Monday 30 July 2012

That's more like it

We now appear to have settled into the good old fashioned, time honoured system, the wheels of the kleptocracy have been well oiled with party donations and are humming smoothly.

Spotted by Bob E in The Guardian:

ESG has been awarded two lucrative contracts from Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Work and Pensions. It won a £69m contract in May 2011 for the work programme, the government's scheme for unemployed people, in Warwickshire and Staffordshire, which runs until 2016.

The company was also chosen to run a £4m mandatory work programme contract across the West Midlands – paid to find work-for-benefit placements for at least 5,000 unemployed people over four years. The firm will receive an £800 bonus for every unemployed claimant it places in mandatory work...

Robson... was a director of ESG between October 2008 and December 2011, when the company was awarded the government contracts. Robson, 41, is also a director of the Centre for Social Justice, the thinktank established by Duncan Smith which helped the employment secretary develop his plans for tackling unemployment. In February this year, Duncan Smith visited ESG's offices in Tamworth.

A former Wandsworth councillor and defeated Tory parliamentary candidate, Robson has given the Conservative party £267,866 since 2003. He made his most recent donation, of £15,437, in January.

4 comments:

Lola said...

Aaaarrrrggghhhh.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, most government contracts are allocated on this basis, it's the way things are.

Lola said...

MW. I know that, but really....?

Bayard said...

Do you think you can regard a donation to the party in power as an investment to recommend for a pension portfolio? It does seem to have rather a good rate of return.