Ha, this week one of the headlines that I loved reading about was the abject failure of the Government's Welfare to Work Programme. The results that have just been reported are abysmal.
So lets set the scene the aim of the Government Work Programme is for 18 Government prime contractors who won contracts to get the long term unemployed back to work and the aim is that they are paid based on outcomes which is placing someone and them sticking to that job for 6 months. In principal not a bad idea but to be honest the way it's been executed has been crap.
So these 18 contractors, mainly private sector, would have gone through hoops as any company does bidding for Government contracts and therefore would do everything possibe to claw back bid costs and also to maximise the amount of profits that they can make from the contract. So far so business like.
£435m and Counting
Yes, that is really how much the Government has spent on this rubbish scheme so far. What a waste of money. When I was unemployed many of the things that the Government provided were inadequate, they didn't understand what I did or what I wanted to do. It was all a tick box exercise and trying to shoe me into a shite job so that I'm no longer an unemployment statistic and on the DWP's book. The type of support that would have been of value was never offered to me and I learnt all the latest skills for job hunting from a career coach paid for by an employer when I was made redundant. Such valuable lessons and the things I've learnt I have passed onto others that I know as no one teaches people how to job hunt properly. A competitve market means you must up your game.
Only 1 in 28
Only one in 28 actually met the target of getting and keeping a job for 6 months. Even in a recession that is woeful. Many charities and non profits didn't win these prime contractor contracts, as usual they were bundled into large contracts that were far too big for them. But the Government had envisaged that the prime contractors would subcontract to these organisations and draw on their localised knowledge and success in placing unemployed people. Did the happen? Nah of course it didn't. Instead some of these non profits were signed up but recevied no referrals from the prime contractors - well really why would you dilute the amount of profits that you ultimately can make regardless of how woeful some of these main companies were at working with the unemployed.
Doomed to Fail
These private companies just do not care and it's telling that non profits who receive no Government funding and operate in local areas have far higher successful outcomes. These types of organisations know the locals, know the employers in the locality and give practical advice that really helps the unemployed. We need people that really care and can provide the long term unemployed with practical advice and opportunities. Not private sector companies chasing those who can give them the quickest payback and the easy wins - although they've not even really managed that.
I did want to be sympathetic to the government - new systems often start out worse than the ones they're replacing. But net unemployment is dropping. The Work Programme is bankrupting charities who were doing good work. And if the economy is performing poorly--which is the coalition's excuse for failure--then that was their fault, too. They have nowhere to hide; the Work Programme is a failure.
ReplyDeleteBTW Did you you see this? In one month there were 6000 fake job ads on the government's new website...
And I'm sure you were promising us some juicy stories about your old boss?