Private Welfare to Work – how well does that work?

• Ben Clark
• 12 years ago
• Categories: corruption, Privatisation, uk politics, welfare
• Tags: A4e

This week the Government introduced their welfare changes to Parliament, and they’ll have their first reading next week.

They include of course the requirement for mothers of 1-year-olds on the DPB to look for work – as if they haven’t got enough work at home.  While it’s nothing new for National not to value the raising of future taxpayers because the work is unpaid, this is a whole new level of attack on women and children.

But there are other changes in the bill too, including the provision for private providers of “welfare to work”.  This is where the private sector gets paid for each person they get off welfare.

Sounds good, until you hear that means that as a beneficiary your police, welfare and other private government records are all shared with private companies.

And how’s it working out overseas?  The UK has been trying this for a couple of years now…

The main provider A4e is now facing serious corruption allegations.

A report has found ‘systemic fraud’.  Apparently it’s a lot easier to fill out a form saying someone has got a job than to actually get them one – especially in the midst of this economic climate.

Specific incidents include:

• In Edinburgh one client walked out of a job after two hours complaining of sore feet and never appeared on the potential employer’s books, but A4e still claimed for a job outcome

• In Bootle the auditor could find no trace of an unemployed man who was supposed to have found work at Royal Mail and no trace of the man who was supposed to have employed him

• In Bridlington a cafe owner told the auditor that he had never even met a man A4e had claimed for and he wanted to know why A4e kept asking him to sign blank forms

• In Woolwich A4e appear to have claimed for putting a benefits cheat back into the job they were already illegally working in. The auditor said of the incident: “This is a potentially fraudulent claim, and there is also potential benefit fraud.”

The report concluded that “potential fraudulent or irregular activity is not confined to one particular geographical area… and shows a potential systematic failure to mitigate the risk towards this behaviour at both an office and regional level”.

The head of the company, Emma Harrison¹, has already stepped down as earlier reports of fraud surfaced, and there have been other controversies previously as the company’s assessing people for work had got ill people unfairly kicked off benefits.

Does this sound like something we want to replicate here?

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¹ Another friend of “call me Dave” Cameron’s, like Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson – just lucky he doesn’t get judged by the company he keeps…