The Work Programme New Thread

Morlock

At least one person is doing well out of the Work Programme, A4e's Emma Harrison who made £9,500,000 (£9.5 million) last year from taxpayers' money propping up her inadequate company.

"A4e got welfare-to-work contract despite 'abysmal' record, MPs say"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/09/a4e-welfare-to-work-contract

imatt

Morlock, you have touched on a VERY good point my friend!

In a period when Fred Goodwin can be awarded for services to the banking industry and then lose his bauble (sorry knighthood) for subsequent poor performance in said sector, the founder and chairwoman of A4e Emma Harrison is awarded a CBE for 'services to Unemployed People and to the Voluntary Sector'.

Now if Goodwin, can be stripped of his title, why cannot Ms Harrison? After all, as the article Morlock highlights explains, under the previous Pathways to Work scheme, Harrison's A4e got a paltry 9% of clients into work. Their target was an already low 30%! A4e has failed under the New Deal and Flexible New Deal also. So much for 'services to Unemployed People and to the Voluntary Sector'!

The dismal record of A4e and other W2W providers is never taken into account when new contracts are bid for. That includes the much vaunted Work Program. I would love to ask Duncan Smith and Grayling face to face, if THEY would ever consider purchasing a product or service from a company with such a poor track record? If not, why not? And if not, why do they expect the taxpayer to do this very thing time and time again?

exprog

red_devil wrote: »

They try and get everyone up to speed with Maths and English.

Terribly helpful when they rely on cheapo computer programmes that don't particularly know how to spell.

All this Work Programme stuff is essentially a fraud and those involved in it should be ashamed of themselves.

exprog

imatt wrote: »

the founder and chairwoman of A4e Emma Harrison is awarded a CBE for 'services to Unemployed People and to the Voluntary Sector'.

Might be more honest to say that this loathsome woman was rewarded for her company's financial donations to political parties. A small price to pay to keep the public money flowing in courtesy of the politicians who benefit from the donations.

brightonman123

I started on my 4th 'jobclub', just before i found out about a job i got looking myself!

despite the new names promises etc, its the same ol same ol..

GotToChange

How qualified are these agencies to actually "get English and Maths" to the appropriate (and what is that I also wonder...) level?


Jus' sayin'
:cool:

exprog

GotToChange wrote: »

How qualified are these agencies to actually "get English and Maths" to the appropriate (and what is that I also wonder...) level?


Jus' sayin'
:cool:

Mostly, they are not qualified to do anything at all in any way at all.

The joke is that some of them think they should be paid the same as professional trained teachers. Shows what ignorant morons they are. Though they could get jobs to teach in the liar Gove's academies - no qulifications or competence needed there.

imatt

exprog wrote: »

Might be more honest to say that this loathsome woman was rewarded for her company's financial donations to political parties. A small price to pay to keep the public money flowing in courtesy of the politicians who benefit from the donations.

It also helps that you have high profile Tories and Labour ex-ministers and policy makers on board.

Such as David Blunkett who earned £30k per annum from A4e as a 'business advisor' and Jonty Oliff-Cooper as the Director of Policy and Strategy for the social business A4e. Cooper was head of the Progressive Conservatism Project at the think-tank Demos.

LadyMissA

red_devil wrote: »

Funny thing to say a test you would expect the average 6 yr old to complete. Many people on the work programme cant do Maths and English very well. These are considered barriers to work so they do try and help with that. I cant see anything wrong with that actually. Why not help people with Maths etc.

Most people? That's a big statement! I have an O Level grade A

IF they can't then that's their fault and I wonder what they did for work before.

GotToChange

I agree with LadyMissA ^^...

....what DID people with very poor literacy and numeracy - needing the "help" of the WP providers - DO? There is something very fundamentally wrong with a society where people lack these very basic skills and and are yet expected to earn a living.

Thus, the programme has to address the (sorry) lowest comon denominator "in" society, which should not be their remit at all.
(Not that they should actually HAVE a remit as I maintain that they are going to fail - and they certainly cannot fulfill their obligations.)



(As another aside - there is something spooky going on; twice I have posted on long threads/comments (The Guardian and here) and been post no. 222 - which is the number of my childhood home.... [X-files theme....])