A4e Community Managers

A fascinating job advert has appeared on the Third Sector website for A4e Community Managers. The job spec is very detailed and gives a clear picture of how A4e intends to get people onto their Work Programme. They are looking for voluntary referrals "by implementing a strategic community engagement strategy". The emphasis is on marketing the programme directly to residents of an area and through local voluntary and other organisations, and the Jobcentres. This is in reaction to the fact that A4e is in competition with other providers in their five areas and so has to go out and persuade all those concerned that A4e is the best. "To be considered for this role you must be able to demonstrate A4e’s ‘DNA’ – Trusted, Passionate, Driven, Brave, Friendly and Caring."

The unemployed can look forward to vigorous competition to sign them up. As with FND, it will be some time before there are any results on which to judge the providers.

Conscious Capitalism

The voracious appetite for publicity that is characteristic of A4e and Emma Harrison sometimes appears ridiculous. But it does have an effect. They convince not only themselves but others who accept it all without question. Take, for instance, an article on the Huffington Post. The author, American Margaret Heffernan, came to the UK. "Our trip focused on companies that are good for people, the planet and profits. This is also variously called Conscious Capitalism or social entrepreneurship". And guess what she found? Her nine examples include Jamie Oliver's 15, Divine chocolate and, yes, A4e, which is, she says, "working with insane dedication to prove that everyone is employable if you take enough time and give enough attention. The unbelievable energy of A4E employees also testifies to how much difference a sense of purpose can make. You don't have to pay a fortune to get great performance from your people." Heffernan cites these companies as examples of greed being "supplanted by purpose". Which proves that the propaganda works.

But it's lost on the people in Edinburgh who are having a struggle with A4e. A group called Edinburgh Claimants supports people who have serious problems with officialdom. They have won the right to provide a representative to accompany claimants in interviews at the Jobcentre, with Atos, the local council, and even at two of the welfare-to-work providers in the area, Ingeus and JHP. But A4e won't co-operate. They refuse to have representatives there and sanction people if they try to insist. You can read the full story on http://www.edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/. Why? What do they want to hide? The Edinburgh group think that it's a matter of human rights, and I'm inclined to agree. I'm following this story with interest. Perhaps A4e are only practising "conscious capitalism".

Round-up, 22 April 2011

There is a group in Edinburgh called the Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty which reports victories in what it calls its war against A4e. This is obviously not an impartial account, and I haven't seen any other reporting of it, so I can't vouch for its accuracy. How many people does the group represent, for example? But it's an interesting development.

I was amused by the title of an article in an Australian journal - "Therese Rein the $1.4bn queen of British welfare". Sounds like there's been a coup! Rein is the wife of a former Australian Prime Minister. The article reports that, as owner of Ingeus, she stands to make a great deal of money. The firm won all seven contracts that it bid for, giving it 23% of the market, while A4e only has 13%. Concerns are reported: "Two failed bidders shown details of the winning bids said they believed Ingeus had discounted its prices by up to 50 per cent in some areas. Perhaps the company was banking on the economies of scale that would come from being the largest provider, or maybe even hoping that the government would later be forced to raise the promised payments."

The big story of the last few days has been the announcement, as part of the election campaign, of figures purporting to show that more than 80,000 people are claiming incapacity benefits for being addicts, alcoholics or obese. No mention was made of addicts who are not on IB but on the smaller JSA. And, of course, the reporting played into the hands of the Tories who want to appeal to the Mail and Express readership. Instead of sensible discussion we had the usual chat from experts.

Meanwhile, Emma Harrison has been in discussions at the Swedish Embassy and Mark Lovell has been to a meeting with the Local Government Association about crisis loans, debt and public service reform.

More family champions

Emma Harrison has announced that two other councils have joined Blackpool in piloting her Working Families Everywhere scheme. They are Hull and Westminster. Neither council seems to have told their electorates, since there's nothing on their websites. Perhaps they are reluctant to announce, at the same time as making hundreds of council workers redundant, that they are employing "family champions".

Mandatory Work Activity

I don't know whether A4e bid for any of the Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) contracts, but they're not among the preferred bidders. Of the eleven areas, JHP has 3, Rehab, Seetec and Ingeus 2 each, and BEST and ESG one each.

It's going to be a controversial contract. It's meant to "encourage participants to gain a better understanding of the discipline and focus that is required for work and allow them to make a contribution to their community at the same time" (Indus Delta) and it's for those who haven't been co-operative with the system up to now.

Nice Work for Some

Private Eye has been scrutinising some of the outsourcing companies again. It notes that Working Links, which got three Work Programme contracts, has been caught over-claiming job outcomes in Merseyside. The company claimed for 85 recent job starts which people had secured before any intervention by Working Links.

But the Eye is even more interested in the finances of A4e. Three of its directors are paid through schemes which are common enough for the highly paid but not available to the rest of us. "In the last two years international director Roy Newey has been paid £662,000 through a company called Roy Newey Ltd," says the article, and two non-executive directors had similar arrangements. It goes on: "Newey paid himself NIC-free dividends totalling £326,000".

A4e paid Emma Harrison and her husband's conference management company Andromeda Park Ltd £462,000 last year, another of the couple's companies, Thornbridge Ltd, £627,000 for the lease of a building, and £81,000 rent on a property owned by the couple's pension scheme. And that was before profits after tax for A4e of £6.2m." A4e is definitely improving some people's lives!

SIBs and ABS

One of the problems which the Work Programme faced from the outset was that there was to be no, or very little, payment to the providers up front; they would have to stump up the money to finance it until the job outcomes started coming in - if they ever did. It's hugely risky, it excluded all but the biggest companies, and it drove even them into partnerships with other firms. But there's another model on the table, one which A4e's Mark Lovell is keen on. It's called Social Impact Bonds. There's an explanation and diagram here. Investors come in and put the money up to finance the providers' "interventions"; they work on the "target population", and the government repays the investors from the money saved by the success of the "interventions". Sounds reasonable. Certainly the private companies will get paid, and the risk is borne by people who can afford the gamble.

But the effect of this model is even worse than the current system. It further distances the state from those individuals who are seen as problems; they are not part of society, just nuisances who require intervention in their lives, and that intervention is a market in which financiers can invest.

Something else which interests Lovell is the Alternative Business Structure (ABS) for legal firms. It will come into operation this year, and allows any "fit and proper" person or company to own a legal services firm. It's been called "Tesco law" because supermarkets will be able provide legal services. There are lots of safeguards but it opens the sytem up to competition. And of course A4e is interested! They got into the Community Legal Advice business by partnering with an established legal firm, but if they can set up their own ABS a whole new market opens up. Lovell says that his focus is on what it could do for people on benefits and low incomes.