Not in my name

Did anyone else hear about the Rally against Debt last Saturday? It seems about 350 people demonstrated in support of Government cuts and that it would be immoral to leave the debt to future generations.

It believed in substantial spending cuts sooner rather than later to avoid seeing more taxes going on debt interest, not paying for services.

Protesters held placards bearing messages including "Drowning in debt", "No more EU bailouts" and "Stop spending money you don't have".

Some of the crazies on this ‘demo’ included known Conservative activist, Matthew Sinclair, who attended under the banner of the Taxpayer's Alliance and said the cuts are essential:

"The country's facing a choice. It's facing a choice between racking up more and more debt and spending decades with taxpayers' burden and with the economy dragged down by that incredible debt. Or we start to take action to cut spending, to deliver better value and to start to rebuild our economic fortunes."

Other notable right-wingers attending included UKIP MEP Nigel Farage, who said: "We want to make it clear that not a penny more of British taxpayers' money should be spent on Euro bail-outs...and we regard giving £40m a day to Brussels for our membership of this union is giving us bad value for money. So from that little lot you get a fairly big shopping list of real, good, sensible cuts that could be made and we could perhaps keep a few more local libraries open."

With so few people attending you would have thought they would have been too embarrassed to call it a rally, wouldn’t you? But no, these are die-hard Tories we are talking about and they wanted to show those who attended the TUC demonstration earlier this year (yes, the one with half a million protesters) that there was an alternative voice.

Now let me get this right – this band of nutters think a fiasco in London can stand alongside one of the greatest demonstrations against government policy since the time of the Poll Tax resistance. Could I just remind them they were outnumbered on a ration of 1:1428!!!!

If this is the best the Tories can do then we have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, they are usually far better organised and far more capable of causing bedlam to our society.

As we speak, hundreds of welfare to work staff are facing redundancy as they wait to hear if they will have a job for the next five years. Many won’t and will be forced to become clients of the new Work Programme themselves. Throughout, the government have been notable only by their silence and Chris Grayling, the architect of this demise has failed to answer accusations that he has watched whilst Rome burns.
The new Work programme will operate with fewer staff, yet will be expected to achieve better results than its predecessor, Flexible New Deal. As one writer recently said:

“… the delivery model is basically the same for A4e except we are being told to push the customers harder and not allow being on programme to become the easy option.”

But this isn’t just an A4e problem, it is across the entire sector and the government have failed to invest correctly, resulting in a programme that will be unable to achieve any better result than those before it, and at a cost of substantial redundancies for those who have been working in the sector for many years.

This lack of investment and strategic ineptitude was further exposed last week when the Department for Work and Pensions abandoned plans to introduce a system to automate the processing of all benefit claims. The DWP said that the system would still require "human intervention". In other words, they hadn’t thought it through, spent a fortune trying to get it to work and then found it wasn’t suitable.

The same disaster is set to hit the NHS as Citizen Dave continues his plans to “reform” the service. Unfortunately, some of those nasty discontents in the Lib Dems seem likely to put a spanner in the works and slow down or stop any of his plans. This won’t be enough to stop Citizen Dave – he is a man on a mission, even though the British Medical Association and some Labour MPs have expressed concern that the plans will allow private health firms to get a stronger foothold in the NHS.

The critics argue that the bill will allow competition law to be applied to the health service and lead to a much greater involvement, which in turn could undermine local NHS hospitals. The BMA has even likened it to the privatisation of utility industries.

But Citizen Dave, like the 350 who attended the “rally” in London last week refuse to listen to reason – they are Tories after all. Their venom is constantly being spat out and regurgitated by the media. Take the fact that the national media bothered to report the rally in the first place. It is another significant coup for the right because it tries to show how they represent the views of the majority.

Well, I refuse to have my name associated with the tragedy happening to the welfare to work sector. I do not wish to see changes to the NHS so that the private sector can cream off millions of pounds in profit.

When the Tories destroy our society, let the message be clear – they are not doing it in my name.

Welfare to work "fat cats" thrive whilst many face redundancy

I am getting a bit sick of the “fat cats” in the welfare to work sector taking huge salaries whilst so many of their frontline staff face redundancy as a result of recent bidding announcements for Work programme. Take the case of Emma Harrison, the head of A4e.

The woman appointed by David Cameron to help troubled families get off benefits and into work has a joint income with her husband estimated at more than £1.4m after building a business empire based on lucrative "welfare to work" contracts with government.

A4e's latest accounts show that Harrison, who lives with her husband in Thornbridge Hall, a 12th-century stately home in the heart of the Peak District, has an 85.5% shareholding in the Sheffield-based company. She receives a salary of £365,000 a year. On top of this, last year she and her husband received an additional £462,000 from A4e for the company's use of her home for conferences and administrative work. From what I hear this ‘administrative’ work includes inviting staff members over to her place for a cuppa. I guess this is to show the oiks how the rich live. After all, one really must keep the working class in their place.

Her husband received an additional £626,856 for the lease of another property to A4e. Nice for some – I guess money breeds money.

Last December Cameron offered Harrison a role championing government efforts to help troubled families get back on their feet. "Emma and others will be helping to pioneer a new way of doing things: less bureaucratic, less impersonal, more human, more effective," the prime minister said. "Above all, treating the whole family as a unit, not just a collection of individuals.

What does Emma know about hardship, other than the fact she was born in Jaywick, now recorded as being the most deprived town in the UK? I’ll bet Emma didn’t see too much if it when she was growing up.. Indeed, she openly admits that as a child she moved to Sheffield and lived in a ‘big’ house. From details of her life, I doubt she ever experienced hardship, or living off welfare benefits.

Today she heads up a company reputedly worth £100 million.

All this at a time when A4e have placed all their staff on redundancy notice, though admittedly a proportion of them will be re-employed (albeit on lower salaries) as a result of the company winning in five areas in the UK.

It emerged last week another major player in the welfare to work industry, Serco, which has won two more contracts, had awarded its top executives bumper pay packets. Chris Hyman, Serco's chief executive, enjoyed an 18% rise to £1.86m, while Andrew Jennings, the finance director, received an increase of 7% to £948,295. The company's diverse range of contracts includes running several prisons, London's bicycle hire scheme and the Docklands Light Railway.

Serco have yet to publicise the extent of any redundancies within their organisation, but logically it is unlikely they will be able to maintain the same level of staffing. Large sections of the country were served by Serco employees and with the ending of Flexible New Deal on 1st June we can anticipate many of them will be consigned to the dole queues.

Working Links, one of the successful contractors of the new work programme, is from today sending redundancy letters to almost 600 of its 2,000 workforce, with the threat that more could follow if staff numbers for the new contracts are lower than existing levels. Meanwhile, their managing director, Breege Burke enjoys a handsome salary of over £220, 000 a year

The news about the Harrisons, Burke, Hyman and Jennings’ ' income will fuel a growing row over the extent to which the private sector is set to benefit increasingly from Citizen Dave, the people’s toff’s determination to widen its role in the provision of public services.

In a recently published report for the government, Will Hutton called for a fair pay code to be extended into the public services industry. He also called for details on justification of an executive's annual salary to be published and for more employees to become involved in companies' remuneration committees. The report, which is being considered at the highest levels of government, said remuneration "must be brought back into the context of the pay of the rest of the workforce through the disclosure of the ratio of top to median pay".

It seems the “fat cats” in the sector never read that part of the report.

Union leaders have described the salaries earned by private entrepreneurs whose businesses were taking on government contracts as "obscene". They said private firms were queuing up to reap massive rewards from plans to open up the National Health Service to "any willing provider".

Once again, it’s another example of how Citizen Dave looks after the rich whilst the rest of us scrabble around for any spare pickings as pushes us day by day to become an “alright for some” society.

National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts

The following article is a reprint from the benefitclaimantsfightback website.

The 3rd National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts has been called for April 14th 2011.

Millions are set to be affected by savage cuts to housing, disability, sickness and welfare benefits. People with disabilities, illness, the unemployed, single parents, carers the low waged, part time students, volunteers, homeless people and college students are all likely to see a devastating drop in disposable income with many slipping even further below the poverty line.

The poorest and most vulnerable are being asked to pay for the mistakes and extravagances of the richest. Meanwhile poverty pimps like Atos Origin and A4e are set to rake in hundreds of millions on government contracts to bully and intimidate people from claiming the pittance handed out in benefit payments. Many disabled people have threatened suicide if these cuts are allowed to continue. Some have tragically already carried out that threat.

The first two days of protest against benefit cuts have seen demonstrations, meetings, unemployed discos, public pantomimes and occupations in cities across the UK. Atos Origin have been forced to close offices, protesters have gathered inside and outside workfare sharks A4e and demonstrations have taken place from Downing Street to local town centres such as Lydney and Crawley.

This time we have two months to organise for the biggest day yet. We call on all claimants, as groups or individuals, to organise and take action around the country on April 14th.

If you are planning an event in your town or city please add details in the comments below to be added to this page and the facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=164277070288955

You can also send details to notowelfarecuts@yahoo.co.uk

If you would like to see action locally, set up a group, event page or ask below. We will do out best to promote and co-ordinate all activity.

We are fighting for our homes, our livelihoods, our very survival. It’s time to show these public school parasites and their poverty pimp collaborators we mean business.

Actions/events organised so far:

Brighton

Thursday April 14th 2-5pm

Churchill Square Brighton

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210782635605158

Bristol

Thursday April 14 · 12:00pm – 5:00pm

Benefit Cuts Hurt Protest – 3rd National Day of Protest

Government Buildings, Flowers Hill, Bristol, BS4 5LA

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199413500079998

Leeds

Thursday, April 14 · 10:30am – 2:00pm

Meeting @ Leeds Train Station 10am before moving to picket ATOS from 10:30 for an hour then move onto A4e/BEST for a couple of hours. The last picket was a great success and we hope to have another good day. Bring banners, flags etc.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=155593464493862&

London

Thursday, April 14 – 2pm
Protest Outside The Daily Mail – Stop the Defamation – Stop the Lies

Daily Mail Headquarters, Young Street (off Kensington High Street), London W8 5TT

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161556473898500&

Protest Outside Westminster City Hall & Mass Food Give Away!

Thursday, April 14 · 5:00pm – 9:00pm

Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QP

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186039361439862

Poole

Outside the Jobcentre at noon. Everyone welcome!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161332900587762

Everywhere

National Troll A Tory Day 3 and Rat On A Rat!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173026406078054

Supported by:

o Black Triangle Anti-Defamation Campaign
o Brighton Benefits Campaign
o Cardiff’s Unemployed Daytime Disco
o Carer Watch
o Carer Watch fb page
o Crippen – Disabled Cartoonist
o Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
o Disabled People Against Cuts
o Dundee Unemployed Workers
o Free London Listings
o Goldsmiths in Occupation
o Haringey Solidarity Group
o Ipswich Unemployed Action
0 Islington Poverty Action
o Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group
o Lancaster and Morecambe Against the Cuts
o London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP)
o London Foodbank
o Mad Pride
o Medway Against Cuts
0 Mental Health Resistance Network
o Norfolk Community Action Group
o Nottingham Claimants’ Union
o Nuneaton Against Benefit Cuts
o Oxford Save Our Services
o Squattastic
o Tyneside Claimants Union
o Welfare Action Hackney
o Welfare Rights 4 u (UK)
o Work Programme & Flexible New Deal Scandal
o World Homeless Day

Further reflections on the Work programme

The much anticipated outcome of the Work Programme competition has now been revealed. 18 different Framework providers have been rewarded with contracts. Ingeus UK have been named as preferred bidder in 7 Contract Package Areas, with A4e winning 5, and Seetec, Avanta and Working Links winning 3 contracts each. The voluntary sector was represented on the preferred bidder’s list by CDG and Rehab Jobfit. The earlier suggestion that FND providers might do well in their existing territories didn’t hold true. More importantly, Grayling’s assertion last month that every bidder would have a bite of the cherry proved to be unfounded. In other words, he lied. Three FND contractors (Remploy, The Wise Group, and Skills Training UK) were not named as preferred bidders, whilst several other primes missed out in areas where they are currently delivering FND, but picked up wins in other parts of the country. Framework bidders who were not named as preferred bidders included Atos Origin, BBWR, Eaga, PeopleServe, and Shaw Trust. As successful bidders and their subcontractors try to digest the result, attention will inevitably turn to the ramifications these results presents, the working capital requirements, and how long term return on investment might be achieved in practice. One can only speculate how Ingeus will finance their activity in 7CPAs!! Dean James, Chief Executive of Ingeus UK, said: “Ingeus is committed to successful delivery of this critical programme, to help transform people’s lives through lasting employment and to make a positive impact on society and the economy.” Andrew Dutton, Chief Executive of A4e, said: “The results today build on our strong track record of partnership working: more than 52% of our existing welfare to work supply chain partners and 68% of our total proposed Work Programme supply chain are public or third sector organisations, many of them small and specialised. A4e is delighted this news allows us to build on these important relationships to deliver our core purpose – improving people’s lives.” Michelle Manson, Managing Director at BEST, said: “I am absolutely thrilled that BEST has secured a Work Programme contract in West Yorkshire, as one of the smallest providers on the Framework we are particularly pleased with the outcome!” Kirsty McHugh, Chief Executive of ERSA, said: “ERSA welcomes the government’s early announcement of the successful Work Programme bidders and congratulates all those who have been successful in their bids. This is the culmination of a rapid and demanding procurement process, which has tested the mettle of private and voluntary sector providers alike.” What none of them will answer is how many redundancies we can anticipate within the sector as Primes prepare for delivery of the new programme on 1st June, 2011.

Work Programme bid results announced today

Later today we will probably hear who has won contracts to deliver the new government flagship welfare to work scheme, Work Programme. A lot depends on the result. Already a number of companies have placed their employees on redundancy notice in a pessimistic anticipation they will not succeed in winning any bids.

The contracting vehicle for the Work Programme, called the Framework Agreement, divided the Work Programme into eleven geographic ‘lots’, comprising England’s nine regions and Scotland and Wales.

DWP has said it expects around eight organisations - likely to be large services companies, such as Serco, A4e, CDG, G4S and Maximus - to be allocated to each ‘lot’. These prime contractors will then subcontract the Work Programme to smaller jobs brokers across their contract area as they see fit.

According to the DWP, bidders needed to be “larger organisations” that have the financial capacity to handle contracts of between £10 and £50m, as well as the necessary cash flow to finance contracts where funding is provided on the basis of results, as well as the “ability to deliver across the whole of a geographical lot”.

So why did these companies bid for this contract? Because the overall purse is worth no less than £5bn

According to reports, successful companies will earn anything up to £14,000 for each client they successfully place in paid employment.

Talk about money breeding money!

Now you would hope staff working in the sector would see some benefit from all of this. You would perhaps assume the personnel would be given good salaries, decent pensions, nice working accommodation, good holiday entitlements and a high standard of continuing professional education.

Unfortunately, this is far from the case. Take this advert offering a vacancy as a job broker for a salary of

“As well as having experience in supporting employers to recruit and develop unemployed individuals, you ideally should also have experience of working with those unemployed individuals to ensure a smooth transition from benefit to employment. You should have the ability to build relationships with key employers, as well as possess excellent negotiating and mentoring skills. You must have, or be willing to work towards NVQ Level 3 in Advice and Guidance.”

Now, by the time you add on employer contributions and the cost of a little in-house training, you can expect total labour costs for hiring this person to be approximately £26 -28,000. In other words, as long as they get two people a year into a job, they are paying their way.
The reality is that many of these staff are extremely talented and dedicated people who genuinely want to help those who are jobless. They didn’t come into the sector to earn big bucks – because the flashy salaries don’t exist for frontline workers. Nor did they join the welfare to work sector because of some kudos associated with their work.

As far as the media and a large part of the public are concerned, frontline staff are a ‘welfare police’ mandated with the task of forcing scroungers back to work. Thankfully, many of these frontline staff know better and accept that nearly everyone unemployed has been forced into that situation through a series of unfortunate circumstances. No-one wants to be jobless and I cannot imagine anyone being happy to remain on benefit for the rest of their life. Penury, which is what people experience when they are on the dole, is never pleasant.

Staff employed to help the jobless back to work often come from a background where they too were unemployed and forced onto a government scheme. Indeed, many of these programmes have proven useful pickings for welfare to work companies to find good staff they can cherry-pick and then train to help others.

Unfortunately, this training is often desperately inadequate. Clients referred to training providers often come to interviews with multi-various problems – debt, housing issues, relationship problems, childcare problems, health difficulties, psychological problems and, in some instances, a lack of education. Add to this the known psychological problems often associated with unemployment such as depression, low self esteem, anxiety, paranoia and alcohol or drug misuse and you have major casework issues.

Though the NVQ level 3 in advice and guidance is a credible qualification, it is wholly inadequate for the situation. Caseworkers dealing with those who are jobless need to be skilled in counselling techniques, motivational interviewing (with detailed knowledge of approaches adopted when using models such as those recommended by Prochaska and DiClemente) and cognitive behavioural intervention skills.

The vast majority of frontline workers would jump at the opportunity to learn new skills – because they care, but the management within these companies have, until now, been disinclined to invest significantly in appropriate training. So, the end product has been a mish mash of a welfare to work scheme resulting in only 8% of those referred securing full-time, permanent work. Ask any caseworker whether they think things to could be done better and all agree. Sadly at every step along the way they have been stopped by managers exclusively focussed on the profit motive rather than the welfare of either the staff member or his/ her client.

Sometime today companies will learn if their bid has been successful and for many it will mean trying to do the same job for less money. Already some companies have set up systems to ensure staff will only keep their job if they take less pay. For others it will mean redundancy. Already many are looking to a date in June when their employment will end. They do not expect the new contract to save their jobs. They will, of course have had 90-days to find another job, but with an entire sector in total disarray, finding a new employer will not be easy. We can expect to see many really talented people to leave the sector. They will be mourned by some, but soon forgotten by others.

I say to those affected – always remember these pages will always remember the service you have given this sector. You will not be forgotten and we will never forgive the fat cats and the profiteers in the welfare to work sector for the way they have treated you.

May your successes be great and your pleasures be many. You have given several years of your life to helping others and as such, you have left an indelible mark on this world. I ask all of you now facing redundancy – when you finally walk out the door – stand proud, for you truly were professionals.

For those of you who remain – it is time to bring about change. We cannot keep doing this to ourselves. Are we truly saying we are so impotent? Are we saying we are so under the thumb of the bosses that we can’t say no to future redundancies?

Of course not. When the dust settles and we know who has won contracts it will be time for those who are angry enough to introduce the trade unions into your work place. Once we have united staff under a common ban we can face management and make the welfare to work sector an industry to be proud to work in.

In the meantime, it will be a rather grotesque experience today watching the multinationals suck off the cream from British taxpayers’ money.

Piggies in the trough

Over the last two days I have examined some of the discrepancies between the higher paid elite in the welfare to work sector and the average frontline staff member. In this analysis I have been highly critical of some of the attitudes of these companies. Organisations that profit from government money that we originally gave through our taxes.

Indeed, there is a rather ludicrous cycle that occurs amongst those working in the sector where staff pay the taxes that pay for the contracts that give the providers the profits that give the directors the huge salaries, whilst either keeping them on very low incomes, or force them into redundancy. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not against anyone, individual or company, getting ahead and I am enough of a realist to recognise how companies need to make profits in order to survive.

Where I have a problem is when companies make substantial profits, pretend they are making losses and don’t pass on any of their gains onto the workforce. Without doubt, this argument can be thrown at the welfare to work sector.

Let’s take a few examples of some of the bigger companies:

A4e:
Annual turnover: £190,990,000.00
Annual profit: £9,877,000.00
Turnover per employee: £58,693.92
Profit per employee: £3,035.34

EAGA
Annual turnover: £762,179,000.00
Annual profit: £41,471,000.00
Turnover per employee: £162,719.68
Profit per employee: £8,853.76

PeopleServe
Annual turnover: £9,252,000.00
Annual profit: £1,672,000.00
Turnover per employee: £36,860.56
Profit per employee: £6,661.35

Working Links
Annual turnover: £85,737,000.00
Annual profit: £1,353,000.00
Turnover per employee: £66,617.72
Profit per employee: £1,051.2

Reed in Partnership
Annual turnover: £57,460,000.00
Annual profit: £-237,000.00
Turnover per employee: £82,439.02
Profit per employee: £-340.03
(Before you feel sorry for them, this year was far from typical and normally they make large profits)

Remploy
Annual turnover: £267,951,000.00
Annual profit: £9,543,000.00
Turnover per employee: £52,611.62
Profit per employee: £1,873.75

Shaw Trust
Annual profit: £5,424,000.00
Profit per employee: £2,125.39

Seetec
Founded in 1984, Seetec, based in Essex, has become one of the largest and most experienced providers of government-funded welfare to work and skills-training programmes. The company employs more than 500 people across a national network of 50 employment and training centres, and works with thousands of people each year to find work or gain qualifications through a diverse portfolio of employability or skills contracts. Last year, Seetec pulled in £21.2m in sales and profits of £2.112m. This enabled the company, which is 56 per cent owned by founder Peter Cooper, to pay total dividends of £990,608.

JHP
Founded in 1983, it operates a national network of 117 centres and also delivers training in employees’ workplaces. Under chief executive, Jim Chambers, profits grew 52% a year, from £4.4m in 2008 to £10.2m in 2010

Maximus
Its profits in the first nine months of 2010 shot up by 19.4 percent—to £131 million. And its top boss, Richard A Montoni, grabbed a pay package worth £2 million last year.
• CEO Richard A Montoni sold 10,000 shares of MMS stock on 07/15/2010 at the average price of £59.44
• CEO Richard A Montoni sold 5,233 shares of MMS stock on 08/11/2010 at the average price of $58.59.
• CEO Richard A Montoni sold 4,767 shares of MMS stock on 08/17/2010 at the average price of $58.06
• CEO Richard A Montoni sells 10,000 shares of MMS on 09/20/2010 at an average price of $58 a share.

As a result of these transactions, Montoni earned in excess of £4m over a 3-month period. Nice for some!

It is clear many companies in the sector are making huge profits from welfare to work contracts. Their justification for discarding hundreds of people now is obscene as many of them could have been redeployed in a couple of months under the new Work Programme. The only reason companies like A4e have chosen to make their NDDP and pathways to Work staff redundant is because they are too tight to pay a couple of months salary and see if these people could be reintegrated into the company under new contracts. They chose not to do this, favouring the ‘cheaper’ route of saving a few quid from not having to pay a couple of month’s salary.

It is an absolute disgrace and it will come back to bite them.

Staff working in the sector desperately need to unionise and protect their interests. They can no longer rely on the artificial bonhomie offered by senior management – as 1,500 staff now on redundancy notice can testify. If workers join trade unions they can be protected when the results of the Work Programme are announced. Some of these staff are likely to find themselves joining their colleagues on redundancy notice. They should not assume their employer will look after them – they will not – as many can confirm.

I call upon workers in the sector – join the trade unions. Mobilise to protect your jobs before it is too late.

Rich man, Poor man - the two face of Welfare to Work

Yesterday I talked about the 460 redundancies at A4e and today, I would like to continue along the same theme. You see, if all we were talking about were those jobs, it would be sad, but not a disaster. Regrettably, the position is far, far worse.

In a recent survey of training providers, ERSA (the trade association for all providers working in the welfare to work sector) identified that amongst a third surveyed there were 1,500 anticipated job losses as a result of the closure of Pathways to Work and New Deal programmes. Now, this was only the amount identified from those who responded to the survey. If you add to this the number from those who failed to respond, then conservatively you could easily be looking at over 2,000 redundancies within the sector.

But even this is not the end. In a few weeks, DWP will announce who has been successful in bidding for delivery of the Work Programme. Over the days that follow, those selected primes will advise subcontractors of the extent of delivery they will be offered and in which regions. Logically, not everyone will be successful and though more optimistic forecasts predict most frontline staff will be absorbed into the new delivery companies, this seems far from reality.

The hard facts are that due to the funding arrangements, companies will be forced to keep costs to a minimum. Add to this the fact that transition to a new programme is always slow and you compound the problem. Take Flexible New Deal as a previous example – many anticipated a large flow of referrals from Jobcentre Plus right from the start, but the reality was that it took over six months for numbers to even approach expected targets. For some weeks many staff were ‘hanging around’ waiting for the work to come in.

This time round, companies will be less inclined to make the same mistakes.

Many frontline staff will thankfully be subject to TUPE arrangements and, as a result, will find themselves transferred over to new deliverers. But what about those currently employed as administrators, HR staff, training teams, health and safety personnel, cleaning and maintenance departments, business development teams and, in some instances, employer engagement teams? All these people will find themselves vulnerable, especially if the new prime is already established in that area and has an existing solid infrastructure within the region.

If only 35 companies found themselves without any work as a result of the new contract, and these organisations were forced to ‘let go’ of 15 staff, this would add another 500 people to the overall seepage in the sector – and making a total of over 2,500 job losses in just over 3 months.

There is a clear divide in the Welfare to Work sector. You seldom if ever see any senior management volunteering to be the first to accept redundancy when the axe falls, it is always the grunt, the oik who has to graft whilst ‘management’ squeeze out more money for their advantage. It is seldom the managing director who says to his workforce “It’s not fair and as a gesture I will be the first to leave this company – see you on the dole queue!”

Today, Will Hutton reported on Fairer Pay and in line with some of his “recommendations” I am publishing some of the pay differentials between directors and frontline workers. Take a look at the following. In 2009, Reed in Partnership paid out £844,00 in director’s remuneration, with the highest paid director earning £238,000 – an increase of 40.83% over the last four years. Or EAGA, whose directors earned a massive £1,538, 000 (an increase of over 68%) over the last 7 years – and the salary of their highest paid director? Would you believe a meagre £457,000 – an increase of (wait for it) over 96% over the last 7 years. Or, how about Working Links, where their directors have earned a mighty £354,000 (an increase of 139% over 6 years) and their highest paid director earned £222,000.

Compare this with PeopleServe, where the last recorded average salary for employees (2009 figures) was £16,338.65. Now accepted PeopleServe are low payers, so let’s look at Working Links again – their average wage is about £25,941, a big differential between the two companies. In the latter case, staff at Working Links might like to reflect on the size of any pay rise they had over the last two years, because the highest paid director in that company allowed himself an enormous 20% increase.

G4S is a widely known public limited company with interests in a variety of sectors, including welfare to work. Last year, its 23 directors enjoyed the rewards of the company’s success by enjoying £4,460,000 between them.. Their highest paid director earned a staggering £1,656,000 … and the average salary within the company? Would you believe - £6,846.62!!!

How about Pertemps? Their directors shared out £415,000 between the 15 of them and their highest paid director earned £289,000. Meanwhile the average pay of a member of staff was £26,631,64.

If you aren’t angry by now, let’s go back to those 460 staff at A4e who are now on redundancy notice. The 15 directors of that company shared £2,128,000 between them last year, an increase overt the last 7 years of over 189.52%. Their highest paid director earned £640,000, but we should feel sorry for them, because during the same period, their salary only went up 99.38%. Unsurprisingly, the average salry of a member of staff within the company is not in the public domain, but you can bet their income hasn’t gone up as much during the same period!!!

I could bore you with many more figures. Suffice to say, there is a division between the experience of frontline staff, who are paid poorly for a highly stressful job and face the risk of redundancy every five years and the directors who manage them, most of whom have been sneakily sucking off all the cream from the milk for years.

It is time the sector started to clean up its act. It is run by ‘fat cats’ who, despite their feeble protestations, only want to feather their own nests and do not care about the thousands who, in a few weeks time, will face redundancy. Remember that patronising letter to A4e staff yesterday? It does the sector no good when directors, earning such huge salaries rely on the devotion staff have to their jobs whilst they fleece they system to fill their greedy pockets.

It is a disgrace and it is time employees in the sector started to vocalize their anger.

The rich get richer as more redundancies fall

Recently, disturbing information fell into my hands informing me of a training provider who is intending to bring about a mass redundancy programme to their workforce. Over the years, A4e has become one of the leading welfare to work companies in the UK and prior to the introduction of the Work Programme, Emma Harrison, its founder was looking forward to this £100m company said she was "proud that the company has sustained pure organic growth at a phenomenal rate" and forecast an increase in profits to a £500 million turnover by 2014.

However, this will not save the 460 frontline staff who will shortly go onto redundancy notice. In a letter to affected personnel, Executive Director Nigel Lemmon wrote:

Colleagues, We know that we have a caring, driven and passionate team. We have a team that has helped us to develop our business over the years and we have ambitious plans to continue that growth. However, we currently face a very difficult situation with some existing Welfare to Work contracts formally ending before the new Work Programme begins. This is far from ideal. We passionately want to do the right thing for our employees and our customers, but on this occasion we have had to start the formal process of collective redundancy consultations with all our New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) and our Pathways to Work employees. This decision has not been taken lightly, we have thought long and hard about the options available to us, but regrettably have had to start this process. Whilst some providers have already started these consultations, we made the decision to wait until we had received final confirmation from DWP, ensuring that we could retain our excellent team throughout this period and well past the time that we would have clarity around the Work Programme contracts. Our focus in the coming weeks will be on securing the best possible outcome for our employees and our customers. We want the best team, we know we have got great people and your skills will be vital to the delivery of our own Work Programme and those where we hope to secure subcontractor work. We will do everything possible to secure opportunities for our team going forward. However, you will be aware that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) only last week advised us that the contracts to deliver New Deal for Disabled People and Pathways to Work will not be extended beyond 31st March 2011 and 27th April (Pathways to Work Phase 2) and that a new initiative will be offered to customers by Jobcentre Plus from 1st April until the Work Programme starts. Since we were notified last week, we have been working extremely hard to challenge this position with DWP. However, senior DWP representatives have now confirmed that it is their view that TUPE (the regulations that allow for the transfer of employees from one provider to another) does not apply, either to Jobcentre Plus when the new service starts on 1st April, or to other service providers when the Work Programme goes live (between 1st June and 31st July). This is hugely disappointing and we have now had to take the decision to start formal collective redundancy consultations. This decision only affects our New Deal for Disabled People and Pathways to Work employees. Once we have been informed of the outcome of our Work Programme bids for prime and sub-contracts, we will be able to understand the wider implications across the rest of our Welfare Division. We will continue to provide you with information as and when it becomes available By starting a lengthy 90 day redundancy consultation process, we have been able to secure your colleagues employment with A4e for the next three months. Our commitment and investment reflects our passion to support our team as much as possible and the enormous value and trust we place our team. It is our absolute intention to get the best outcomes for our people and our customers and have the best team going forward. This arrangement will take us into June and importantly, well after the Work Programme contract award announcements. This approach will give us the greatest opportunities once we know where we will be delivering the Work Programme going forward. We know that A4e has the best teams in the industry with extraordinary employees. It is as a result of the friendly and caring service that you have delivered to customers over the years that has enabled us to build A4e into what it is today. I know that we will continue to live our by DNA and to passionately provide excellent service to customers. If you have any queries regarding this announcement or the process, please speak to you manager in person, the HR Shared Services Team by telephone on *************** and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Nigel Lemmon

By implication, the letter implies some kind of genuine care for its workforces, but let’s face it – a redundancy consultation period is seldom a time to renegotiate your job. These people will almost certainly find themselves unemployed within the next few weeks, unless by some stroke of good fortune they are able to find alternate employment. Most will not be so lucky and will be forced to ‘sign on’ and claim Jobseekers Allowance. In the meantime, Emma Harrison can sit in her luxury home, swanning around with her friend, Citizen Dave, the people’s toff. They are a pair well met. Harrison, like Cameron is also a millionaire, with a personal wealth estimated at £40m – not much chance Emma will be joining her colleagues on the dole then.

Interestingly, if you go to the "MyA4e" website, you will see that Emma Harrison gave Anna Gaunt the opportunity of a 12-month secondment as her assistant. prior to this, Anna had been an employment advisor on their NDDP contract. It rather begs the question of whether has a job to go to once her placement expires. For her sake, I hope she has the chance of redeployment within the company, but the promotion of this posting on their website remains a rather fine example of Emma's team shooting her in the foot.

Now, is it just me, or are there others out there who find it pretty obscene that Some people have profited from welfare to work programmes, whilst other, like the 460 at A4e are cast aside when they have served their usefulness. Because the new programme to be implemented by Jobcentre Plus is so different from Pathways to Work and New Deal for Disabled People, these folk will not be TUPE’d over to the new programme.

Over the coming weeks, as announcements are made on who are the ‘winners’ of contracts for the Work Programme, more will follow. Soon we can expect those hundreds will turn into thousands as companies ‘rationalise’ or even close.

It is a disgrace that workers who have given years to supporting unemployed people back into work should now find themselves in a position where they also face joblessness. The shame is not exclusive to A4e – other companies have profited equally well. Seetec has become one of the largest and most experienced providers of government-funded welfare to work and skills-training programmes. The company employs more than 500 people across a national network of 50 employment and training centres, and helps thousands of people each year to find work or gain qualifications through a diverse portfolio of employability or skills contracts. Last year, Seetec pulled in £21.2m in sales and profits of £2.112m. This enabled the company, which is 56 per cent owned by founder Peter Cooper, to pay total dividends of £990,608.

Or take the example of Maximus, profits in the first nine months of 2010 shot up by 19.4 percent—to £131 million. And its top boss, Richard A Montoni, grabbed a pay package worth £2 million last year.

Perhaps instead of paying out such vast dividends to a selected bunch of money-grabbing shareholders, the company should have been establishing a welfare programme to support these workers if and when contracts come to an end. But of course that is hardly an option for these commercial giants – since when does capitalism look after the working class?

A future for the unemployed

Last week George Osborne cut £535m from the Department of Work and Pensions budget at a time when currently 2.51m (542,000 of these are classified as having been long-term unemployed) people are registered as unemployed and a further 8.16m people identified as inactive. Furthermore, Ian Duncan Smith has indicated that 2.6m people currently in receipt of Incapacity Benefit will be reassessed and those available for work will be transferred onto Jobseeker’s Allowance. He estimates that approximately 50% of these people will be added to the overall unemployment figures. Thus with 3 weeks of being in government the Con-Dems have managed to ensure we will have 12m people out of work, with possibly a further half a million to follow as the cuts start to take effect on public services.
Additionally, it is now known that 7.67m people are currently employed on a part-time basis, many of whom opt for this type of work because they are unable to secure full-time employment. The government, for its part, welcomes people taking this approach as it helps keep unemployment below 8% (Source: Office of Labour Market Statistics).
The Con-Dem approach to tackling unemployment remains vague and tomorrow, Chris Grayling, the Minister of State at DWP will meet with private training providers such as Serco (infamous for their running of Yarls Wood immigration detention centre) and A4e to outline how any new programme might work. We already know it is their intention to scrap all existing welfare to work programmes, such as Flexible New Deal, Future Jobs Fund, Pathways to Work and Flexible Routeways. We also know these will be replaced by the Tory flagship provision – Work Programme.
The only clear issue is that the funding arrangements for the new provision will differ substantially from all previously run contracts. According to plans already outlined, training providers will only be paid when someone has been in a sustainable job for 12 months. The existing mechanism allows for a training provider to claim a small service fee in order to cover costs and the balance paid once a person has been in employment for 3 or 6 months (depending on the contract). This will change under new measures and will be replaced by a mechanism where providers will generally only receive a payment when the ‘client’ has been in employment for a year – an approach that will clearly mean smaller providers and third sector organisations will be unable to bid for these lucrative contracts. The effect of this will be that local organisations who have an intimate knowledge of their area and the needs of the communities they serve will be substantially ‘disenfranchised’ because of Tory commitment to centralising services and their fascination with ‘big is beautiful’.
The government rationale for the Work Programme is that it will be cost effective to contract independent training providers to deliver this provision. However, the government seem to have failed to recognise a key flaw in their strategy. The total number of job vacancies for the period February – April, 2010 was 475,000, whilst the number of jobless people potentially seeking work for the same period was approximately 11m. Whichever way you look at it, the figures don’t add up. Understandably the Tories and their lap dogs, the Liberal Democrats, have been hesitant to suggest how training providers will be expected to create jobs.
In order to tackle unemployment in this country it is critical a number of key issues are addressed:
• First we need to create a substantial house building strategy to tackle the critical need for homes in the UK and address the high level of unemployment amongst those working in the ‘trowel trades’. This would include the creation of 1m new homes each year for 5 years and would be under the auspices of local authorities through social housing trusts and would offer employment to approximately 750,000 people.
• Introduce a series of programmes to tackle the high level of unemployment amongst young people – including restoring the Future Jobs Fund and introducing a significant apprenticeship programme in order to offer 250,000 new apprenticeships – automatically cutting youth unemployment by a third.
• Nationalisation the banking and finance industry in order that profits from these companies can be used to rebuild our industrial base. Further savings could be achieved by scrapping the Trident programme and reinvesting the money saved into local business initiatives.
• Renationalisation of the rail and postal system to protect existing jobs and rebuild our transport infrastructure. This would include a massive investment in improving our rail network
• Through the creation of worker-owned co-operatives and other common ownership programmes, establish a coherent industrial policy to support the establishment of a competitive and technologically advanced engineering industry in the UK. We were once one of the foremost industrial nations and this was allowed to slip into decline under Thatcher, Major and later by Blair.
• Develop ecologically friendly energy sources – wind farms, wave, solar etc. These new technologies would help establish many new jobs and add to the wealth of local communities.

This approach, whilst openly and unapologetically socialist in its emphasis, would tackle head on the issue of rising unemployment. Of course, critics would argue we can’t afford it right now because our national debt is so high, but in 1945 our debt was 216% of GDP compared to 51% today and a post-war Labour government initiated polices that by 1951 had created full employment.

If we could do it then – we can do it again!