Welfare to Work: Overpaid, Overcrowded and Out of touch!

Posted on June 19th, 2010.

Post Categories: Action 4 Employment • DWP • Flexible New Deal • TNG • Training Network Group • a4e
Tags: Alex Pollock, Avanta, Flexible New Deal, Rob Murdoch, welfare to work

Flexible New Deal providers are greatly overpaid, overcrowded and out of touch with reality.

The 5 year contracts:- terminated to solely 18 months; where providers were paid top heavy service fees, resulted in rather unrequired investment almost upfront to deliver the contracts over the longer period.

As the contract is now being scrapped this has allowed a surge of cash flowing into the pockets of the providers and Flexible New Deal scandal is aware of numerous complaints from claimants including from the likes of A4e, TNG, Working Links and YMCA Training to name a few solely in the phase 1 area.

Flexible New Deal Providers are also very much out of touch with the labour market…

Quoting two directors of two major players in the welfare to work industry: A4e and Avanta TNG, from a Telegraph article online it is clear neither have any idea about unemployment at all:

Rob Murdoch, an Executive Director of A4e is quoted saying:

Traditionally fresh jobseekers and the long-term unemployed are not the same groups of people going for the same jobs. But as we’ve seen graduates are prepared to lower their salary levels, to about £14,000 or £15,000 a year, just to get a foot in the door, and that’s when they start competing with the long-term unemployed.

I don’t know where to begin with how wrong and out of touch that statement is:

• A “fresh jobseeker” is defined as a uni graduate – and doesn’t include school and college leavers who have more likely been A4e biggest customer under New Deal.
• A jobseeker is a jobseeker. Where I am, someone who leaves school, someone who leaves college and someone who is claiming jobseekers allowance (not like you have a choice what to apply for as such) are all going for similar jobs!
• Only university graduates were more ambitious with the jobs (and internships) they were seeking although even before the credit crunch many years ago these uni students and graduates were seeking jobs in unskilled areas of retail to pay off their debt.
• How many long-term unemployed people net a job with an annual salary of £14,000 or £15,000? Most of A4e’s clients were forced into unsuitable zero hour contract jobs at national minimum wage – which even today is only £12,064 for a 40 hour working week every week of the year – obviously tax and NI is to be deducted from that. Obviously such contracts wont last a year and be for so many hours.
• Graduates always applied for same jobs as the typical jobseeker – the difference is they used this as a confidence boost and after getting interviews and job offers, they declined, rarely accepting, and when they did was solely until something better comes up.

Alex Pollock, an Director at Avanta (parent company to TNG) is quoted saying:

[the long-term jobless and first-time applicants had different qualities from an employer’s point of view. The long-term unemployed tended to have more work experience, even if they had lost their confidence from being out of the labour market, while fresh graduates or college leavers were more confident in expressing ambition.]

The article continued with:

Mr Pollock agreed that pre-recession, the long-term unemployed were not directly competing with college leavers for jobs, but admitted employers now had a lot of choice.

This is absolutely bullshit:-

• College leavers always entered the job market at the same level although they additionally applied for posts they were greater qualified/suited for. Only a small percentage would apply solely for the latter and find it difficult to get such a  job so soon. Obviously depends on the location as to available job numbers.
• Locally to me employers such as ASDA, B&Q, Wilkinsons and Tesco always picked those in college studying and favoured college and uni leaver candidates for their job vacancies

Comments welcome!

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5 Responses to “Welfare to Work: Overpaid, Overcrowded and Out of touch!”

1. 1

   

   ken says:
   

   June 20th 2010 at 12:25 pm  

   “The long-term unemployed tended to have more work experience, even if they had lost their confidence”

   on the other hand these branded welfare scroungers? or is because of illegal ageism this is not elaborated on.

   http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/ResolvingWorkplaceDisputes/DiscriminationAtWork/DG_10026429?

   the numbers applying for vacancies is measured often in the hundreds’ shoving individuals onto these private companies are a waste of time,users have no confidence in them,they are subjected to mistreatment and childish behaviour of these companies employees who are looking for trouble and blame the individual on hearsay from interviews they attend basically “nagging” ignoring the facts’ on third party say so why they were turned down.

   these companies are not keen on publicity this could be said with good reason because of their justification and business practices,much of this has been gone into before however it becomes apparent when the paper cranes and bridges are being constructed what this is all about and all is not right, more at place in a childrens’ nursery then an adult wholly environment,if this is supposed to build confidence there is obviously something wrong.the treatment is you are looked on as a child in tone “he’s out of work he must be stupid” condescending attitude.
   certainly this was my experience, however there does appear others including the infamous easter egg fiasco which contained an application form and brought public outcry.
   the same public whose money is being ploughed into this stupidity,perhaps the whole idea should come under budget scrutiny.

   on top of this is those harassed from incapacity benefit those whose nerves are completely shattered treated with suspicion as being welfare scroungers’ confidence?.the system of sickness benefits was completely abused by the job centre for many years as dealing with unemployment figures forcing people to claim for often trival reasons such as a likely hood of not finding employment.
   i have had it said to me in the past “if people are not going to find work we place them on another benefit” this was not elaborated on but it was suggested to me more then once to “sign on sick” by both the providers and the job centre.

   long term joblessness causes great psychological problems’ that are not easily overcome,yes confidence is one of those but to discard people in great numbers but many years later blame them for being scroungers is both two faced and completely unacceptable it demonstrates a complete failure in dealing with unemployment and highlights how these policies have backfired.they are totally inept and clueless.

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2. 2

   

   Flexible New Deal says:
   

   June 20th 2010 at 1:14 pm  

   The problem is (although its not as bad as in the USA) employers have too much powers and there is no real regulatory body that exists to challenge this. Crafty contracts and wildcard terms. For example it is rare not to have a job description which includes a comment along the lines of “…other duties from time to time…” so a job description is never exhaustive and in many cases doesnt even make up the employment contract. Many employees have a copy of the contract but not the job description.

   Discrimination is illegal for jobs – we know that. Its either civil action in court or a tribunal though and there are limitations regarding tribunals. Tribunal and courts need to be left for disputes and certain cases, whereas the rest should be dealt with an independent body. There is no cap to duration of a probationary period which allows the employer to sack you without reason meaning unfair dismissal isn’t applicable. Most of the time employers win the right to change the contract to halt a pay rise or reduce it or any other element of it. Most employers even for part time jobs require you to have their permission to get another job that doesnt interfere with your existing one. They can give you overtime without paying you any additional money to your contractual hours which sucks if you are NMW.

   You can rarely have the ultimate authority to when you want to take your holiday requiring your bosses permission and if you work in retail etc. could be denied if someone else chooses the same days. Most employers will issue you with an single item of uniform (such as t-shirt) for a silly period of 6 months or so, requesting you to buy any additional uniform out of your own money. You can be sacked for any activity you do outside work regardless if its within the law. Contracts can be zero hour, rolling and even implied/verbal so you have no evidence of its content. Most companies expect you to arrive early (and if so begin work before you are paid) and stay for approx 15 minutes unpaid at the end of the day. Most employers these days (who focus on part time workers and give overtime) wont give beyond 3.5-4.0 hours at a time to avoid having to give a break. (15 mins or so is not too much to ask right?) Some employers deduct wages for poor performance (illegal if the days earnings per hour is below NMW). Millions of people are even paid below NMW. I could go on.. lol
   .-= *** Last post: Work for Your Benefit (WfYB) provider announced tomorrow *** =-.

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3. 3

   

   ken says:
   

   June 20th 2010 at 1:52 pm  

   this is not sustainable employment its hire and fire and is open to total abuse although no one will acknowledge this,a manager told me some time ago “we have had temporary staff in here for two years that’s a little long” some are all to willing to exploit these terms.the government are putting statements out contradicting what conditions/working laws’ they have created.

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4. 4

   

   Kyron says:
   

   June 20th 2010 at 2:28 pm  

   I completely agree with ou on these statements they are so far out of touch it is unbeleivable.

   YTo top it of I haven’t had my benefit for the last two weeks I should of been paid thursday. I haven’t is this a typical thing ?

   I intend on complaining tomorrow as I wonder what the hell has gone on. I Signed on As Normal and Haven’t received a thing or wasn’t told a thing. I wonde if the sneaky bastards have sanctioned me or something for causing them too much paperwork.

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   • 5

     

     ken says:
     

     June 21st 2010 at 1:11 pm  

     it would not be surprising if this starts happening on a large scale,people i have spoken to in the past have been sanctioned without any notification,this is a nasty cheap underhanded tactic which denies the “customer” the right to a speedy resolution.

     its a total falsity to attempt to justify cuts while spending huge sums on wasteful jobless programs’ the huge sums pumped into the dismal failure new deal, and then is set to be dumped in favor of another attempt at propping up a string of failed programs by introducing the hugely bureaucratic workfare,this appears to be another badly thought out exercise,once the costs are evaluated and reality sets in cuts are a real prospect,health and safety/suitability/clothing expenses/and the costs of having to train and monitor people soon all add up,with no financial return.these programs do nothing to create employment to enable those to live an independent life instead another merry go round develops,leaving no one better off and back at the beginning.and the tax payer with another huge bill with no justification.

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