Benefit Busters (2)

Oh G-d that programme is depressing.

To take a step back, in my normal working life, I deal with HM Revenue & Customs. We know what we send in and we know what comes out again. If you take individual cases, there is very little logic and although we have little idea of the inner workings, on the basis of the thousands of tax returns and letters we send in, and thousands of responses we receive every year, we can somehow piece together what triggers what and are constantly trying to hone our tax returns and letters in such a way as to make life easy for our clients.

OK. Let's apply the same deductive reasoning to A4E. The two main 'stories' in this evening's episode, which plenty of you will also have watched, were Mark and Sherrelle, who seemed keen to work, and were indeed helped into work, but were both made redundant again within four weeks (it appears that Mark ended up out of pocket overall). We also know, as a matter of fact, that A4E have signed up to a £700 million contract with HM Government over the next four years to do whatever it is that they do and that A4E receive £100 for every week that one of their 'clients' attends their back-to-work classes, plus another £x00 for everytime they get somebody into a job.

So A4E have, on the face of it, every incentive to get people into short term jobs; often with the same employers (one of A4E employers boasted of having done so) just long enough to trigger A4E's £x00 bonus; for the employer then to make those people redundant again; and for the Job Centre to then send the very same people back to A4E for yet another round of lucrative (from the point of view of A4E) back-to-work classes.

Just for the heck of it, let's mention David Blunkett's consultancy role, that's always fun.

Just sayin', is all.