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voluntary sector involvement in work programme
Inclusion and the Third Sector European Network (TSEN) are conducting a survey to find out the extent to which the local voluntary sector in England has been included in Work Programme bids.
Inclusion says that the government has signalled strongly to prime providers that it expects them to involve the voluntary sector in delivering the Work Programme, especially at a local and community level, and the survey’s results will illustrate whether this expectation has been met.
Closing date 25 March 2011.
For more information see -
http://www.cesi.org.uk/NewPolicy/news/work_programme_voluntary_sector_TSEN_survey
Polly Toynbee in the Guardian on the Work Programme contractors announced last week is particularly good in my opinion.
Last week the government announced who had won contracts for the work programme: there was shock when, out of 40 contracts worth between £3bn and £5bn, only two went to not-for-profit groups. Not so much “big society” as big Serco. The biggest winner – and a surprise – was Ingeus Deloitte, which won seven huge contracts amid acid observation that its CEO was a former director at the Department for Work and Pensions. Concern was expressed that Ingeus had underbid more experienced providers: price was a clinching factor in the official scoring system, whereas bizarrely previous performance was not scored at all.
The greatly disappointed voluntary sector will be relegated to sub-contracting. The big companies will hand down their difficult cases, such as addicts, ex-prisoners or the mentally ill – creaming 20%-30% off the top in “management fees”. The Glasgow-based Wise Group, whose board I was on until recently, is a leading not-for-profit organisation, and was shocked to win no contract and see Scotland go to Ingeus Deloitte despite a lower success rate. Wise is the sixth most successful in the UK for the flexible new deal and top for finding people work in the new deal for the disabled. It’s about as big society as they come. Why didn’t it win? Possibly because it wouldn’t and couldn’t discount too steeply: the voluntary sector can’t gamble and borrow as large companies can.
Among the winners is A4E (Action for Employment) – hardly surprising as its founder, Emma Harrison CBE, was named by David Cameron as his workless families tsar. As the Observer revealed, she and her husband have a joint income of some £1.4m from their welfare-to-work empire. While any public sector chief executive earning over the prime minister’s £140,000 is ritually slaughtered by Eric Pickles, not a word is said about private sector chiefs making a killing out of public contracts. Serco’s CEO had an 18% rise to £1.86m.
The government’s Work Programme has been described as a “travesty for the big society” by Martin Sime, chief executive of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations.
Sime’s criticism came after a summit on the new welfare-to-work programme in Edinburgh yesterday, attended by Chris Grayling, the employment minister, Michael Moore, the Scottish secretary, and representatives of voluntary and private sector organisations.
Ingeus and Working Links, the two private companies awarded prime contracts in Scotland, have proposed giving only 8 per cent and 6 per cent respectively of work down the supply chain to the voluntary sector, the SCVO said.
“This whole process has been a travesty for the big society,” said Sime. “But at least we now know what the big society really means. It means the third sector gets the crumbs off the table left by big business.”
Work Programme a travesty, says SCVO chief executive - Third Sector (you may need to register to view the article)
Labour MP John Robertson has written today to the Prime Minister and the Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office, Sir Gus O’Donnell, concerning seven potential breaches of the ministerial code by employment minister Chris Grayling. The possible breaches relate to his involvement in the awarding of new contracts to the DWP’s “Work programme”.
The organisation winning the most contracts was Deloitte Ingeus, who received a maximum seven of the 40 contracts on offer in 18 regions of the UK, one of which was Glasgow at the expense of a local charity, the Wise Group. Deloitte, which owns 50% of the Deloitte Ingeus company, donated over £27,000 in kind to the office of Chris Grayling in October 2009, whilst he was shadow secretary of state for the DWP.
Minister faces calls for sleaze probe over donation - LabourList
From e-politix yesterday:
At Scotland questions today John Robertson (Lab, Glasgow NW) claimed Grayling, the employment minister, broke the code when he awarded contracts for the Work programme in Scotland.
Scotland secretary Michael Moore said Graying “absolutely refutes” the charge. “As with any other instance in which people think something inappropriate is happening, there are appropriate channels through which it can be pursued,” he told MPs.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (SNP, Banff and Buchan) said there is “unease” about the tendering process for the programme - the target of 30 per cent of subcontracts going to the voluntary sector has been missed.
“The successful bids commit to a mere 8 per cent and 6 per cent voluntary sector delivery respectively,” she said.
One of the key ambitions behind the Work Programme is to create a structure in which voluntary sector groups can be enlisted to provide specialist support to the hardest to help customers. This support is now in doubt with so many groups in London and elsewhere having missed out on subcontracts (or having secured fewer subcontracts than expected) and several high-performing voluntary groups having declined to accept subcontracting deals from primes because the prices and volumes offered were unsustainably low.
LVSC’s employment and skills policy officer Steve Kerr explains the voluntary sector’s concerns with the new government Work Programme
The Work Programme: massive boost for the ‘big society’ or crumbs off the table?
Third Sector are reporting that employment minister Chris Grayling has denied that prime contractors of the government’s Work Programme have used voluntary organisations as “bid candy” to win contracts.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Employment Relayed Services Association, which represents organisations providing welfare-to-work services, Grayling said there had been lots of “chatter” and “mumblings and mutterings” about the supply chain.
But he said: “There is no evidence that any prime has been treating its specialist sub-contractors as bid candy.”
Grayling acknowledged not everything had gone according to the textbook – for instance, some specialist providers were receiving fewer referrals than expected of people on Employment and Support Allowance – but said overall the programme was running well.
Chris Grayling denies Work Programme charities are ‘bid candy’
Third Sector report that several charities are considering pulling out of the Work Programme over the next year, amid concerns about the state of the labour market and the design of the scheme. At a round-table discussion held in the Houses of Parliament yesterday, hosted by Gareth Thomas, the shadow civil society minister, and Stephen Timms, the shadow employment minister, charities working in a range of areas said they were worried they would not be able to find sustainable work for the unemployed people who were being referred to them under the programme.
Kirsty Palmer, chief executive of Volunteer Centre Chelsea and Kensington, a Work Programme subcontractor in west London, said at the event: “We are taking a risk on this programme. If in a year’s time it doesn’t work, we will pull out.” Palmer said the government should review the programme so that it rewarded providers for supporting those who were furthest from being work-ready. “If the programme is not reviewed, we are going to see a terrible consequence,” she said. “People at the bottom, who need the most help, will fall out of the system.”
Palmer told Third Sector the charity could be forced to run the programme at a loss because there were few jobs available and the charity would be paid for its work with unemployed people only if those people found jobs during the 18 weeks in which it worked with them. “If they find work a week later as a result of their volunteering with us, the payment will go to our prime contractor,” she said.
Two other charities, speaking at the event on the condition of anonymity, said they were considering pulling out of the programme for similar reasons.
Third Sector articles on Work Programme contracts with charities which say they mustn’t do anything that ‘may attract adverse publicity’ and that they mustn’t make press announcements without prior approval from DWP -