Ingeus

[Bakatcha]

Correction! The figure from Learn Direct kickback is approx £1200. I got this figure from the Indus Delta site here http://indusdelta.co.uk/discussion/how_work_programme/7493

The exact quotation is:

"As you will probably know, approximately £1200 can be made from a client completing Numeracy & Literacy via Learndirect. I even had a spreadsheet which calculated how much the client had earned the organisation at each stage of the course. The organisation was even getting away with double funding, using the same client to claim on Learndirect and LSC funded projects (W/Links subcontract). If the client reached £1200 the organisation would sometimes pay for outside training such as CSCS cards, but only if they reached the £1200 target."

Edited January 11, 2012 by Bakatcha

[osdset]

Correction! The figure from Learn Direct kickback is approx £1200. I got this figure from the Indus Delta site here http://indusdelta.co.uk/discussion/how_work_programme/7493

The exact quotation is:

"As you will probably know, approximately £1200 can be made from a client completing Numeracy & Literacy via Learndirect. I even had a spreadsheet which calculated how much the client had earned the organisation at each stage of the course. The organisation was even getting away with double funding, using the same client to claim on Learndirect and LSC funded projects (W/Links subcontract). If the client reached £1200 the organisation would sometimes pay for outside training such as CSCS cards, but only if they reached the £1200 target."

 

Hmm interesting, I was farmed out to Reed in partnership in 2010, it should have been for 26 weeks but as I found out at my initial appointment with Reed, the DWP had cut the time to 13 weeks (yippee!) I informed Reed that the main reason I was finding it difficult to get back into work was that my CSCS card had expired, they indicated to me that there would be no problem funding a re-test and the cost of a new card, it never happened.

 

One advantage though, was the subject became a great conversation stopper when I was pressured about job applications and interviews, I would remind them that the CSCS was mandatory on most sites, and the reply would be "OK then John we'll see you next week".

[osdset]

I have just registered on the Indus delta site, very interesting reading the feedback from those working for the providers, it looks like all is not well with the Work Program, never mind eh!

[silv.surfer]

Veeeerrry interesting - I guessed there would be a big money angle to drive this whole work programme mess and abuse - The question I would like to ask is does this apply to all Providers including Maximus, because I have only seen Maximus mentioned on here once and that was as an offshoot of one of them - is Ingeus an area thing ? and would all that information apply to them as well - or is there a variation of Government Contracts.

[Bakatcha]

See if you can join the happy banned who have been banished from that site for telling the truth! I have been banished twice now! It appears to be run by apologists for the Work Programme the self styled centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (though perhaps in view of their prediliction for banning anyone that cares to disagree "exclusion" would be more accurate!

See here: http://www.consent.me.uk/blog/

[Bakatcha]

Veeeerrry interesting - I guessed there would be a big money angle to drive this whole work programme mess and abuse - The question I would like to ask is does this apply to all Providers including Maximus, because I have only seen Maximus mentioned on here once and that was as an offshoot of one of them - is Ingeus an area thing ? and would all that information apply to them as well - or is there a variation of Government Contracts.

Oh yes vey BIG Money!!! It's amazing what an old chap with a clockwork PC, an internet connection and time on his hands can find out!

Firstly the country is split into areas (CPA or contract package areas). Then the whole thing was put out to tender on a CPA basis: details of tender here: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/work-prog-prospectus-v2.pdf). There are at least 2 Prime providers in each area (supposedly to give competition.)

Some details of successful bids here: http://www.mediafire.com/?pvt43ud5k940k feel free to have a nose around for your CPA and Maximus' bid.

In truth there is little variation in the Govt contracts for prime providers since this was largely dictated by the Govt in the terms of their original invitation to tender (ITT). So if Maximus are a Prime Provider expect their remuneration to follow that laid out by the DWP in their ITT. See section 3.03 of this document: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/work-prog-itt.pdf

There is HUGE amounts of money at stake here - I am in CPA02 (East midlands) and consigned to a Provider A4e - (they have a lot of contracts) but the value of just this one is put at over £100m over the 5 year period. The owner of A4e (Emma Harrison ) boasts of her £8m derbyshire mansion and her £40m personal fortune - who said there wasn't money in other people's misfortune?

Have a little investigation and come back here with your findings.

Cheers

[watchinginvestigation2011]

OMG

We are their milk cows !!!!!!!!

 

meant to say cash cows:oops:

Edited January 12, 2012 by watchinginvestigation2011

[silv.surfer]

Just a note Mediafire appears to have files deleted - where can I find what Providers are being paid for what they are supposed to do to get their pound of flesh.

 

What proper training and qualifications are these advisers supposed to have - It is a pity that there is not a Mystery Shopper element to show the apparent multitude of abuses some advisors are getting away with - even sexual embarrasment, note not legally reportable for fear of a minor sanction which was applied for 2 weeks anyway to coverup advisor error, causing financial hardship where I financially helped out so the 'Customer' did not to get into further dept by asking for hardship loan but demoralizing all the same for someone in financially fragile state - note I am not saying sexual harrasment because that is legally reportable. Advisor in particular had also reduced another 'Customer' to tears, has since moved on to start own business in same sphere probably to continue to abuse without investigation.

 

But it shows how some of these advoiors get their kicks !!!!

[Bakatcha]

Provider Min serv standards (including Maximus) are here: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/provider-minimum-service-delivery.pdf

As for training and qualifications - I don't know!

The specific payment details for each contract are not published as this is commercially sensitive info but you can bet it doesn't deviate from the pattern or amounts set out in the DWP's ITT.

You should have been informed about the complaints procedure. Believe me this will be long winded and involve going through many levels before you can get the Independent Complaints Examiner to take any notice.

I'm afraid that "advisors" have been given massive powers to affect people's lives and a license to berate, bully and cajole at will. As you have found this power can attract the wrong kind of person to the role and is exacerbated by the need for them to meet their targets.

[davidsf2]

£13,000 that's shocking! I thought the programme would be a good thing in principle, the principle being that they offer practical much-needed help to people finding it difficult to obtain work. The actual service delivery seems to be more about public funds delvery to the account of Deloitte Ingeus. There is a long list of demands from service users yet the only SLA promise sI found in the documentation I Rxed was that they will have a first aider, first aid kit and the other basic H&S stuff. I could really use financial help for the certifications I need to get back into the sector I normally work in. They have refused outright even suggesting I take out a loan to cover the costs.

 

There is a page with the SLAs for all the different providers on the DWP site. I can't post links so search for provider minimum service delivery.

 

Odset

It's appalling that construction workers, many on not much more than NMW are expected to pay for their own safety training, including certs to build tower scaffolds, go up on scissor lifts and cherry pickers and PPE and safety clothing. I looked up the access equipment certs and they were several hundred for the lot, renewable every few years. I'm in the wrong racket! (note to self: as a plan B devise an opportunistic must-have 'safety' certification scheme that expires and franchise the concept out) Tradespeople are increasing required to pay for their own grade recertification, plant, vehicles on top of they tools they already have to supply. I don;t think the DWP get the scale of the certification industry problem, how many government workers in the wider civil service have to pay for their own training, they'd laugh at the suggestion. They'd baulk at having to supply even their own pen.

 

In Ingeus' defence they have in fact helped out construction workers with the cost of CSCS cards. IIRC from what I read of the answer book many of the answers were "tell your supervisor", frequently an irresponsible who doesn't give a hoot about providing a safe sytem of work.

[Raven1]

My second 'advisor' was only semi literate. His written English was appalling and of course he tried to cover this up with bullying - followed by panic when he realised I was 'on to him'. I advised him to his face that I would never allow a person with his level of literacy to alter a written document representing me. It is noteworthy that he appeared to accept this.

 

I don't know how he got his job, it's clear to me that he was incapable of completing an application form and I can only imagine someone else did it for him.

 

I will never forget his 15 minute shouted tirade concerning what he could do to me if he wanted to, followed by a glance at the clock and a mumbled realisation that we were out of time to which I calmly responded: 'Well if you hadn't spent quite so much time trying to bully and intimidate me you might have achieved more'

 

His reaction to this was the 'one inch from your face' method as he shouted 'Just tell me what I can do to help you!!!!!'

 

I replied 'We've already established you have nothing to offer me'

 

By this point the guy had become pure entertainment!

 

I didn't see him again, he was 'sick' when I next attended, I was advised he would contact me to arrange our next appointment. He never did...

Edited January 12, 2012 by Raven1

[osdset]

davidsf2

The CSCS scheme is a clever confidence trick, and is not fit for purpose, the exam is a memory test nothing more, the hardest part of it is remembering which colour fire extinguisher can be used for a particular fire. They have replaced common sense with a manual, how it can be right for the test to be held in several other languages when all signage on site is in English? A cynical view could be that it has been made easier for migrant workers to pass.

Plus it's a nice little money spinner £17.50 for every test, and £30 for the card. The industry seems to have by and large signed up to it, so it's getting to be a closed shop. As for site safety itself, I know from experience I have had to do it myself when running jobs, when the deadline is looming and penalty clauses are looking a likely prospect H&S goes out of the window, just draft a load of blokes in at the weekend when no one who matters is looking, and get the job done.

 

You made a very valid point about having to fund certification, plant etc, bear in mind most workers are 'self employed' I use that term loosely because the reality is that there will never be a profit margin, you can never set your own hourly or daily rate, you cannot send someone else in place of yourself to fulfill your obligations, all of which I would say are prerequisites of being self employed the wages on offer are by and large the same as the equivalent on PAYE so, factor in no sick or holiday pay and the self employed construction worker is getting a very raw deal.

[Nystagmite]

A "bright idea" has occurred to me.

 

Get some advice for a letter to be written and hand delivered.

 

Ask them why they are refusing to make suitable alterations/adaptations in order to make allowances for your disability? A failure to do so, would be a breach of the DDA, wouldnt it, especially since, technically speaking, they are a public service.

 

Update:

 

They've changed the time and day. Problem? It's a Tuesday morning when I am volunteering. They are well aware of this fact.

[HannsG]

Correction! The figure from Learn Direct kickback is approx £1200. I got this figure from the Indus Delta site here http://indusdelta.co.uk/discussion/how_work_programme/7493

The exact quotation is:

"As you will probably know, approximately £1200 can be made from a client completing Numeracy & Literacy via Learndirect. I even had a spreadsheet which calculated how much the client had earned the organisation at each stage of the course. The organisation was even getting away with double funding, using the same client to claim on Learndirect and LSC funded projects (W/Links subcontract). If the client reached £1200 the organisation would sometimes pay for outside training such as CSCS cards, but only if they reached the £1200 target."

 

Hmmm. This might explain why my provider has sent me on an IT course to gain qualifications I already have.

[davidsf2]

davidsf2

The CSCS scheme is a clever confidence trick, and is not fit for purpose, the exam is a memory test nothing more, the hardest part of it is remembering which colour fire extinguisher can be used for a particular fire. They have replaced common sense with a manual, how it can be right for the test to be held in several other languages when all signage on site is in English? A cynical view could be that it has been made easier for migrant workers to pass.

Plus it's a nice little money spinner £17.50 for every test, and £30 for the card. The industry seems to have by and large signed up to it, so it's getting to be a closed shop. As for site safety itself, I know from experience I have had to do it myself when running jobs, when the deadline is looming and penalty clauses are looking a likely prospect H&S goes out of the window, just draft a load of blokes in at the weekend when no one who matters is looking, and get the job done.

 

You made a very valid point about having to fund certification, plant etc, bear in mind most workers are 'self employed' I use that term loosely because the reality is that there will never be a profit margin, you can never set your own hourly or daily rate, you cannot send someone else in place of yourself to fulfill your obligations, all of which I would say are prerequisites of being self employed the wages on offer are by and large the same as the equivalent on PAYE so, factor in no sick or holiday pay and the self employed construction worker is getting a very raw deal.

 

It's absolutety not fit for purpose and it has contributed naff all to site safety. Nice little earner for some spivs indeed.

I'm not in the sector (was in medicine) but sick of seeing local people drop in their 50s, 40s some even their 30s worn out by it all one way or another and people of all ages being killed and injured for a pittence and a post-mortem pat on the head for being a poular hard worker.

More people being killed at work in one year (oops accident, sorry we'll defend it in court) than in a ten year campaign in Iraq with opposition comabatants trying their outright best to kill and maim. It's turned a blind eye to until after the fact by the HSE, they are far too comfortable in their offices to bother putting on their shiny new PPE and going into cold dirty places with ghastly types. I'm not sure the HSE figure take into account people dying of chronic conditions caused by work such as mesotheliomas, asbestos and other metal/mineral dust related conditions, tumours from chemical exposure, needlesticks, depression and other stuff I can't recall at this hour.

Do they mention any of this at the CITB recruitment tests at schools?

 

Most don't choose to be self employed either, it's a status effectively imposed by the agencies who about a quarter of the rate off if they have to operate payroll for the agency worker. In a buoyant economy, if an agency worker does go S/E, work through an umbrella or Ltd Co rates are about the same straight time rate as the staff workers but overtime (evening weekends) is usually at straight rate so the agency worker earns less than the staffer if there are long shifts. In a less than buoyant economy the straight time rates are lower than staff. The public purse loses tax revenues paying for the contractors' stuff that the company should be paying for, the contractor loses out every way imaginable. For instance if the contractor has a high outlay on stuff this might take their NI contributions to such a level that their state pension or benefits entitlement is affected. The contractor also takes the risk of HMRC inpectors, as a result of the working status that wasn't even their choice in the first place. That is some kind of weird back-door socialism funding private companies and sometimes public sector organisations at the HMRC's and contractors' expense. No doubt the HMRC (pensioned unionised s who'd never have to put their hand in their own pocket) will identify this as 'loopholes' and further erode the rights of people who are effectively forced to take short term work.

 

It's all messed up.

 

The welfare to work companies are well aware of this, whether they will be an agent for change remains to be seen.

At the risk of sounding like a socialist, Britain would be working if there were more reasonable working conditions with employment rights to work in (c.f. Germany, a country a regional politician cited recently criticising the work ethic of some Brits).

[osdset]

Well I'm out of the building game now, even managing sites is out of reach, the last couple of firms I worked for were 'old school' who employed men on merit and experience, they have both gone bust due to the recession.

Site managers in the main are now required to have SMSTS (site manager site safety scheme) this is a five day course which costs anything from £450 upwards, First Aid certificate, and the CSCS site managers card, some are even asking for NEBOSH (health and safety certification) and IPAF, (cherry picker/scissor lift ticket).

 

All these certificates look really cool on the walls of the porta-cabin that doubles as the site office, and no doubt instill huge confidence among the workforce, so when your not doubling up as the site nurse, and H&S officer, ensuring supervisory staff carry out toolbox talks, overseeing site inductions and taking photos of the dozens of blokes who start every day for the obligatory ID card, wasting half a day trying to find someone who can translate Polish, Lithuanian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Macedonian, and serbo-croat, so you can insist that operatives wear PPE at all times (because they can't read the effing signs) you might just get to run the job.

[leasky32]

i rad that when going for the security course and pass, but you only get the licence when you get a job through igneous

[Raven1]

Work Programme contract is putting providers out of business

 

 

Link to follow

[Raven1]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/13/work-programme-contract-providers

[nyfle]

Nice find, Raven1!

 

I was under the impression that once a claimant had been referred to the Work Programme that the provider received an initial referral fee - remuneration to cover things like travel costs for job interviews and so on. But from reading that, Mr. Bailey makes it appear that no funds are forthcoming until sustainable employment has been found and the claimant has been employed for six months. That makes sense, surely these providers wouldn't be jumping at the chance to participate in the Work Programme if there was no guarantee of them ever recuperating at least some of their costs.

 

I wonder how much truth there is to that letter... Although considering who's in government and the drive to drastically cut the welfare bill, I wouldn't be surprised if some providers got slightly more favourable contracts than others.

[speedfreek]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/13/work-programme-contract-providers

 

Nothing we didn't know.

 

The way it is set up the primes subcontract. The subcontract group do all the work for the prime. No matter how many subcontract groups go bust any payment goes to the prime. Infarct subs going bust means the prime reaps the reward without having to pay the sub = more profit.

 

All participants be it JCP clients or subs work for no money, no secure employment and are puppets to their brown envelope masters \o/

[Bakatcha]

@nyfle - Prime providers get a per capita fee of £400 (JSA) or £600 (ESA) it's called an attachment fee and is payable at the outset. The amounts are set to reduce by 25% in April then again for each year thereafter until they disappear altogether after year 4.

I think the point is that the attachment fees are not enough to tide the pimps over till the main income stream kicks in (if it ever does!). This model means that an organisation wishing to bid for a prime contract (as opposed to being a sub contractor) had to have considerable working capital in order to bridge the gap in income. This in turn meant that charities were disadvantaged because, by and large, they didn't have sufficient working capital. Hence most (if not all) the successful bids for prime contracts were from private sector, non charitable, companies. A cynic might say that this was deliberate in order to freeze out the competition from charities!

The letter looks like it has been written by an employee of a charity so my guess is that it is not a prime provider but a sub contractor. As such the terms of its remunertion will be a matter between the prime and the sub. In this case (and probably many others) it looks like the prime has negotiated not to pay the sub anything up front and the sub has accepted this and entered into the contract. This is not actually the government's or the DWP's fault! When the charity decided it wanted to be involved with the WP it knew that it was entering into a very commercial world - and it still made the decision to do so. If they didn't like the commercial terms on offer then they should not have taken on the contract. A lot of charities decided not to become involved because they didn't like the commercial terms being offered by the primes, couldn't fund the cash flow required and/or were not empowered to take on such a contract by their articles (or whatever the charity equivalent of articles is). This charity entered into the contract with its eyes open and was hoping to make money out of it - I have no sympathy for the charity - just for those effected.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Bakatcha

[Raven1]

I have no sympathy for the charity - just for those effected.

 

I tend to agree with you, having worked for charities myself I am aware that most of them have a sizeable 'slush fund' so can only guess that this one was in financial difficulty already and saw exploiting the unemployed as a possible way back - only to see it backfire on them.

[HannsG]

Nice find, Raven1!

 

I was under the impression that once a claimant had been referred to the Work Programme that the provider received an initial referral fee - remuneration to cover things like travel costs for job interviews and so on. But from reading that, Mr. Bailey makes it appear that no funds are forthcoming until sustainable employment has been found and the claimant has been employed for six months.

 

I think they get currently get an 'attachment fee' of between £400 and £600 when someone first starts the WP, which is going to be phased out over the next year or so.

 

I don't know what they do with that money as my provider refuses to pay my travel expenses. They say they only pay when people spend more than two hours at the centre (the average face-to-face interview lasts about 40 minutes).

[osdset]

I don't know what they do with that money as my provider refuses to pay my travel expenses. They say they only pay when people spend more than two hours at the centre (the average face-to-face interview lasts about 40 minutes).

 

That's ridiculous, what difference does it make how long you are there? Two hours or two minutes, you still had to get there and you still had to get home, I would certainly insist they explain just what the logic behind that decision was.