Taylor: I've felt what the unemployed feel: losing confidence, staring at four walls." All the pre-publicity for "The Fairy Jobmother reinforces the suspicion that this series is about Ms Taylor rather than about unemployment. But we'll see.

Unemployment as entertainment

I've decided that I'm not going to watch "The Fairy Jobmother". I am sick of televison companies treating the unemployed as entertainment.

"Benefit Busters" was a gallant attempt to raise some important issues. We saw lone parents being "persuaded" into what have become known as poundland jobs, a synonym for the worst kind of mimimum wage work. We saw disturbing scenes at an A4e office, and what happens to people on IB who are being "assessed". But there was no further interest from the media in any of these issues. The only outcome was that a controversial individual in the first programme got a contract, because her methods make good television, supposedly. BBC's "Famous, Rich and Jobless" was a disgraceful mix of celebs and distress which proposed no solutions. The Panorama programme gave Digby Jones a platform to spout ill-informed nonsense and obscure the real issues facing the young, unemployed men. Now we are to be treated to another series which seems set to paint unemployed people as lacking in motivation, confidence and "life skills".

I have nothing against Hayley Taylor personally. The interview with her on the Channel 4 website shows that she came into the work in the same way as did many other people working on New Deal. She got lucky. But I don't feel obliged to watch any more of this.

The Fairy Jobmother - previews

I saw a trailer for this programme tonight, and my heart sank.

The various TV listings magazines offer different opinions; the Radio Times says:

"Last year Benefit Busters offered an eye-opening look at Britain's unemployed and those who steer them back into work. The surprise star was formidable employment coach Hayley Taylor, who combined ruthless positivity with a whimsical line in neckerchiefs. Now she has her own show. Hayley descends from the TV heavens to sprinkle fairy dust on the little people. First in line is a jobless couple in Middlesborough with a debt problem. Hayley teaches them basic life skills, like how to shake hands, but what could feel condescending doesn't, thanks to the emotional warmth. She really cares."

If that isn't enough to put you off, the trailer is. The three episodes clearly deal with the sort of unemployed people who need those "basic life skills", thus insulting the hundreds of thousands who have skills, qualifications and experience which would leave Ms Taylor standing, and are desperate for work but who simply can't find it. I hope I'm wrong; but it seems set to reinforce the hugely dangerous stereotype of the dole scroungers and the dependency culture. And I have one question which I hope the programmes will answer: what are Ms Taylor's qualifications for this work, particularly for debt counselling? It may well be that she has the appropriate qualifications, but I'd like to be sure.

(It does seem that the programme Emma Harrison made for the channel has been shelved. What a shame!)

Corporate Watch

The Corporate Watch website is always worth a look; but there are a couple of articles from April this year which are particularly relevant. One is titled "Political deployments of the unemployment ‘crisis’" and deals with the whole history of welfare to work. It looks at "propaganda as news" with a close look at recent television programmes and local press stories concerning A4e. Another article asks "Who benefits from the benefits system?" and contains more history and a long list of figures for "New Deal private sector providers and the amounts received from the DWP in the financial year 2008-9". (A4e is a long way in the lead with £84,433,506 for its 11 contracts.)

From welfare-to-work to education: A4e has opened its eighth Vox Centre in Brixton. These are privatised school exclusion units which offer skills training. They claim that 2009/2010 figures show that 75% of their alumni move into jobs or further education. There are no comparative figures for local authority units.

Fairy Jobmother

I was speculating about the possible shelving of Emma Harrison's Channel 4 programme, "The Wager". Well blow me down, there's a programme on the channel on 13 July called "The Fairy Jobmother", starring Hayley Taylor. You remember Hayley. She was the A4e employee in the first episode of "Benefit Busters" whose techniques for motivating lone parents to get jobs caused some controversy. We then heard that she'd left A4e. In the new programme she takes on a young unemployed couple in Middlesborough. And then, apparently, she's off to the US to repeat the process, according to a reality show casting site. Does this mean that Hayley's programme has replaced Emma's?

Is the Work Programme doomed?

There's been a "Welfare to Work UK" convention going on this week, with the various providers taking part, along with Chris Grayling and other interested parties (although not, of course, the clients). A significant contribution came from a spokesman for Serco. The whole Work Programme is predicated on the idea that providers will only be paid for sustained outcomes, and that means, as the DWP has said, that the "framework" will have to consist of the bigger companies which can stand the up-front costs of providing the service long before they get any money back. A4e has not publicly criticised this model. But Serco, the biggest and richest provider of the lot, is now signalling that they will pull out of the bidding for the contracts if they consider them not financially viable. The government is apparently negotiating, and Chris Grayling has said that the WP has to be agreeable to both the DWP and the providers if it is to succeed. Does this mean that the government will have to back down? If they have to concede that their model won't work it would be a major blow. A poster on the Indus Delta site reports that a suggestion that the government would lend the money to the providers is definitely out, and that Grayling is going to try to persuade city bankers to "invest" instead.

There's still no sign of the Channel 4 programme, "The Wager", in which A4e's Emma Harrison was to have a starring role. It was supposedly scheduled for June. Has it been shelved?