Sunday 24 March 2013

How Welfare To Work providers fail

At the best of times, being unemployed is a disheartening experience, but when this lasts for over 12-months it is soul destroying. In the UK we have been living in a largely recessionary economy for a number of years and this, coupled with harsh government induced cuts has led many unemployed people to face hardship and physical or mental health problems.

If this wasn’t bad enough on its own, the agencies and organisations with responsibility for supporting the vulnerable appear to be failing to deliver an effective service. In 2011 the government rolled out its flagship “Work Programme” aimed at helping unemployed people back into work. But is it doing its job?

Over the last 18-months a catalogue of incompetence has been revealed that has included providers and/ or subcontractors being ill-prepared for the job at hand. This has included cases of a number of clients not being seen for almost two months because some of the companies charged with delivering the service had neither appropriate premises, sufficient front-line staff, or appropriate administrative back-up to deliver according to the terms of the contract.

A number of cases were reported of clients being turned away because of IT failures, lack of caseworkers able to see service users, or electricity/ heating failures.
“When I arrived the caseworkers were just sitting around chatting and when I said that I had come for my appointment they told me I couldn’t be seen. That went on for five weeks and there were things I needed to talk about.”
(Bob, 47 – 19-months unemployed)

Of course it could be argued that providers offering such a poor service are “cutting off their nose to spite their face”, but are they? Firstly, they receive an initial payment for taking the job on in the first place.

Admittedly the amount is small, but the effect is quite substantial because in participating in WP they demonstrate to the government a capability of delivering Welfare to Work programmes.

In doing so they add to their level of presumed competency and, in doing so, make themselves more attractive when it comes to bidding for further work. This is despite the evidence they fail each day.

And what about the caseworkers? Countless cases were reported of clients believing staff were ill-qualified and poorly trained. Their fears were not without foundation because along with these anxieties came evidence of staff not knowing how to help service users, unless they were willing to accept work in the retail sector. Semi-skilled or skilled clients were often parked because staff had no idea of how to support them.
“Until I hurt my arm I’d worked regularly on the buildings, but then had to give it up ‘cos I couldn’t lift. I went along to see B (caseworker) and she showed me jobs in teaching and management. I told her I wasn’t qualified or experienced in any of that, but it just kept on coming every time I saw her. It was a waste of time.”
(Steve, 51 – unemployed 23-months)

Customers who are unhappy with their supplier of water can refer to OFWAT, to OFGEN for electricity or gas problems, or to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you are unhappy with your bank. Yet, if you are unemployed you are expected to grin and bear it, even if the service offered is a disgrace.

True, every company has a complaints procedure, but what happens when service users are not told about it – as was discovered amongst many of those identified in this investigation? They have nowhere to go … and even if they do manage to discover a route through the maze, they are often unable to secure justice.

First they must confront the provider directly – not a comfortable task when the person you are complaining about can refer you back to JCP and have your benefits removed! If they fail to secure justice they can upgrade the complaint and take it to the Prime Contractor.

They will undertake an investigation and then report back on the findings. On average, this process can take about 6 weeks and if the client is still unhappy they can refer the matter to an Independent Examiner (though often they will need to have the skills of Sherlock Holmes to discover the address or contact telephone number).

Once referred to the Examiner the complaint process can take a potential eight more weeks – meaning the entire process may well have lasted anything up to three months – that’s three months without work and living on the poverty line because of the incompetency of the provider.

It is a disgrace that so many people are being treated so abysmally. Unemployment, by its very nature is dehumanising and those affected need support, guidance and dynamic, active encouragement. They do not need abuse and disinterest from those charged with the responsibility for helping them.

It needs change – NOW!

3 comments:

  1. I saw your post on Indus Delta, the pro W2W site. I agree with your comments 101%. The WP IS failing. Just as the New Deal, Flex New Deal and pathways to work failed spectacularly.

    The comments left by Voice of WP (or should that be voice of 96.5% failure rate) is telling. This is someone who by their own admission hates anyone who does not agree with them. No alternative voice in allowed on ID which makes it merely a mouthpiece and not a forum of any kind I know of. It is also interesting how Voice of WP NEVER points out which provider he or she works for. No doubt removing the ability to see just how badly they and their own employers are performing!

    Let's look at the points Voice of WP makes shall we:
    1)Customers who do not turn up for appointments
    2)Turning down jobs they are well able to do
    3)Refusing to re-train in order they have the right skills for today's market

    1) Customers who do not turn up for appointments. Well, they can and do have sanctions used against them. What often happens is that 'customers' (stupid term, but more on that in a minute) are sanctioned for not turning up for appointments which were never made for them in the first place. If a 'customer' never receives a letter or a phone call, informing them of said appointment, they how on earth do they know to come in at all? And yet they are sanctioned. Of course this NEVER happens in Voice of WP's little world.

    2) Turning down jobs they are well able to do. I daresay this happens. However, one has to appreciate that many of these jobs will be massively insecure zero hour vacancies, vacancies offering just 4, 6 or 8 hours a week and so on. No doubt Voice of WP will claim ALL such vacancies offer six fig salaries and that all his / her 'customers' are lazy bums!

    3) Refusing to re-train in order they have the right skills for today's market. Many 'customers' are actually requesting training from their WP provider. In many if not most cases it is not forthcoming as such training is just too expensive a burden for the provider to.......well provide!

    If Voice of WP and the other apologists for failure keep using the term 'customer', then he/she has to know what that means in actuality.

    This short definition from Wiki:
    "A customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product, or idea, obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier for a monetary or other valuable consideration."

    Under the WP there is a paucity of genuinely good services with no tangible goods on offer. Indeed, as far as any monetary or other valuable consideration in concerned, the real customer is the government using taxpayers cash. It is the taxpayer who is really being ripped off here!

    If someone attending the WP really IS a customer, then they would also have the right to choose. They would certainly have the right to choose what options are best for them OTHER than the failing WP. If the WP is so good, then this 'customer' would have the right to choose one provider over another. After all, if I dislike Tesco for whatever reason, there is little to stop me using Morrisons, Sianbury's, Asda, Lidl, Aldi, M&S, Waitrose, Costcutter or my nearest market. If I don't like Apple, there is always Samsung, Toshiba, Microsoft, Philips and LG. It's called CHOICE. Something that along with transparency is sadly lacking within the WP.

    Voice of WP states the WP is working. Many increasingly disagree. If the originators and the administrators of the WP, namely Ian D Smith and Mark Hoban had any true faith in their baby, then they would not have delayed the original result figures (which were frankly pisspoor by any standard). If Voice of WP had any true faith in the WP, then he/she would be more than happy to openly debate with their opponents and win the argument. Alas they cannot, so they have to resort to censorship.

    In short, the WP is a criminal like cabal funded by an equally criminal waste of taxpayer's cash.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I too was a prolific poster on the torpid ID site under the username osdset, until I was virtually censored off the site, myself and a few stalwarts would regularly put the odious, spineless Voice of WP through the proverbial mill.

    The 'voice' cannot get it through it's little head that none of the providers have come up to scratch, all of them have limbo danced their way under the risible threshold bar the government set as a performance percentage.

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  3. "I work for a successful provider, we do things well, we things right, we deliver on promises and we get people into work, we are not alone. Too many are focusing on the few that are perhaps not doing as well as expected OR they simply listen to one sided arguments."

    Nonsense! If the Voice of 96.5% failure rate really does work for a successful provider, then why not reveal who they are? Why can we not see how well Voice of 96.5% failure rate and his / her colleagues really do perform? Why so coy? What are they scared of?

    And doing things right and well in Voice of 96.5% failure rates head is no doubt doing what the DWP and Iain D. Smith wish them to do, NOT doing what is necessarily right by their 'customers'.

    Voice of 96.5 failure rate is living in a fools paradise if he / thinks the WP is doing as splendidly as they protest. It is a failing program run by companies that have shown themselves to miss crucial targets delivering past schemes such as New Deal, Flexible New Deal and Pathways.

    Little wonder they (Voice of 96.5% failure rate) is scared of being challenged on Indus Delta or indeed anywhere else!

    ReplyDelete

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