Princess Emma and the ‘£’s Under her Mattress.
The news that the Coalition is to tackle ‘welfare dependency’ via a ‘payments by results’ programme puts Princess Emma firmly back in the spotlight.
‘We will pay organisations by results’ announced Chris Grayling.
What exactly does that mean, and where does Princess Emma fit into it? Princess Emma’s background can be read HERE and HERE and HERE. She specialises in relieving the government of four figure sums for getting the unemployed back into work.
Since the coalition came into power, that has meant a tad more than occupying them with yoghourt pots and sticky tape, and then getting them to take up some form of employment for a couple of weeks. These days the person formerly known as ‘unemployable’ actually has to stick at the job for two years before Princess Emma gets paid. However, the fee has shot up from around £1,500 per client to a stonking £14,000.
Since this will ultimately net the taxpayer circa £60,000 in unpaid benefits, you might think this is a bargain price – but is the fee going to the right person?
Let us imagine, for arguments sake, that Emma secures a job for a client at a small local garage – general handyman, floor sweeper, tea maker, with occasional forays to get spare parts.
Getting the person formerly known as ‘Mr Unemployed’ to apply for the job in the first place could have been achieved by means of threatening to withdraw his benefits if he didn’t, via the job centre – already government funded.
Perhaps we could charitably assume that Mr Unemployed has mental health problems, or suffers from some disability? In which case, Emma and her yoghourt pots might hold some value, and the original £1,500 for bolstering that person’s confidence could turn out to be good value for money.
What of the remaining £12,500 though? It is dependant on Mr Unemployed continuing to have the right degree of confidence to get up every morning, arrive on time, and do all the jobs expected of him to be worth his wages to our local garage owner for two years.
Who will be shouldering the burden for that? Who will be saying ‘well done’ to Mr Unemployed when he finally finishes sweeping the floor? Who will be nipping round to his house to find out what is wrong when he fails to turn up to work? Who will be saying ‘are you coming for a drink with the lads’ on a Friday night to make our insecure Mr Unemployed feel included, that maybe work has its fun side too? Who will be gritting his teeth and saying ‘don’t worry about it’ when Mr Unemployed manages to sweep up the essential last nut for the gearbox into the rubbish bin – mustn’t dent his confidence, must we?
It seems to me that the person who will shoulder the burden of convincing Mr Unemployed of the benefits of long term employment is going to be that small garage owner. Why then, when he has successfully converted our unwilling friend into the ranks of the usefully employed, will it be Princess Emma who gets the bonus?
Wouldn’t it have been more helpful all round, and a damn sight fairer, if the bounty of £12,500 was offered to small businesses who took on the burden of someone who has spent half a life time lying in bed, and turned them into useful members of society two years later – they need the money far more than our favourite multi-millionairess, and if they are successful, they deserve it far more.
Emma’s A4E business is a success story that is looking to expand exponentially. Recently they announced their intention to develop a fund – a private bank in effect – to make loans to the long term unemployed.
Developing a fund with finance partners from which the people we work with who start their own business, or a social enterprise, can secure capital to help them get going. Access to capital and microcredit/finance is more important than ever in the current economic climate and self-employment or business start up is really important.
Interesting – they loan say £5,000 to a long term unemployed client. Said client makes a success of his business for two years – A4E get their £14,000 success fee, and the client still has to repay them the £5,000.
Perhaps the business is not a success? A4E have that eventuality covered too.
Extending and joining up our services to provide debt advice and support to people in financial difficulty. We currently deal with over 60,000 people per annum across a range of our services – from legal aid to welfare – and we anticipate this increasing, towards 150,000 over the next 12 months.
A4E get paid for helping them to ‘manage’ their debt.
Their ambition doesn’t stop there.
We want to join up as many services as possible. We deal with around 400,000 consumers per year at the moment. Most of them are either out of work or on low incomes. They access a range of public services from multiple agencies and we contract with nearly 40 different organisations to deliver these services. We can provide better, joined up services at more marginal cost by bringing some of these activities together.
A4E will end up being the new Social Services at this rate…..
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April 5, 2011 at 06:53 -
Words fail me…
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April 5, 2011 at 08:43 -
Of course Emma’s £14,000 doesn’t all end up in Emma’s bank. Much of the money will go to Emma’s caring and hardworking sub-contractors (one one which I worked for up to Christmas). And the contract will expect those good folk to support the formerly unemployed person throughout the two years – in some cases the apprenticeship route will be used which would include a wage subsidy.
On a more general point the change – the “DEL/AME Switch” as we like to call it – is very significant. It’s not simply payment by results but payment based on the net benefit to the DWP. Thus, unlike under the system to date, there is no limit to the number of clients that Emma (or indeed her sub-contractors) are able to place in work. Instead of being paid a grant to place x in jobs, we are paid a fee for each person placed.
And for us here in West Yorkshire, Emma’s empire is no more! A4e didn’t win any of the prime contracts for our patch
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April 5, 2011 at 09:53 -
I’ve been through one of these systems and it was severely damaging to my mental health, frankly I’d rather be renditioned to Guantanemo, than be forced to attend one of these totally useles fraudulent prison camps again. It was completely useless and total hell. It achieved nothing except releiving the tax payer of more of their hard earned. The scheme should be thoroughly investigated by the fraud squad.
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April 5, 2011 at 12:51 -
Your idea of giving the bounty to the employer would give benefit-claiming unemployed a completely unfair advantage over non-benefit claiming job hunters.
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April 5, 2011 at 21:07 -
Its money thats the problem. Get it free and you have no incentive to work. We care about everyone in our society. So lets give paid work to those without work. Maybe a little below minimum wage, maybe 20 hours a week or whatever number of hours adds up to the welfare bill. But no free money. Then if there are real jobs they will pay better than the “McJobs” and the market mechanism which brought all those Poles here will see the welfare budget fall.
Then cut the taxes. Especially those on business.
And legalise everything that people actually do.
And change the tax system so that people can work a day a week in 5 different places without the paperwork become insane.
A bit of lateral thinking is needed to solve this problem
But no free money!!!
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April 5, 2011 at 22:43 -
“Joined-up services” means only one thing, more socialism, cradle-to-grave services operated by “preferred bidders” with a continous slice of the top. And yet could it possibly be worse than the inept and expensive DPW? Something had to be done, lets wait a couple of years before decrying it.
I was amused at the reference to micro-loans, a tool previously only used in the most abject third-world countries, has yUK really sunk so low?
And at the risk of incurring the landlady’s wrath, I do not think the garage helper scenario is likely in this scheme, most helpers are usually ambitious school-boys paid “under-the-table” for after school and weekend work. The last thing a garage want or need is to be baby-sitting somebody who has problems getting up in the morning. I predict this service will be aimed at local councils, hospitals and schools-the public sector, and if they manage to get ten hours work per week out of a benefits claimer who previously provided zero hours work and tied up multiple staff into the bargain then this scheme will be considered a roaring success (politically)
It’s going to be needlessly expensive-my own preference would have been to provide mini-vans and a supervisors at each labour exchange (now I am showing my age) load them up every day with benefits claimers (yes they have to report every day), whereupon they would be transfered to various areas to sweep streets , trim hedges and cut grass, once that scheme was running I would do the same thing but transport ten cleaners to every hospital ward in the land every day, same again for graffiti removal, painting lampposts and railings, assisting OAP’s with shopping and gardening, assisting the disabled etc, etc, etc all at minimum wage, seven hours-a-day, five-days-a-week. No show-no pay (or benefits).
It could be done, if there were a will to do so, there is no will to do so, so lets contract out the problem-and pay the contractors properly but not exhorbitantly.
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