If Wednesday night's interview on Channel 4 News was a disaster for A4e owner Emma Harrison, she hasn't given up. Yesterday she appeared in a filmed interview for the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire edition of the Sunday Politics on BBC TV. You can find it here, 36 mins and 30 secs in. The introduction managed to get the facts wrong. She was said to have resigned after criticism of her success rate. That was only part of it, of course. It was the publicity about fraud which exercises Harrison. "The newspaper headlines were so wrong and so inflammatory," she said. The accusations were "proved not to be true". Hang on. There were instances of fraud by A4e staff, just as there were by staff of other w2w companies. Their own 2009 internal report showed probable fraud. And the Slough case goes back to court this Wednesday. But if Harrison says something often enough it must be true. She says that it took a lot of nerve to stand up to the bullies. A brief clip of John Healey MP shows him referring to "huge personal payment" for Harrison, but that wasn't put to her. Apropos the leaked numbers, we did learn something interesting. She said they "aren't meaningful" because there's now 18 months worth of data. Does this mean, as we suspected, that the long delay in publishing the figures was so that the DWP could put out 18 months worth rather than 12, because it's got a bit better? The interview was heavily edited. Back in the studio, there was a brief discussion between two MPs. The Conservative, Craig Whittaker, stuck to the line that payment by results is the best model because if the companies don't succeed they don't get paid. He doesn't appear to have considered what happens to the clients. The Labour MP Fabian Hamilton said that he didn't like PBR when his own government introduced it, and thinks the fact that the owner of a company can take £8m out of it shows it isn't working. He would like to see civil servants trained to do the job.
Whether this last few days has been part of a determined effort at a come-back by Emma Harrison is hard to tell. I suspect the company would rather it wasn't.
Monday, 29 October 2012
Thursday, 25 October 2012
It "needs throwing out"
Channel 4 News tonight followed up it's piece on A4e and interview with Emma Harrison last night with an interview with Anna Burke, former head of Eco-Actif. This was a social enterprise which was a sub-contractor of A4e until it went out of business. Ms Burke was shown the figures which Harrison claimed were wrong, and she agreed that they looked accurate and were "highly typical". She said that clients were divided into red, green and amber; the red ones being those who were shelved as being too hard to help.
Krishnan Guru-Murty said that a number of A4e clients had contacted the programme, and they showed a few of the comments, which were very critical. They then replayed Harrison's "very improbable statement" description of a similar comment made on last night's programme. Ms Burke referred to the "bullying" contention of Harrison, and said that the reputation throughout the Work Programme was that it was the clients who were being bullied. It "needs throwing out," she said.
I don't think this story is going to go away.
Krishnan Guru-Murty said that a number of A4e clients had contacted the programme, and they showed a few of the comments, which were very critical. They then replayed Harrison's "very improbable statement" description of a similar comment made on last night's programme. Ms Burke referred to the "bullying" contention of Harrison, and said that the reputation throughout the Work Programme was that it was the clients who were being bullied. It "needs throwing out," she said.
I don't think this story is going to go away.
Bullied?
She was "bullied out of A4e". That's the headline phrase in the Press Association piece on last night's Emma Harrison interview, and it's been taken up by many of the reports. Harrison is a savvy enough media operator to know that if she used the word enough it would become the story. But bullied by whom? Did she say "political types"? Does that mean the members of the Public Accounts Committee who objected to her £8.6m dividend? Or were there people in government who told her to go? I don't know, and don't particularly care. To respond to questions on the failure of her company to fulfil its contract by claiming to have been bullied was only one bizarre aspect of this interview. Of course, if her children were bullied after the revelations, that's regrettable. And it was sad that innocent employees were caught up in it. But most people would have struggled to work up any sympathy for Harrison herself.
Much else was odd. She kept insisting that the figures Channel 4 had (from a "reliable source", said Jackie Long) were wrong, but said she didn't know what the right figures were. If she'd said, correctly, that they were not allowed to disclose the true figures; or if she'd fudged it, as the company did; then that might have been the end of it. But she went from saying that the figures were wrong to accusing the interviewer of bullying her and from there to saying that the programme was making up stories about her for political reasons.
Guru-Murthy kept bringing it back to the facts, but Harrison responded by virtually calling one of the clients a liar. She had invested "£50m of her own money" in the Work Programme. Jaws dropped at that point. The design of the WP meant that providers had to be able to finance it before they got any money back. Whatever bank account A4e's finance came out of, it is difficult to see it as Harrison's own money. But that was the tone of her responses from then on. She hadn't expected the interview to be so unsympathetic, it seems, and was angry. The Work Programme was the most successful they'd ever run. And she herself had helped tens of thousands into work. People came up to her in the street to thank her. She had just been "useful to have a go at".
This was about the failure of the Work Programme, and it could be thought that it became about Emma Harrison instead. It was her name that was trending on Twitter late last night, and people were calling it a "car crash" for her. Now we have to wait for the official figures.
Much else was odd. She kept insisting that the figures Channel 4 had (from a "reliable source", said Jackie Long) were wrong, but said she didn't know what the right figures were. If she'd said, correctly, that they were not allowed to disclose the true figures; or if she'd fudged it, as the company did; then that might have been the end of it. But she went from saying that the figures were wrong to accusing the interviewer of bullying her and from there to saying that the programme was making up stories about her for political reasons.
Guru-Murthy kept bringing it back to the facts, but Harrison responded by virtually calling one of the clients a liar. She had invested "£50m of her own money" in the Work Programme. Jaws dropped at that point. The design of the WP meant that providers had to be able to finance it before they got any money back. Whatever bank account A4e's finance came out of, it is difficult to see it as Harrison's own money. But that was the tone of her responses from then on. She hadn't expected the interview to be so unsympathetic, it seems, and was angry. The Work Programme was the most successful they'd ever run. And she herself had helped tens of thousands into work. People came up to her in the street to thank her. She had just been "useful to have a go at".
This was about the failure of the Work Programme, and it could be thought that it became about Emma Harrison instead. It was her name that was trending on Twitter late last night, and people were calling it a "car crash" for her. Now we have to wait for the official figures.
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
She was bullied and the figures are wrong - Emma on Channel 4 News
There has just been an astonishing interview with Emma Harrison on Channel 4 News. There's an account of the facts on which it's based here. It revolved around leaked performance data for the first year of the Work Programme - you can read the analysis on the Factcheck blog - which show that out of 93,127 attachments (new clients) there were only 3,400 outcomes. Just 4%. For that they've got £46m in fees. The government's minimum target is 5.5%. There was a brief explanation of who Emma Harrison is. Then we heard from two clients. Roland said it had taken 8 months for him to get even basic training; his sessions with A4e lasted 15 minutes and he was simply made to apply, under threat of sanctions, for jobs he knew he had no hope of getting. Gill, a former solicitor with a 20-year career break, said that A4e were not interested in anything she said and didn't have the skills to enable them to tailor support.
A former senior manager with A4e, with his identity hidden, said that staff had "unmanageable caseloads" and were having to focus on their "top 10 targets". He also said that customers often found their own jobs but A4e could claim for them if they showed some input, so might pay bus fares for the first week.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy revealed that in addition to the £8.6m dividend that Harrison took last year, she took a further £250,000 before stepping down. What, he asked her, did she have to say to those customers? The interview became an odd exchange. Harrison insisted that a lot of the detail was wrong, including the numbers and the 4% outcomes. A4e had told her that the numbers were wrong. But she didn't know what the right numbers were. She then accused Guru-Murthy of bullying her, and that word kept recurring. They were making up stories for political reasons. Asked about the extra dividend when they were not meeting their target, she said that she had invested £50m in the Work Programme (she appeared a bit confused at this point about what was her own money and what was A4e profits). She is an entrepreneur who has helped tens of thousands. She was sorry that the customers featured were not happy with the service, but then said that Roland's was "an improbable statement".
Harrison insisted that Channel 4 is biassed, having not reported that the fraud allegations had been shown to be untrue. KGM said that they'd reported it at the start of the programme. This was, he said, about value for money. They appeared to disagree about why she had been asked onto the programme. She kept using the word "bullying" and saying that figures were not true. Why, asked KGM, did A4e say that it was a different company from 2 years ago? She said that you could read that statement how you wanted. Was the Work Programme set up to fail, he asked. It was the most successful programme they've ever run, she said. Would she like to apologise to anyone else? She said that her staff had been bullied, it had been a political maelstrom, and she was "useful to have a got at".
It was quite extraordinary, and I wonder how the current A4e bosses feel about it. Not best pleased, I bet.
A former senior manager with A4e, with his identity hidden, said that staff had "unmanageable caseloads" and were having to focus on their "top 10 targets". He also said that customers often found their own jobs but A4e could claim for them if they showed some input, so might pay bus fares for the first week.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy revealed that in addition to the £8.6m dividend that Harrison took last year, she took a further £250,000 before stepping down. What, he asked her, did she have to say to those customers? The interview became an odd exchange. Harrison insisted that a lot of the detail was wrong, including the numbers and the 4% outcomes. A4e had told her that the numbers were wrong. But she didn't know what the right numbers were. She then accused Guru-Murthy of bullying her, and that word kept recurring. They were making up stories for political reasons. Asked about the extra dividend when they were not meeting their target, she said that she had invested £50m in the Work Programme (she appeared a bit confused at this point about what was her own money and what was A4e profits). She is an entrepreneur who has helped tens of thousands. She was sorry that the customers featured were not happy with the service, but then said that Roland's was "an improbable statement".
Harrison insisted that Channel 4 is biassed, having not reported that the fraud allegations had been shown to be untrue. KGM said that they'd reported it at the start of the programme. This was, he said, about value for money. They appeared to disagree about why she had been asked onto the programme. She kept using the word "bullying" and saying that figures were not true. Why, asked KGM, did A4e say that it was a different company from 2 years ago? She said that you could read that statement how you wanted. Was the Work Programme set up to fail, he asked. It was the most successful programme they've ever run, she said. Would she like to apologise to anyone else? She said that her staff had been bullied, it had been a political maelstrom, and she was "useful to have a got at".
It was quite extraordinary, and I wonder how the current A4e bosses feel about it. Not best pleased, I bet.
Monday, 22 October 2012
Training?
One of those "Top 50" tables appeared the other day on the Training Journal website. A4e has made it into their top 50 training businesses. Their definition of "training" is quite elastic. 21 of their 50 companies are in the "employment training" sector. But it's fiscal success which is the criterion, not how successful they are at training.
And that raises the question of what actual training is available through A4e's w2w operation. Leave aside such little courses as Basic Food Hygiene and Health and Safety, and also basic literacy and numeracy. What actual skills training is being provided? I'm not saying there's none. I just haven't heard of any. The "tailored support" supposedly available in that black box doesn't seem to include the up-skilling that the long-term unemployed really need. Some qualifications are essential before you can get particular jobs; the CSCS card in construction, for instance, or the SIA licence for the security industry. But people say that the providers (not just A4e) won't pay for this. Former professionals require refresher courses which they can't afford themselves, but these are not forthcoming. Someone genuinely wanting to become self-employed or freelance can't get the advice and training he needs.
Is this unfair?
And that raises the question of what actual training is available through A4e's w2w operation. Leave aside such little courses as Basic Food Hygiene and Health and Safety, and also basic literacy and numeracy. What actual skills training is being provided? I'm not saying there's none. I just haven't heard of any. The "tailored support" supposedly available in that black box doesn't seem to include the up-skilling that the long-term unemployed really need. Some qualifications are essential before you can get particular jobs; the CSCS card in construction, for instance, or the SIA licence for the security industry. But people say that the providers (not just A4e) won't pay for this. Former professionals require refresher courses which they can't afford themselves, but these are not forthcoming. Someone genuinely wanting to become self-employed or freelance can't get the advice and training he needs.
Is this unfair?
Saturday, 20 October 2012
Talking tough
Mark Hoban, the employment minister, is reported in the Telegraph as saying that the unemployed should "roll up their sleeves and find jobs". It's because the new sanctions rules start tomorrow. 13 weeks, then 26 weeks then off altogether for 3 years, if you don't comply with the rules. The article says that, "Those stripped of benefits would have to apply for special 'hardship payments' and if successful are paid 60% of the amount they were getting in benefits.
There's huge public support for this, of course, and people will be confirmed in their opinion by the very dodgy figures from the DWP. Last year, "Jobcentre advisers took action against 495,000 claimants for not doing enough to find work." Presumably that includes the people sanctioned not by the Jobcentre but at the behest of the WP providers. Naturally, no one mentions the fact that a good number of those were completely unjustified. We're told that the figure includes 72,000 "who had refused an offer of employment". Really? I very much doubt that it was as simple as that.
The DWP should ensure that there is a complete paper trail for every "sanction doubt" as it's called. There should be a dated copy of every appointment letter sent out, and a log of all letters posted. There should be a separate system for such "sanction doubts" when the provider or JC has accepted the explanation of the client. At present far too much power is in the hands of people who are not equipped to wield it.
Hoban is determined to talk tough. "I make no apology for this," he says. For people who refuse to play be the rules it will be "a rude awakening". Along with the bedroom tax, I assume.
There's huge public support for this, of course, and people will be confirmed in their opinion by the very dodgy figures from the DWP. Last year, "Jobcentre advisers took action against 495,000 claimants for not doing enough to find work." Presumably that includes the people sanctioned not by the Jobcentre but at the behest of the WP providers. Naturally, no one mentions the fact that a good number of those were completely unjustified. We're told that the figure includes 72,000 "who had refused an offer of employment". Really? I very much doubt that it was as simple as that.
The DWP should ensure that there is a complete paper trail for every "sanction doubt" as it's called. There should be a dated copy of every appointment letter sent out, and a log of all letters posted. There should be a separate system for such "sanction doubts" when the provider or JC has accepted the explanation of the client. At present far too much power is in the hands of people who are not equipped to wield it.
Hoban is determined to talk tough. "I make no apology for this," he says. For people who refuse to play be the rules it will be "a rude awakening". Along with the bedroom tax, I assume.
Friday, 19 October 2012
"Descending into chaos"
So says the Financial Times about the Work programme. Mind you, they're quoting Labour's Liam Byrne. But the verdict is based on a slump in the number of people being referred to the WP, down from 65,000 in February to 40,000 in August. "Opinion is divided as to why," they say. Some think that the pattern of employment is responsible, with fewer people being out of work for the 9 months stretch which would get them referred. Certainly this would have an effect if there is a big increase in temporary jobs and unwanted part-time jobs. Another view is that the Jobcentres have lost so many staff that they are not able to keep up with the referrals. Whatever the reason, it's "beginning to worry the market", says Kirsty McHugh of the ERSA. Mark Hoban, the minister, isn't worried. He says that referrals are higher than predicted when the companies bid for the contracts. Byrne is pushing for publication of the performance data - and so are we all.
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