Off Topic - no way!

The Welfare to Work UK Convention 2013 kicks off tomorrow in Manchester, theme "Employment and skills - opportunity for all" - with all the usual suspects attending/sponsoring of course - 

and from the event programme what an interesting topic has been chosen for the very first "Convention debate":-

Now before anyone asks "what has the emerging justice market" got to do with Welfare to Work and starts muttering that this is just "the real beneficiaries of Welfare to Work " gathered together for a beano celebrating how they have benefited from one "taxpayer funded pot of gold" and what can be done to keep it going - Work Programme II is on the agenda - taking the opportunity of all being together at "the best networking opportunity of the year" to "investigate" how they will benefit from another being launched by the Ministry of Justice .......

Well at least we now know what "a success" is ....

because the Work Programme is a success, 'giving hope' to the unemployed, as Minister for Employment Mark Hoban told us all on the 17th of this month, and today the Department for Work and Pensions published the Work Programme statistical summary June 2013  which summary contains the latest Work Programme official statistics on referrals to the Work Programme, attachments to the Work Programme and Work Programme validated job outcomes and the numbers of sustainment payments (but no consolidated information at all on "actual cash sums involved") made to Work Programme "Prime" providers up to 31 March 2013, which tells us that:-

From June 1 2011 to March 31 2013

• There were 1.20 million referred to the Work Programme and 1.16 million attached to a provider;

• 132 thousand Job Outcome payments were made to providers, which represents 13.0% of eligible Referrals. 

Work and Pensions Minister Mark Hoban hailed the figures, saying the Work Programme was helping those written off by system get back into work:  "That is a lot of lives transformed as a consequence of this programme, people who have been able to achieve their aspiration to look after themselves and their family,***" he told BBC News.

Unsurprisingly perhaps the Labour Party sought to pour cold water on this clear and obvious to all success :-

Liam Byrne MP, Labour's Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, responding to today's Work Programme figures said:

"The Work Programme hasn't worked for over a million people.   Three years into the parliament and nearly nine out of ten people on this flagship programme have been failed. Worse of all, the government missed every single one of its minimum targets and in nearly half the country, the Work Programme is literally worse than doing nothing. No wonder the benefits bill is £21 billion higher than planned and no wonder the Chancellor himself was forced to attack 'under-performing' back to work programmes.   We can't go on like this. We desperately need a change of course starting with a compulsory jobs guarantee that would make sure everyone out of work long term would have to take a job after two years."

*** he probably means those lucky enough to actually have found some sort of work via the WP, but equally he could also be referring to the owners/shareholders in the Work Programme Prime Providers ...

Update : Thursday 27th pm.

The obviously deeply cynical Patrick Butler of the G, who rather than take the word of Mark Hoban and whatever other members of the Grand Alliance ranks who have been primed to go around telling everyone what a "roaring success" the WP is; has done some investigating and number-crunching of the published stats and, gosh, brave man wishes to dispute the Mark and Co version of what story those stats tell:-

The government's flagship welfare to work scheme has come under fire after official figures show it is still failing to help the most disadvantaged people into jobs.

Just 5.3% of people on incapacity benefit were helped into employment for at least six months by the Work Programme in its second year of operation, well below the government's minimum performance benchmark of 16.5%.

Providers also failed to meet the contractual benchmark for getting young people aged 18-24 off unemployment benefit and into jobs, and marginally missed the minimum target for getting jobless clients aged over 25 into sustained work.

Across the three jobseeker groups, successful job outcome levels stood at 24.9% against contracted levels of 27.5%.
 
Ian Mulheirn, director of the Social Market Foundation thinktank, even hinted that whilst the official figures represented "a big improvement on the first year of the programme, failure to meet the targets could put some work programme providers in danger of having their contracts terminated".  

But he quickly added, no doubt to reassure those ERSA members who had read that whilst quaffing coffee and biscuits, and suffered a choking fit; that "Poor performance against the DWP's minimum levels cannot be taken as evidence that providers are doing a bad job or that the scheme offers poor value for money: we simply do not know whether an alternative approach would fare better or worse in current economic conditions", and then went for some further muddying of the waters by concluding that "what it does show is that the scheme was poorly designed with serious consequences for long-term unemployed people"

"Ministers launched the £5bn work programme in 2011 with the explicit aim of getting 2.4m long term unemployed and sickness benefit recipients back into the job market".

Only 2.25 million short of "target" then ... and it would appear the improvement in WP outcomes will have to be "phenomenal" to get any where near it.  Something that Mark and Co appeared to acknowledge recently when they announced that get tougher with the unemployed who are 'making the Work Programme fail' regime

"The DWP conned us, and our members" says a visibly upset Employment Related Services Association

"dangling the carrot of 'easy money' for 'helping' those out of work find work, and now we find we are expected to actually do something for the money, it isn't fair..." or if you prefer the properly balanced BBC version of the tale:

Work Programme 'not doing enough'

"The costs of helping jobseekers on ESA back into work are significant and cannot all be met by the Work Programme," says the Association's chief executive, Kirsty McHugh. "In order for there to be a significant step change in performance in helping these jobseekers into employment, we need greater use of skills and health budgets."

And to give the BBC credit it manages to sum up that plea from ERSA very nicely indeed :-

The call for spending from other parts of the public sector to be channelled in to support the Work Programme is an embarrassment for this flagship government scheme.

Well yes, another example of the "do it so much better" private sector asking that it be allowed to pass the burden of doing what it is contracted to do over to the failing "public sector" whilst this not impacting on its "payment by (sic) results" profits.

But interestingly ERSA are not castigating Atos, holder of the DWP issued contract for reassessing Incapacity Benefit holders for ESA, and new ESA claims, which is resulting in all these "people declared not ill and suitable for undertaking work" who are now being directed at the Work Programme providers to actually complete the chain and find them that work.

The Department for Work and Pensions says the payment-by-results contracts agreed with Work Programme providers already give them "a clear financial incentive to support the hardest to help into work".

Oh dear, the initial DWP response to the "can we renegotiate the entire contract two years in" plea from ERSA seems to be a firm, if carefully worded "no way". Wonder how long that line will be maintained.

"We have been forced to conclude

that a massive, unwieldy private-sector bureaucracy is no better, and sometimes worse, than a public-sector bureaucracy." says Martin Bright,  founder of The Creative Society, concerning said Society and its experience as a sub-contractor under the Work Programme 

"The terrible irony is that we are already mopping up after the WP. Over the past few days, charities like ours will have received calls from jobcentres telling them to prepare for people who have been through the WP and still not found a job. We will help them, of course. But there has to be a better way to get charities involved in work creation than using us as a last resort when all else has failed". 

One awaits the 'clarification' from an spokesperson from the DWP saying that the department is doing no such thing as having some fall back, get tougher with the unemployed who are 'making the Work Programme fail' regime and the telephone calls alleged are coming from individual job centres doing their own thing, etc. etc. because the Work Programme is an outstanding success, 'giving hope' to the unemployed, as Mark Hoban told us all only yesterday ..... Any way back to the Creative Society experience;

"Believe me, we tried to make it work. The WP was heralded as a great new dawn for the third sector. Released from the chains of central government, a whole new constellation of charities, businesses, social philanthropists (not to mention multinational security companies) would target the long-term unemployed. And, crucially, only be paid if they were successful. We formed a partnership to bid for a "prime" contract with a larger, not-for-profit organisation backed by a university. But, even together, we just weren't big enough to compete with the likes of A4e, G4S and Serco. When the contracts were awarded, we had to go through a further byzantine bidding process to persuade the big companies to partner with us: a huge distraction from our work with young people on the ground.

We eventually found ourselves in the supply chain of A4e and adapted a training programme we had used successfully with the Future Jobs fund. We were pretty chuffed with our training programme. Our "customers" loved it. A4e loved it – and used it as a model of good practice for providing young people with the basic interviewing, CV writing and networking skills they would need to find work. But gradually, and with huge regret, we realised there just weren't enough people coming through our doors to make the WP sustainable for us".

From which we might assume, given the inquiries coming from those Jobcentres, that that £30 million (which contrasts markedly with the £ billions set aside for the WP - being just under 4 times the dividend one Ms E Harrison paid herself as a reward for her organisations success on the WP) that someone somewhere found in the DWP budget for funding that "tidy up after the WP programme" may even go direct to the Creative Society and the like in return for helping out the WP "failures" rather than be 'filtered' through the likes of A4e first.

Update - June 19th.   Keen number crunchers wishing to discover for themselves just what a success the WP is will be pleased to know that the DWP has now released :- DWP Work Programme statistics, first release: November 2012 which despite the title only covers WP outcomes etc. up until end July 2012. 

They have to voluntarily agree to it? - sheesh ....

You have to feel sorry for hard pressed hard working well intentioned ministers sometimes, especially those at the Department for Work and Pensions.

On Friday 31st May the DWP issued a Press Release under the heading Government announces details of post Work Programme support detailing new measures being introduced by the department for the handling of “people not in sustained work after completing their 2 years on the Work Programme.”    

Yes, difficult to believe as it may be the DWP has recognised that as the Work Programme approaches its second birthday there are people who have been on it for 2 years and will be coming off it still no nearer to finding work thanks to the expert assistance of their WP Prime provider and their sub-contract holders at the end of those 2 years than they were on their first day on the programme.   So “something must be done”.

Cue announcement of new “tough love” policy whereby  “Work Programme leavers will be targeted by a hit squad of specialist advisers as part of a tough approach to get them into a job.” And even more surprising those specialist advisers “will be based in individual Jobcentres.”

As part of the “tough love” process the Press Release explained “Every Work Programme returner will also be required to register with Universal Jobmatch to aid work search and job matching and to allow their adviser to check their work search activity online.”

Unfortunately for the DWP and its ministers that actually implied something that as things stand, the DWP can’t do – compel “clients” to “allow their adviser to check their work search activity online.”   Luckily, someone at the DWP remembered this over the weekend and on Monday 3^rd June the DWP issued an updated version of the 31^st May Press Release, Government announces details of post Work Programme support which was identical to the original in every respect bar one.   That all important sentence about Universal JobMatch now ran to a few more words –

"Every Work Programme returner will also be required to register with Universal Jobmatch to aid work search and job matching. This will allow their adviser to check their work search activity online should the claimant give permission."

'"Park and Skim" still proving a nice little earner for Work Programme Prime Providers' Update

A really splendid "I have of course given back all the money I made from it [not]" The Work Programme is failing the taxpayer piece from  Richard Johnson -  "a special adviser on welfare to work*, former managing director of welfare to work at Serco, and former chief executive of welfare to work provider, Ingeus"** - is now available, in which he agrees with the Select Committee Report.

This stands nicely alongside his The Work Programme's only success is at 'creaming and parking'- in which he explains that it was of course every other prime provider doing this, but not the ones that employed him, and The Work Programme should help the jobless, not contractors in which he rubbishes the DWP's first report on the scheme, and explains that the contracts are set up in a way that makes it really difficult for anyone who isn't or wasn't on the inside to have a clear idea about what is going on.  

* Richard works for the Select Committee in this capacity, alongside being Lead Advisor at ACEVO, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and Chair at Social Investment Partnerships

** Ingeus obviously agree with Richard. As was pointed out in the G just the other day, Ingeus UK's current chief executive, Dean James, is a former senior DWP civil servant.

'"Park and Skim" still proving a nice little earner for Work Programme Prime Providers'

says House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions 'but that aside, it isn't really delivering much".

Commenting on the report, Dame Anne Begg MP, Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, said:

"The performance of the Work Programme in its first 14 months was poor. There are signs that it is now improving significantly for mainstream jobseekers. We hope the next job outcome statistics to be published in June will bear this out – we will be very concerned if they don’t."

or: it is quite good at placing those people who would have found themselves a job anyway in work of some sort, as further clarified by Dame Anne who goes on to say

"However, the Work Programme has proved much less successful to date in addressing the problems faced by jobseekers who face more serious obstacles to finding a job – people with disabilities, homeless people, and those with a history of drug or alcohol abuse.

It is clear that the differential pricing structure is not a panacea for tackling creaming and parking. The Government must do more to ensure that the Work Programme provides effective support for all jobseekers, not just the ones who are easiest to help."

The Committee concludes that the Work Programme’s differential pricing structure, which is designed to financially incentivise contracted providers to support those with more challenging barriers to employment, is not having its intended impact on providers’ behaviour.

The hardest to help jobseekers remain at risk of being “parked”—given little or no support by providers who assess them as being unlikely to find sustained work.

or: maybe have a go at removing or toning down the "money for old rope" aspects and get these so called experts actually doing something to try and justify having the programme at all.

Well duh!

Work Programme staff struggle to help unemployed when 'jobs aren't there'

Well, slap me down with a wet fish, who would have thought it. Think it we might but what we must remember is that various really clever people holding important positions in governments present and past had an inkling that that might be the case, which is why they set up highly expensive because they are so really clever special schemes operated by the people with the right sort of proven expertise and skills and connections to just bypass that and get at least 3 unemployed people into "long term" work for every single job vacancy declared … Clever or not, the article seems to suggest that “all is not going well” and things are being made oh so difficult by the absence of...

"some significant doubts about the quality of the new regime statistics"

Spare a thought for Iain Duncan Smith,  and indeed his junior ministers at the Department of Work and Pensions,  who, as if they aren't burdened enough by having to deal with one needless problem getting in the way of their broadcasting  their success in the mission to solve unemployment, and also having to contend with running needless enquiries into the non-existence of targets up pop two more.

First up some damn fool members of the judiciary have decided  that members of the public ought to be allowed to know which employers and organisations are being public spirited enough to provide work experience places, something which says the DWP the employers and organisations doing it, no doubt through reasons of modesty, do not wish to publicise.

And secondly; having gone to the trouble of establishing beyond peradventure via a rigorous internal enquiry that there aren't any "targets" of any sort operating on the matter of "sanctioning benefit recipients and claimants" the department has now it seems uncovered a few possible inconsistencies in some data it was due to publish on the impact on the issuing of "sanctions" following changes to its procedures last October, and has had to delay publication of these for an as yet unspecified period. 

A similar fate appears to have befallen the data it collects on Employment Support Allowance - the replacement for Incapacity Benefit - claimants and recipients, and the fate of former IB recipients on being given the Work Capability Assessment by Atos, to see whether they qualify for either of the two tiers of ESA, or were simply pulling a fast one all along, something the present government and indeed their predecessors who actually brought in Atos and the WCA have repeatedly said at least a million IB recipients were and are.

So, tough times at the DWP.   On the matter of that judicial decision that despite the wishes of the work experience providers to remain so far as possible anonymous, the public should be allowed to know who they are Iain Duncan Smith might wish to seek another special out of the way meeting with his opposite number in the Labour ranks, Liam Byrne about "another deal” around having some hurriedly introduced retrospective legislation that puts every single aspect of the Work Programme firmly out of the reach of meddling members of the electorate and the damned judiciary...

... and possibly Parliamentary Select Committees too... a matter on which under the deal Labour will once again have a "whipped abstention" on the legislation to ensure it passes quickly and without fuss which Liam will explain via an article on his personal website has been done in order to extract a concession from I D S whereby anyone on the Work Programme breaching the new "confidentiality rules" that will be brought in as part of that retrospective legislation which bar them from ever letting anyone at all know where they are doing or have done some "work experience" that anyone who fails to abide by those confidentiality rules wont have their benefits suspended for more than 12 months as a punishment.

On the matter of those damned stats, well the call has gone out for someone experienced in the matter of presentation to come lend a hand.

Labour council attempts to cut out the middleman. Lobbyists for middleman v. unhappy.

That's what this story, which BobE spotted at the BBC, boils down to:

That's what this story, which BobE spotted at the BBC, boils down to:

A London council will offer jobs to people who are set to lose money as a result of the benefit changes.

Greenwich Council said hundreds will benefit from a £6m employment fund creating jobs like street cleaning, town centre management and recycling. The Labour-led council said it would be cheaper than supporting people if they lose their home but Tories said the money should go to the private sector.

Greenwich Council leader Chris Roberts said the two-year employment scheme was a result of these changes, adding that hundreds of families in the borough would benefit. On Monday, 31 people were due to be the first to start either full-time or part-time jobs...

But Conservative councillor Spencer Drury said private businesses could do with the support instead to allow them to provide better long-term employment. "We don't believe that getting people into public sector jobs is necessarily going to lead to private sector jobs," he said. "We're not sure this scheme can work effectively. We think you could end up working six months and then not get a job and you'll be back where you were at square one."

The whole thing is a scam of course, it is a question of which is the more efficient way of doing it...

The Tories in government like demonising the unemployed and they like giving money to their "private sector" mates. They can achieve both goals in one fell swoop by giving more money to welfare-to-work providers than they would have spent on unemployment benefit and they will accept any old back of a fag packet statistic from the self-same welfare-to-work providers to show that the scheme is a resounding success. Ultimately it's all non-jobs paid for by the taxpayer.

This particular Labour council has spotted a gap in the market. They will be losing some income (or incurring extra expenditure) if the central government cuts welfare payments (in particular Housing Benefit), but the council itself can masquerade as a welfare-to-work provider. So it can create its own non-jobs (street cleaning etc) and then pay people to do those non-jobs and then promptly dock the rent from the wages, thus reinstating the council's original shortfall out of a different pot of taxpayers' money.

The Tory councillors are deeply unhappy with this. They would rather follow Iain Duncan Smith's lead and pay that pot of taxpayers' finest over to "private sector" companies, who will no doubt set up proper accredited training schemes in "town centre management", book a few mugs on the courses, bank the signing on fee and bonus and then inform the course participants that they can "study from home" or something.

We can obviously have every confidence that the tail is not wagging the dog and that

The Department for Work and Pensions has the most rigid and painstaking system for approving claims for "placement and sustained placement payments" submitted by the Work Programme providers - certainly nothing like "If they say they've placed someone in a job, then that's a PR bonus for us and our impeccable, if "simple" statistics on the success of the Programme, so just pay it"?

Item 1.  22 February 2013 - the PAC publish their report on the first 14 months of the Work Programme

The government's flagship multibillion-pound programme for helping the long-term unemployed into work has been branded "extremely poor" in a damning assessment by MPs. Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said the programme was particularly failing young people and the hardest to help.

She also criticised the DWP for publishing unvalidated data from a trade body representing Work Programme providers, saying: "This is just not on."

The " trade body representing Work Programme providers" is of course ERSA (who are these days proudly boasting on their website about how "ERSA has speareheaded [sic] the establishment of the IEP, a professional body for the employability sector.)  The "unvalidated data" concerned ERSA collated data showing that "200,000 people had been placed in work" which the DWP had duly republished as "the results of the Work programme".

Item 2.  also 22 February 2013 - from the DWP Statement in response to Public Accounts Committee report on the Work Programme

A DWP spokesperson said:   "This report (22/02/13) paints a skewed picture.  More than 200,000 people have moved off benefits and into a job thanks to the Work Programme."

A sort of "If we say it's ok to publish data provided by our contractors as our "performance stats" it's ok, ok?" and they also repeated it in the "detailed breakdown of performance outcomes" provided in the response to the PAC.

How is the Work Programme performing?

Official statistics showed that from June 2011 until July 2012:

•31,200 participants had stayed in work for long enough to achieve a job “outcome” – that means they stayed in work for a sustained period and the organisation has claimed a payment.

•Of those, 19,300 had been in work for at least six months and 11,900 for at least three months.

•Of those who joined the Work Programme in June 2011, 9.8% had been in sustained work.

Data from industry body the Employment Related Services Association showed that by September 2012:

•Over 200,000 participants had got off benefits and into work.

Anyone spot the seamless transition from "official statistics " into "impeccable ERSA data also subsequently quoted in a way to give the impression they were also "official statistics"?

Item 3.   How it happened - from PE Issue 1338 (Page 10) - click on to enlarge

Anyone who suggests that when the next set of WP Performance data is issued, should it show a "miraculous improvement" before breaking into unrestrained applause it would be wise to wait until someone outside the DWP and ERSA has had a look at the base data behind it, and especially to see if in fact there is any,  is obviously a complete cynic.

"Lessons will be learned"

Failing back-to-work scheme closes

Launched in 2008 the scheme was supposed to help 20,000 people get jobs or qualifications.

But BBC Wales revealed in February  that only around half that number took part and fewer than 800 found work.

But don't worry folks, it wasn't directly handed over by the UK taxpayer funds that were spent, it came from the EU !

The European-funded programme was designed to help people who were having the most difficulty getting into work, including single parents.

Documents obtained by BBC Wales in February showed the number of people who took part was well short of the original target:

By June 2012 there had been 10,500 participants.

Of these, only 789 were working at least 16 hours a week.

Creating those jobs cost an average of £44,735 each - the target when the programme began in 2008 was around £13,000-per job.

Ministers started considering ending the scheme this year, instead of 2014 as originally planned, after a review found the programme was not performing.

and, of course, now the decision has been taken  ...

Mr Cuthbert added: "Lessons will be learnt from this and will inform the way we deliver future adult employment and skills programmes in Wales.

"Similarly, we will ensure that we integrate the best practice from Genesis in the development of future programmes."

and the biggest "plus" of all - they didn't manage to spend all the money before calling a halt ...

At the outset £67m was set aside to run it. That was later reduced to £56m, but by June last year just £36m had been spent.

but the best "quote" comes from that February report

Conservative enterprise spokesman Nick Ramsay said: "While it is welcome to see ministers evaluating their policies and closing down a failing scheme to reinvest in other job creation programmes, this is testament to Labour's failure to properly invest in job creation schemes which actually deliver for the people of Wales."

Closing down a failing scheme is a good idea, so why then ... oh hang on, just remembered, the Work Programme isn't a Labour scheme,  it replaced "a failing Labour scheme" and it is of course a roaring success, and to be fair, in Wales £56 million is a lot of money, whereas at Westminster £5 billion ..

It isn't fair, lots and lots of easy money for doing bugger all or less than bugger all is what we signed up for

and we demand that we get it and continue to get it and we’d like some more

All is not well with the Work Programme the G informs us :-

Work Programme can't keep up with number of jobless, government told

and specifically 

The coalition's flagship Work Programme for the long-term unemployed is failing because there are just too many people needing help, according to a government report.

Yes indeed, there are a lot of unemployed people, and people who were receipt of incapacity benefit who have been retested as a result of the ending of that particular benefit and been informed that they don’t qualify for its replacement ESA, being fit enough to work, and must find themselves a job, and we can also add in former Remploy staff  …. 

Any way, the organisations which hold the “prime contracts” for the Work Programme, having been told not so long ago that they really must improve their performance significantly; having managed in the first 14 months of the Work Programme to deliver outcomes on “job placements” which were only half as good as job seekers were managing to achieve off their own bat when the WP didn’t exist, are finding it “hard going” when it comes to delivering what they contracted to deliver …

The quality of the service is being affected by the high level of demand, according to the companies responsible for training the unemployed.

There would appear to be a lot more “job seekers” than the WP providers were ever told existed … which is slightly odd, I am sure most would agree.   

The alternative, that they took on too much and promised too much when they signed up to the contracts, and are now agitating for a watering down of the targets in those contracts, or failing that, lots more up front government funds in advance of even getting their outcome figures at or above the year one target, never mind we are now well in to year two with supposedly far higher promised outcomes, is ridiculous.

As is evident from these comments from “members of the public” reacting to the G tale..

HiFlight

14 April 2013

Recommend 7

Now there's a surprise.   They know they have the government over a barrel, it being a high-profile policy, So they will be looking for extra funding to do what they have  contracted to deliver. With a threat that they'll walk away if they don't get it.  Oh, the joys of private sector provision.

LucInTen

14 April 2013

Recommend 5

Work Programme can't keep up with number of jobless, government told.

Private firms in flagship back-to-work scheme complain of too little funding and too much demand

De-bullshitted that actually means...

Private firms that submitted inept, misleading and potentially fraudulent tenders to secure access to huge sums of public money now admit to their incompetence and generally falsified ability to honour public contracts in any way...  and by the way ....   they think they deserve extra money for being such total lying, and aggressively fraudulent (allegedly - by their own inference) wastes of space.

If you can't deliver DON'T SUBMIT ERRONEOUS BIDS that merely underline the fact you DO NOT even comprehend the task in hand and the scale of its demands.

     

Utter arseholes tendering to a government of the same.  If they were bridge builders every attempt would turn out like the famous Pont D'Avignon ...  But more costly.

Please get all your ahem "interns" via approved methods like the Work Programme ...

as it has special rules to protect employers from visits by HMRC heavies acting on our instructions ...
  
Employment Minister Jo Swinson acts over 100 firms 'using unpaid interns' the Indie informs us, because Jo seeks to crack down on employers who are breaking the law by filling full-time positions, that would be subject to national minimum wage rules, with unpaid interns and the article ends with an especially wonderful quote from a BIS Departmental spokesperson ....

A spokesman for the Department of Business said: "The law on the National Minimum Wage is clear. If somebody on a work experience placement or internship is a worker under NMW legislation, then they are entitled to the minimum wage.     Internships can be a valuable way of helping young people get into work and realise their ambitions. Anyone who feels they are being exploited should contact the Pay and Work Rights Helpline. Their call will be fast-tracked to HMRC who actively investigate any claims of NMW abuse."

No doubt those manning the Pay and Work Rights Helpline have been given a handy crib sheet so they can weed out and send packing with a firm but friendly 

"it doesn't apply to you, **the organisation which is public spiritedly taking part in the Work Programme and giving you vital work experience at huge cost to themselves doesn't do that sort of thing, unless you are undertaking work experience with Homebase of course, seeing as they were stupid enough to let documents that admit that they do see work programme placements as a handy alternative to actually employing people and have reduced the number of full and part time staff working in some stores and substituted WP provided staff for them get into the public domain" 

to any misguided Work Programme participant, in particular those undertaking Mandatory Work Activity, who seeing the Indie article takes the BIS spokesperson's comment at face value before consulting the handy government web advice on the national-minimum-wage  where they will find workers on a government employment programme, eg the Work Programme aren't entitled to the national minimum wage.

** obviously everything after it doesn't apply to you wouldn't appear on the crib sheet, I was just idly referencing something that made its way into certain media outlets recently ....

Er Liam .. about that

"We're fundamentally different to this bunch of horrible, nasty, benefit grabbing, benefit removing, forced labour and illegal sanctions bastards" um, stance..."

Forgive me for saying so, but it doesn't quite square with your Party backing them on a emergency vote to approve retrospective legislation to avoid having to "compensate" people they've been er less than honest to by using legislative powers that didn't exist to apply illegal sanctions does it .. or maybe it does, I never can quite get my head around the intricate complexities of politics...

Or maybe the G have been hearing noises via "crossed grapevines" - which if it was the case I would have expected someone on "your side" - say the shadow Work and Pensions secretary, to be hurriedly at least tweeting "The G story is rubbish, no way would we" ... but so far nothing from you since your web-site posting on Monday -

Work Scheme refunds could cost millions
Posted on 11 March 2013 | No comments yet

Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, responding to reports in the Daily Telegraph that ‘Work Scheme refunds could cost millions’, said:

“Bungling DWP ministers have turned the Work Programme into a West Coast mainline-style fiasco. Hundreds of thousands of sanctions might now be illegal because Iain Duncan Smith messed up the regulations and now the taxpayer might be on the hook for over £100 million.

“It simply beggars belief that this Government is now so incompetent it can’t even organise a simple work experience scheme. We’ll be demanding ministers come to Parliament urgently to explain themselves.”

Demanding they come explain themselves? In return for a promise to back their emergency legislation which removes the obligation to make amends to those affected by that "illegal sanctions" incompetence..?

"The Guardian understands that Labour will support the fast-tracked bill with some further safeguards and that negotiations with the coalition are ongoing"

A DWP spokesperson said: "This legislation will protect taxpayers and make sure we won't be paying back money to people who didn't do enough to find work."

That "we aren't going to pay up JSA that was withheld from claimants under sanction for not agreeing to do something we didn't actually have the legal power to sanction them for not agreeing to do" would appear to run the risk of re-opening the debate on "what the Work Programme is actually for - to help make people seeking work better fitted to achieve that or just to punish them for not having a job" [whilst funnelling large quantities of taxpayer funds to ERSA members - but that's not the issue here] were there someone willing to take it up on the floor of the House but what do I know - Over to you Liam?

DWP seeks law change to avoid benefit repayments after Poundland ruling

The Department for Work and Pensions has introduced emergency legislation to reverse the outcome of a court of appeal decision and "protect the national economy" from a £130m payout to jobseekers deemed to have been unlawfully punished.

The retroactive legislation, published on Thursday evening and expected to be rushed through parliament on Tuesday, will effectively strike down a decision by three senior judges and deny benefit claimants an average payout of between £530 and £570 each.