Cuts you might not know about

Perhaps I should have known, but I don't remember reading about them anywhere, until I read this piece in the Guardian by Polly Toynbee.  She writes:

"Yet to come will be abundant evidence of serial DWP policy errors. Just wait for the implications to sink in of absurdities such as this. Helping the long-term unemployed into work is every government's goal, with Iain Duncan Smith spending a fortune on his failing Work Programme. Three things help bridge the gap between dole and work: a £100 job grant tides people over until payday, paying for the bus to work, avoiding Wonga loans. A one-month run-on for housing benefit stops people falling into rent arrears when waiting for their first pay cheque. A £250 grant pays the upfront deposit for a childcare place, without which single parents can't take an offered job. The cost is negligible, yet these sensible bridges into work are being abolished. How wise will voters think that?"

This is shocking.  Previous governments recognised that when you signed off your benefits stopped immediately, but you might well not get paid for a month.  You were unlikely to have anything to tide you over, so the grants were sensible.  The only alternative was a loan, and these days that means Wonga or loan sharks.  But this government hasn't a clue, and would rather shovel the money at the WP companies.  Brilliant.

There's another "Comment is Free" article worth reading: Frank Field on "How Labour can reclaim welfare".  

What's in a name?

Last year A4e was told by the Advertising Standards Authority to stop describing itself as a "social purpose company" because it could mislead people into thinking it was a social enterprise rather than a profit-making business.  There has always been a bit of a problem for the media in describing the company.  "Recruitment agency" or "recruitment company" have been used frequently and, of course, inaccurately.  Now A4e has come up with a new phrase.  In a piece on its website about a job fair in Sheffield it calls itself "Sheffield public service provider".
Are they are providing a public service?  It's debatable.  But that's semantics.  I'm more interested in why the company feels the need to come up with these phrases, as if trying to distance itself from the fact that it is a business which, like all businesses, exists to make a profit.  "Public service provider" seems like a cloak of respectability designed to disguise that.  Why can't they just call themselves an outsourcing company?

Sinister pressure on the BBC

I don't read the Sun.  I'm proud to say that.  I regard the Sun as having done huge damage to our national culture.  However, yesterday a piece popped up in the news alerts which is worth careful reading.
We know that Iain Duncan Smith doesn't like criticism, and it's possible to read this as merely him jumping up and down in a temper.  But there's more behind it.  First, he "branded the BBC as ridiculous" for its coverage of welfare issues.  Then he "savaged" the Guardian for talking only about cuts, and called it a "campaign rag".  This is the quote:

'He also tore into Beeb coverage of welfare reform. He said: “It’s easier for  them to live with the Guardian than anybody else, that’s to say more money is good, less money is a cut.  The word ‘reform’ very rarely passes their lips but the word ‘cuts’ is always  in their broadcasts.  The phrase ‘bedroom tax’ is a misnomer, it’s a Labour Party name. They never talk about under-occupancy or a spare room subsidy. Evan Davis (presenter of Radio 4’s Today) keeps asking everybody all through the programme, ‘Should Iain Duncan Smith resign?’ What for? Because that’s what the Labour Party was asking for, so he had to  repeat it. It’s a joke.”'

Remember that this is a government minister commenting on the free, independent media they're supposedly keen on, and singling out a presenter who is doing his job.  But George Osborne also gets in on the act:

'Chancellor George Osborne joined in the assault on the BBC, claiming that ordinary working people’s opinions were being ignored because of “lazy journalism”. He accused the Beeb of relying on comments from pressure groups to fill news bulletins, and said: “I don’t think the voices of working people who pay their taxes for this system are heard often enough. They experience in their daily lives the abuse of that system and I don’t think that is often reported.”'

The Guardian is the only paper (with the occasional exception of the Independent) which prints the stuff which IDS and his bunch would like to hide.  And the BBC is vital as our only source of unbiassed reporting on TV and radio.  It may not seem unbiassed at times - that's inevitable - but as long as both right and left are complaining, they must be getting it broadly correct.  

Now read this from Tim Montgomerie on Conservative Home.  He's commenting on what IDS and Osborne have said, and it's really sinister.  

"The last week has shown what is possible when the Conservative Party gets its act together and acts in concert with the centre right press. The consistency of message may be a first sign that Lynton Crosby is delivering the kind of message discipline that he was recruited for."  

Even worse is the suggestion in some of the comments under the piece that the government could put pressure on the BBC by starting a review of the licence fee.

On a day when so many of us have had to switch off all radio and TV to escape wall-to-wall Thatcher (no comments about that, please), and in the wake of the trashing of the Leveson recommendations in the name of freedom of the press, we should remember that it's only a free press and a free BBC which give us the information with which to oppose government - any government.  Bloggers and campaign groups can't do it alone.  

Inadequate

Once again I'm indebted to an anonymous comment for pointing me to this story.
The Work Programme isn't inspected by Ofsted, or anyone else.  Its predecessors, New Deal and FND, were, but either the government had unlimited faith in the power of profit, or the providers made it a condition of taking part, and there is no inspection of the WP.  However, the Learning and Skills provision, dealing with apprenticeships and "employability", does fall under Ofsted's remit.  It's called Work-based Learning, and the funding comes from the Skills Funding Agency.  And the latest inspection of A4e pronounces the company "Inadequate".  You can download it here.
A couple of points about Ofsted first.  Teachers maintain that the new boss, Wilshaw, ordered that all grades should be lowered, so what had previously been "satisfactory" should now be "inadequate" - I don't know how true that is.  And the reports are couched in very careful language, so it's sometimes hard to see why an institution should be blasted.  But with all that in mind, there is no doubt that A4e has performed badly.
Three previous inspections said they were only "satisfactory".  This latest took place early in February, and noted that things had not improved.  The summary says: "This provider is inadequate because -

• Leaders and managers have failed to ensure that a systematic approach routinely improves outcomes and the quality of provision in A4e learning and skills programmes. Three previous inspections noted that arrangements to ensure or improve the quality of provision were in development; revised quality systems are not having a significant impact.  
• Outcomes on the apprenticeship programme that A4e has delivered for many years have had consistently inadequate outcomes. Since the previous inspection almost half of the nearly 2500 apprentices who left the scheme did so without their main qualification.  
• Too much teaching, learning and assessment is uninspiring or mechanistic. Performance in subject areas has rarely risen above satisfactory or requiring improvement in 10 years of inspection.
• A4e’s self-assessment and quality improvement processes are overly complex. Judgements, especially for learners’ outcomes, are too generous. The process for observing of teaching, learning and assessment is not effective enough to drive up standards."

It's necessary to read the whole report, but one or two things stand out.  Under Outcomes for Learners we're told that A4e had outcomes 25% below those of its subcontractors, who deliver 20% of the provision.  Later, the report says that "Apparently high-performing subcontractors, working with programmes for unemployed people, will not be working with A4e in the near future."  All the grades, for subject areas and for general quality and effectiveness are either 3 (requires improvement) or 4 (inadequate).  And note above that they say that "Performance in subject areas has rarely risen above satisfactory or requiring improvement in 10 years of inspection."  Overall, it's inadequate.
Suppose this was a school which Ofsted was inspecting.  Do you think it would be allowed to stay open?

Giving the game away

Work experience - a voluntary scheme since last year, when employers decided that it wasn't good for their image if people could be punished for refusing to do it.  It's not the same as the Work Programme or Mandatory Work Activity.  So that's all right.  But now Homebase has been embarrassed by the leak of an internal document which shows the scheme being promoted among Homebase's store managers.  A photo of a dozen or so jobseekers at the Haringey branch is captioned: "Would 750 hours with no payroll costs benefit YOUR store?"  This was passed to Tom Pride and has now been given wider coverage by the Guardian.  The subheading on the document is "How the work experience scheme can benefit your store".  Apparently the Haringey Homebase took 25 unpaid jobseekers in February, each working 30 hours a week for up to 8 weeks.  The Boycott Workfare group claims to have an anonymous source which says that those taking part were threatened with sanctions if they refused.  In one of those tweets which rapidly get deleted, the Finsbury Park jobcentre claimed, 2 days before the Easter holiday, that it had placed 21 people on the scheme in the Haringey store.  The union Unite is outraged.
Homebase has said all the right things.  People on the scheme are not replacing paid workers, they can leave whenever they want to, etc.  And the DWP says that there are safeguards to ensure that people are not being exploited.  But the person who drew up the Homebase document clearly saw the scheme as useful free labour.
If this is happening with the supposedly voluntary scheme, what is going on with those programmes which make no pretence to being voluntary?  Remember that the government adamantly refuses to disclose which organisations are involved, so we don't know how many other companies are benefitting from "no payroll costs".

What about A4e?

That was the question asked by a friend, who noticed that this blog has veered off into the territory of welfare changes rather than focussing on the company.  There's a good reason for that.  A4e is attracting very little publicity and isn't seeking it.  How different from when Emma Harrison was in charge!
But attention needs to turn to all the companies delivering the Work Programme.  You may have noticed that in all the recent coverage of the changes, no politician has mentioned the WP.  And no journalist has asked the obvious questions.  Since the Work Programme is a failure, why are you still pouring money into it?  And why are you painting the unemployed as idle, not "doing the right thing" (and much worse), when your scheme to help them into work has proved useless?
We don't know whether A4e's finances have improved in the last 12 months.  It seems unlikely.  They are still advertising for staff in the same language as in the past.  There's an advert for an Advisor (Skills) Work Programme on the jobandtalent site (I don't know whether it's also on UJM) which talks about "individual, tailored support for each customer" and also "sales leads" and "sales calls", which is an odd way of describing contacts with employers.  We also get "A4e's DNA: Trusted, Passionate, Driven, Brave, Friendly and Caring" and "A4e's core mission is to improve people's lives".  I'm not mocking this.  It ought to be the reality.  But it's more than ever hollow, when there's no profit to be made and the struggle is just to keep the losses down.  
A4e, and all the providers, are almost certainly dealing with people who are increasingly angry and / or demoralised.  The government is determined to paint every benefits claimant as a drain on the taxpayer.  And now they have used the Philpott case to advance that idea.  As the Independent reports, Osborne is "questioning why taxpayers were funding 'lifestyles like that'".  Others are using it to call for cuts to child benefit.  And all of it after the disgusting Daily Mail opened the subject.  For a magnificent rebuttal to that, I applaud Zoe Williams in the Guardian.  

Black Monday

There's been plenty of coverage today of the welfare "reforms" which have kicked in - together with big cuts in legal aid and huge changes in the NHS.  Get it all over with in one go, I suppose the government said.  I caught the interview with Iain Duncan Smith on the Today programme where he was trapped into saying that he could live on £53 a week if he had to, inspiring a petition on change.org for him to do just that for a year.  And there's just been a civilised discussion on the late news programme on Radio 4.  Labour has coined its sound-bite - "the brutal society".  And tomorrow Osborne intends to keep it going.  The Independent says he's making a speech in which he will claim that "vested interests", including churches and charities, which have condemned the cuts are reacting with "depressingly predictable outrage" to necessary reforms.  The government is confident that the public, or that section of it which has no personal experience of living on benefits, is on their side.
If anything good could possibly come out of this, it will be the beginning of a genuine debate about what we want the welfare state to be.