The Work Program

imatt

Again, not an employment advisor.

Out of interest, and to put things in context within this debate, just what is your role? And how do you find people sustainable employment?

dandelionclock30

You need to get back to work and stop tossing it off all day on the internet.
No job is 100% secure and you could end up on the dole and the workprogramme yourself at the rate you are going.You could be in for a rude awakening.

saintjammyswine

I work for a GFE College (General Further Education) on partnerships (with all sorts) projects (including provision for the unemployed) and tenders for funding etc. Most of my time is spent in front of the PC as 99% of public (and a lot of larger private) procurement and partnership arrangements are done via e-portals and online tender sites.

With regards to WP, I have said before I am not involved directly with the main contractors (A4e etc. directly) but do have contact with them on other projects. I arrange partnerships with employers to provide work placements and guide the training candidates receive to match their requirements. I also deal with external training companies who we bring in when the employers require training too specialist for us or that we are not accredited for.

So to all the people having a pop for being on the net, I am on here most of my days anyway and have this forum on a tab in the background. I often look at it while on the phone (waiting for people to answer mainly!).

To find people sustainable employment? Welll obviously I cant force companies to keep people, nor can I see into the future but I do make sure that the companies put a lot of work into the preparation of the placements with regards to mentoring & review arrangements. This extra up front work has filtered out some companies that just wanted some free labour so far.

leasky30

work programme another scam, well d day is 2morrow for the government to answer back about the legal sute that one guy is bring about the mandatory work activity, if that goes through then you could see the end of these schemes

WPN

Morlock wrote: »

I presume that you meant, "This is not the Jobcentre, but the Work Programme", but this is incorrect. The WP and Mandatory Work Activity are unrelated schemes.

The MWA is a placement enforced, on a discretionary basis, by Jobcentre advisers, not WP providers.

Unrelated schemes?

Both using Labour's Section 17A!!

WPN

saintjammyswine wrote: »

I work for a GFE College (General Further Education) on partnerships (with all sorts) projects (including provision for the unemployed) and tenders for funding etc. Most of my time is spent in front of the PC as 99% of public (and a lot of larger private) procurement and partnership arrangements are done via e-portals and online tender sites.

With regards to WP, I have said before I am not involved directly with the main contractors (A4e etc. directly) but do have contact with them on other projects. I arrange partnerships with employers to provide work placements and guide the training candidates receive to match their requirements. I also deal with external training companies who we bring in when the employers require training too specialist for us or that we are not accredited for.

So to all the people having a pop for being on the net, I am on here most of my days anyway and have this forum on a tab in the background. I often look at it while on the phone (waiting for people to answer mainly!).

To find people sustainable employment? Welll obviously I cant force companies to keep people, nor can I see into the future but I do make sure that the companies put a lot of work into the preparation of the placements with regards to mentoring & review arrangements. This extra up front work has filtered out some companies that just wanted some free labour so far.

working with A4e... you are not a swine... but a devil lol

saintjammyswine

I have contact with them at various meetings for other projects as they are one of the local WP Main Contractors, to date I have not worked with them on anything.

WPN

imatt wrote: »

The problem or rather problems with the WP are threefold.

Firstly, we have the WP itself. A replacement for New Deal and Flexible New Deal, it is supposedly a tailored and flexible solution . However, many parked on the WP see it as little different to FND. The main difference being that one in not placed in a classroom for 30 hours a week doing **** all! The WP is most a payment by results scheme, with payments going to providers once someone gains employment. In reality, this has discouraged a number of local charities, social enterprises and non-profit orgs bidding as they will have to wait up to TWO years to see any cash. This is amusing in one sense as Cameron and grayling boasted that such orgs would be at the forefront of the WP as part of the 'Big Society'!

The big boys such as A4e, Ingeus, Serco, etc have thus cornered the market (yet again) as they economies of scale work in their favour, as does cross-subsidising from their other business interests. That said, even these companies are going to find it harder to find sustainable employment for an ever increasing number of clients backed up by poor business practices.

Secondly, the companies running the WP are the same old firms that run the previous ND and FND. And they screwed that up as well, even when they made money hand over fist in those days! The poor facilities, poorly trained staff, overcrowding, etc were to become staple issues and concerns under these previous programs.

Two firms, A4e and Working Links were even famously caught committing fraud by forging employers signatures!!!

The big question - why did these companies get contract after contract? Because for some bizarre reason, the past poor performances of these companies was never taken into account! So we now have them running most of the WP! Also having people such as ex employment minister, David Blunkett on your payroll, earning £30k a year as a 'business advisor' (A4e)can't be bad either! Marvellous.

Thirdly, we have to take a look at the staff. Some advisors do a good job. Others however are pretty lamentable. And indeed incompetent to boot. This is due to poor training and the bad attitude of the individual employed. Either way, it is not good enough. For example, take CV's. CVs are being sent out to employers without the knowledge, let alone permission, of the clients, and they are often one-size-fits-all CVs imposed on the clients. If such a CV contains grammatical errors, who does that reflect badly on?

Now before anyone says "the people I work with at XYZ provider are not like that", please be aware that people sent onto the WP have no choice of provider and no say in who their advisor will be. Whilst some are okay, others ARE poorly trained and do have a pretty poor attitude. And no, this is not anecdotal evidence on my part. I have experienced it!!! And so have many others, who's stories I'm sorry to say are too damn similar to be a mere coincidence!

It is not enough to say there is good practice here or there. There should be good practice everywhere. if not, then 'clients' should have the RIGHT to use an alternative method.

I for one do not expect the WP to succeed. It'll be yet another in a long line of 'back to work scheme' failures. What with skyrocketing unemployment, staff will be under increased pressure with a merge budget to deal with.

Work Programme is practically a rebrand of Flexible New Deal.
Mandatory Work Activity scheme is practically a watered down version of Labour's WfYB scheme.
Community Action Programme is practically a rebrand of Work for Your Benefit scheme (got scrapped).


Duration of such is much longer though. So Conservatives replacing everything with the "single work programme" (sometimes referred to as the "mandatory work programme" or just "work programme") is much defeated... add other schemes such as "Work Experience" and "New Enterprise Allowance" to the pile and its not much different to previous selections of schemes under Labour.


CAP is designed to fix where the WP is going wrong... its for that reason why MWA is a cut down version. So is the Universal Credit just going to replace one or two benefits? Seems the whole concept of replacing everything with just ONE scheme and ONE benefit (of different rates - funny that sounds much in comparison to New Deal and the various different types, if comparing to schemes) is one big ambition too much.


I am glad the charities etc. finding it hard. Charities (generally speaking) operate to achieve their charitable aims and are a result of an unfilled need. Many are jumping on the bandwagon as a fundraising activity and then finding it tough to break even.


It is not very charity like to decide they need to help people in to employment (including by removing barriers or helping overcome them) by not trading in their own right to achieve such aim (yes same with the for profit heavy weights) and to undergo such, not just by Government funding but to strict procedure where benefit compliance is number one priority ('are they eligible?', 'should they be sanctioned?') before such help, and probably a thousand pages of contractual terms, tender specifications, provider guidance etc. to be adhered to at all times... and this is without including the political factors from Government and Jobcentre Plus.


A charity (which are supposed to be impartial, non-political and well balanced) should be identifying the need (market research) – not relying on Government nonsense (most charities/third sector work where the Government refuses to or don't do enough in) and delivering how they feel best... and not multiple guides and hundreds of pages of guidance to be adhered to knowing well its likely to affect service delivery. Apart from health and safety, they should be focusing on the delivery without all the red-tape added from a Government contract. Yes, the cash is nice..but...


Of course, most welfare-to-work contracts are obtained by insider dealing within the Government, whether its bribes (I mean gifts...), lobbying and sleeping with your local MP.... all the Government wants to do is distort statistics. Although the contracts are BIG money, it still seems to be a small price to pay. They only succeed at increasing employment by those employed to deliver the schemes, not the unemployed people themselves.


The main point about crap welfare-to-work staff is... a proper trainer wants good pay. Similar to a salesperson if you have the skills and qualities... you don't settle for third best. If you can deliver a seminar to businesspeople at £150 per head, and probably take £1000 gross away from it, twice, on a monthly basis... why would you want to deliver silly schemes from a textbook for 30 hours a week or so not too much higher than NMW??


Most welfare-to-work employees remain in that arena jumping from one provider to the next. If they cannot get into a provider or Jobcentre Plus they are highly likely to end up on the dole. To prove my point when that Elevate trainer who was stuck in a dead-end job effectively at A4e got the opportunity to go on TV... she dumped A4e and took on an inspirational speaker/trainer role with her own TV shows. Hayley Taylor... the Fairy Gobmother … there is some suggestions I agree with from her but most of it is complete nonsense... and she gets away with it. She is effectively on the steps of being a celeb with a public profile. She was lucky to get that break to do something with her life. Now think of those in welfare to work with no prior credits (being a trainer etc)... just an “adviser” behind a desk bullying the unemployed.


To an extent the long line of schemes helps these people out... the job security for these providers are really poor... one moment you are following policy in losing someone's benefit for 6 months for failure to attend as you never sent out a letter on your managers request or leave voicemail/answering machine messages; the next because you didn't meet the over ambitious targets keeping Jobcentre Plus sweet.. you no longer have a job.


There are good staff out there... but how good? Is their main priority a job or to help people? If its not the latter and is merely a last chance job... but they also want to help people, then why sign up knowing you have to hinder people by sanctioning them and bullying them with threats to comply?

imatt

Hmmm...interesting stuff WPN. You and I both touched on the issue of charities. Not only have charities been shafted once by the WP, they are being shafted a second time by the WP providers. I mentioned on an earlier thread whether clients received adequate training. It would appear that WP providers are using charities / non-profits to do their donkey work so to speak.

Clients are being passed over to such charities / non-profits to do the things that the WP providers should be providing.

Not only this, but A4e for example has asked a local volunteer centre to provide people to work with their clients on CVs. It seems it was the Oxford A4e branch which asked for volunteers with good IT skills and a lot of patience. The volunteer centre refused because, without any form of payment, it would be taking advantage of its volunteers.

So providers in some cases cannot even provide facilities to provide adequate support. Nor can they provide properly trained, motivated and paid staff!

See: http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/1103221/


and also: http://www.volunteering.org.uk/VolunteeringEngland/Core/CrawlerResourceServer.aspx?resource=70a7cd68-b8d0-446f-a41b-24b182db0532


This simply smacks of penny pinching of the worst order!

DebiT

saintjammyswine wrote: »

Again, not an employment advisor.

Ok, not an employment advisor, just someone who is paid to help people find work, but in actual fact spends all day on internet forums