So, amongst reporting about the failings of New Deal as a whole and numerous other unemployment/welfare issues including new and proposed schemes such as Flexible New Deal and Workfare; you would have read about numerous concerns regarding local New Deal prime contractor (and I hear, also a subcontractor for Flexible New Deal) YMCA Training based at Dencora House and London Road.

Just to recap:

• Poor conditions at Dencora House and mistreatment of participants (overcrowding etc)
• Leaking participants confidential information
• Sending participants on walks (Cambridge) and requesting volunteers in order to run provision
• Dismissing participants with lies including claiming someone was a breach of Health & Safety obligations for saying “Storm Dencora House” on his blog, but really was down to speaking out about the scandal *before* he started the course
• Harrassment and Diversity issues
• Not complying to the Data Protection Act 1998 i.e. overdue information requests
• New Deal Fraud including timesheet fraud – saying participants are there longer than reality
• Deducting £4 week without legal authority to do so (advice on reclaiming coming soon)

Read the entire YMCA Training New Deal Contract Here!

Snippet is as follows:

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WORK AND PENSIONS
(acting through Jobcentre Plus)

-and-

YMCA TRAINING

MULTI – PROGRAMME CONTRACT (NEW DEAL)

THIS CONTRACT is made on 12 July 2006

BETWEEN (the “Parties”):-

(1) THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WORK & PENSIONS (acting through Jobcentre Plus) whose Head Office is at Mayfield Court, 56 West Street, Sheffield SI 4EP (‘Jobcentre Plus’); and

(2) YMCA TRAINING (No 4379109) whose registered office address is at Head Office, 55 High Street, Banbury, Oxfordshire 0X16 5JJ (the ‘Provider’);

RECITALS

The Provider has agreed to provide the Programme on the terms and conditions set out in this Contract.

New Deal Scandal has just announced that the £4 weekly travel deductions are illegal when DWP finally admitted:

There is no legislation involved in this decision.

DWP has since tried to remove the Freedom of Information request from the WhatDoTheyKnow Freedom of Information website. More details (and the full response) are available on Flexible-New-Deal.co.uk : New Deal Travel Deductions: DWP admits £4 deductions are unlawful

Ipswich Unemployed Action recommends everyone who fell victim to this multi-million pound scam since 1998 should contact their New Deal training provider and demand their money back (with interest to keep with inflation).

Those in Ipswich should contact Dencora House, YMCA Training.

Their details are as follows…

Dencora House
Units 6 to 10
34 Whitehouse Road
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP1 5LU

Tel: 01473 243980

Or

517 London Road
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP2 0ST

Telephone: 01473 406126

Contact name: Sally Smith

So many people in Ipswich may have got  an invite to attend Flexible New Deal at TNG.

TNG which stands for Training Network Group or more to the point Trainee Network Group. Maybe the company should be called NGT (Network Group in Training) as even though they are part of a bigger company (Avanta) and have landed huge Government contracts to deliver Flexible New Deal – they are the most incompetent useless unprofessional dim wits ever!

Before you see this as a rant against the Flexible New Deal provider, read on and see how poor their methods of communication are.

We can hear an TNG employee stating:

How come only those who came by train had arrived?

How to find us

First small point to make is how unprofessional such directions are on the basis that they are printed on site with thin paper and not professionally produced. They have secured a large contract so there is nothing to suggest why they wouldn’t get it printed professionally in the same way businesses print letterheads, leaflets, compliment slips and business cards. After all the Flexible New Deal guidance booklet from TNG was printed professionally to a good standard. You might be shocked to realise that professionally printed documents in bulk can be cheaper than buying ink cartridges and toner while doing it yourself. This also includes the delivery of the item.

I can’t help but think I could have done a better job on it myself. Certain print has been lost due to minimum margins their printer couldn’t handle i.e. its not edge to edge printing. TNG is also hooked on hideous arrows – there are 11 faded arrows going across the top of the direction sheet – a pattern of 4 different colours occurs although due to it being of an odd number one colour is missed off the end of having its fair share. What do the 11 arrows mean? Are there 11 stages? Flexible New Deal is for 12 months so can’t be due to duration. There is also a silly blue dividing line. At the top has a telephone number and a place for a fax number (e.g. “Fax:” – without a number in it i.e. why include it?).

The document is poorly spaced out – at the bottom right hand corner is a poor parody of the Nike trademark tick and TNG’s logo alongside Jobcentre Plus. At the far bottom left is their web address www.flexiblenewdeal.info which they appear to be very proud about – even though .info domains cost 50p hence their popularity with spammers and scammers. Going on the website gets worse with even more arrows and hardly any information about Flexible New Deal so kinda misleading especially when this site alone has far more information. At the bottom of the website reads “Website design by Avanta Marketing Department” – they clearly know nothing about marketing or about web design neither. As a general rule of thumb when you exceed £80,000 annual turnover you need a professionally designed website – it is a must! Avanta clearly exceeds that by a fair amount! Back to the document…

Below is an OCR representation of the TNG “How to find us” directions document.  Please Note:

How to find us: Ipswich

How to find us
Ipswich
TNG; Wolsey House, 16-18 Princes Street Ipswich IP1 1QT
Tel: 01473 222218 Fax:

By Train
Trains run to Ipswich from Stowmarket, Saxmundham and Felixstowe covering a local area.Come out of lpswich train station, cross over the traffic lights ahead, walk over the bridge directly opposite the station on Princes Street,continue up Princes Street. straight ahead at the roundabout, continue up Princes Street and you will find TNG offices is on the left.

By Car
Landmarks. The office is located inside the Chamber of Commerce building, which is also called the Suffolk enterprise Centre. This building is opposite the Steamboat pub over looking the River Gipping.

By Bus
There are regular bus links with towns and villages in the local area. Buses 63-65 from Leiston. Buses 75-77 from Felixtowe. Buses 87-88 from Stowmarket. All buses stop in and around the town but ends at the train station.Come out of lpswich train station, turn right onto Ranelagh Road, continue forward into Burrell Road, walk to the end of Burrell Road and turn right into Bridge Street. Continue forward into Vernon Street until you reach a roundabout, take the first left into Felaw Street and you will find TNG offices on the left within Felaw Maltings. If you come by car, parking is available.

From Jobcentre Office
With your back to Job Centre Plus, walk right along Silent Street, go straight ahead at the crossroads into Cutler Street, continue forward to Grey Friars road, turn left into Grey Friars Road, at the first roundabout turn right towards Bridge Street, go straight ahead over the second roundabout and continue over the Bridge into Vernon Street until you reach another round [about, take the first left into Felaw Street and you will find TNG offices on the left within Felaw Maltings. If you come by car, parking is available.

www.flexiblenewdeal.info

Criticism of Directions

By Train

These directions are not too bad. What I would note is this is rather misleading as past the roundabout the road curves right – this is not Princes Street! Princes Street continues towards the left (it is a left at the “T” Junction than a sharp right). Wolsey House is the place where YMCA Training used to be.

By Car

Landmarks? To the best of my Knowledge the River Gipping goes from Stowmarket up to Stoke Bridge in Ipswich – where from there becomes the River Orwell – the specific part is called New Cut.

By Bus

Ipswich Unemployed Action has contacted the bus operator First Group who has specified that neither bus routes 63-65, 75-77 and 87-88 stop at Ipswich Train Station.

We have provided an aerial mapped route map for these bus services (thanks to Carl Berry – point to point, stops are accurate the lines between them wont be):

63 (not from Leiston) – 64 – 65 (stops at Rendlesham – very far from Leiston) – 75 – 76 – 77 – 87 (Stowupland but goes to Stowmarket) – 88

The direction then assumes you got a train therefore must come out of the station. Towards the left of Princes Street bridge is Ranelagh Road and to the right is Burrell Road. Obviously they now send you to a different place to the Princes Street office.  It ends stating “If you come by car, parking is available.” well.. didn’t you realise the person was coming by bus when you wrote the directions? There isn’t parking available for their other premises as far as I am aware.

From Jobcentre Plus

This assumes that you are a) leaving jobcentre plus via Silent Street and not the other path and b) that you are suicidal. Again these directions are to the wrong place, poor typos, “Bridge”‘ should be in lowercase etc.  Again it ends stating “If you come by car, parking is available.” well.. didn’t you realise the person was assumingly walking (“with your back” and the fact that Silent Street is a one way road so you couldn’t go right by car) when you wrote the directions?

Sanctions

Jobseekers on Flexible New Deal can be sanctioned for following these directions when attending the wrong place means they failed to turn up.

Scanned Copy

A copy of the scanned document (including a map) can be found on Flexible New Deal Scandal.

Lets not criticise their letters (which again is not a proper letterhead) and full of mistakes.

Equal Opportunities?

Ipswich Unemployed Action would like to alert Flexible New Deal clients that an Ofsted report for ”TNG (Avanta) Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire New Deal” raised massive concerns about the central structure of TNG/Avanta being racist at its core.

During the Ofsted report inspection, the inspector noted some “inappropriate language and images” by both TNG staff and subcontractor staff – whereas Ofsted didn’t state whether these fell under racism, sexism, disability discrimination or a mixture of more than one, it raises extreme concerns especially when Equal Opportunities is written in the core of New Deal contracts.

DWP/Jobcentre Plus are aware of this concern at the time prior to the inspection and forced the holding company to establish an equality of opportunity representatives’ group (although this was for Avanta not TNG itself) and to immediately implement equality and diversity policies, procedures and staff training in TNG.

The report concluded that although had given plenty of time to do so prior to the Ofsted inspection most staff did not receive training on equality and diversity and the direct results of this are present when such staff couldn’t suppress such behaviour when being inspected by Ofsted, resulting in them being caught speaking offensive language and advocating the presentation of disgusting images to participants. Any attempts to include equality and diversity in TNG’s adult training public service environment have failed. The staff racism etc. was solely noted on this contract area although the failing’s in the company as a whole was raised i.e. if they dont have policies and procedures in place and staff aren’t trained – the situation will be a problem nationally.

Although these are major concerns (and on the tendering stage potential provides have to show awareness of Equal ops, harassment policies etc. these are also policies which form part of the New Deal contract hence why providers mention them on induction as they have to) TNG kept this prime contract. They also managed to secure Flexible New Deal.

Ofsted Report Snippets

18. Arrangements to implement and evaluate equality and diversity policies and procedures
within TNG and its subcontractors are inadequate. During the year before inspection, the
main holding company established an equality of opportunity representatives’ group. This
group has established its terms of reference and agreed an immediate action and
development plan to improve the organisation’s approach. However, due to staff changes,
this group has not met sufficiently regularly or recently to achieve its aims and objectives.

19. The analysis of data in relation to participation rates by gender, ethnic group and disability
has been undertaken only very recently. The analysis of progression rates to employment
has not yet started. A well designed electronic learning package for the development of
staff understanding of equality of opportunity and diversity has been introduced but it has
not yet been completed by many of the staff working on this prime contract. The use of
some inappropriate language and images by both TNG and subcontractor staff was noted
by inspectors.

Reinspection 2009 Snippets

TNG managed to get a reinspection (that is not a new inspection to normal timescales but a new inspection designed to replace the previous one) for the same contract. This is likely enforced by Jobcentre Plus/DWP to jumble figures, some months later, the Grade 4s disappeared (4 is Inadequate) and replaced with Grade 3 (Satisfactory).

Whats the point of an Ofsted report when middle management enforces an inspection to redone so performance looks better?

Below snippets of Equal Opportunity section in the new report is as follows:

Staff and participants have adequate training and induction on equality and diversity matters.

It is clear they have finally decided to pull their weight, I presume, on threat of contract termination.

Learning materials do not promote equality and diversity sufficiently.

Reinforcement of equality of opportunity and diversity with participants is insufficient.

Clearly they have printed some poorly designed leaflets – whats the point if not enforced?

This article appears in the December issue of Labour Briefing – a left journal strongly critical of the present government. 

Work for Your Benefit: Labour’s New Helots. 

Welfare reform legislation is due to be one of this Government’s enduring legacies. From this autumn there will be two benefits: Jobseeker’s Allowance, and Employment and Support Allowance. Already there is pressure on medical assessors to channel those on Incapacity Benefit into the former, where many lone parents and others will also eventually join them. JSA brings a lower income – down to the standard rate of £64.30 a week, in contrast to £89.80, the starting point of incapacity allowance – and, after six months, puts claimants on the Flexible New Deal. This, being tried out in large parts of the country, will eventually replace all existing welfare-to-work schemes. For a year the jobless will be farmed out to private companies, intensively advised and obliged to carry out a minimum of four weeks of “work related activity” (they may be “advised” to do much more).

This sounds relatively benign. It replaces 13 weeks in “work placements” of dubious value or simply stuck in “training centres” (where the only “training” is sitting in front of computers “job searching” for work that does not exist) of the previous New Deal. However, the Government has learned nothing from its experience of farming out the New Deal to private companies, two of which at least have been accused of malpractice. The faith-led YMCA has also run schemes. Most have scraped through their contracts with low employment outcomes and feeble training standards. The approximately 600,000 claimants who have faced sanctions for not complying with every aspect of the schemes shows how they are used to punish people. If participants were in charge of inspections, the companies would fail in an instant – yet the DWP has been told to contract out its new scheme to the same bodies.

The new regime will closely regulate people’s lives. Partners of JSA claimants will also have to seek work actively. Those dependent on drugs and alcohol will undergo compulsory rehabilitation. There is no clear notion of what will happen if they fail, other than they will have no benefits.

Most worryingly, after two years unemployment people will be forced onto the Work for Benefits programme. This will involve full time activity in “training options, short term work trials, a remuneration subsidy for employers to take them, or voluntary work in the local community,” (DWP October 2009). With unemployment set to rise to 3 million by October next year, when this policy is enforced, they will have plenty of compelled “volunteers”.

Some argue that since JSA is supplemented by housing and council tax benefit, it is “fair” to work for this money. However, those further benefits are paid at varying rates, making the overall pay rates different between individuals – and still leaving them well below the minimum wage.

This all raises fundamental issues. First, why should those who through no fault of their own have no job be forced to do what has up to now been the task of those sentenced to do community service by the courts? Indeed, what will happen to community service orders when the long-term unemployed start to undertake similar “sentences”?

Second, this will corrupt the voluntary sector, parts of which are already gearing up for it. The character of the voluntary sector will change. The nature of forced labour is to give power to the employer while discouraging the worker, making them dependent on the goodwill of the employer. The rights of volunteers are not the same as those on paid contracts. Groups and no doubt individuals will profit financially.

Third, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that cash-strapped local government will see this as an opportunity to plug gaps in their services. A tied labourer is cheaper than a paid employee. In areas as disparate as home helps to environmental projects volunteering could become a new national service, replacing those working for real salaries.

Those opposed to welfare reform have to date had little impact on Brown’s take it or leave it decision that this is the direction welfare will go in. The umbrella initiatives organised by the TUC have petered out in well-meaning but ineffective lobbying by a coalition of “antipoverty” NGOs with some union support. There are now signs of a more militant approach emerging from unions of the unemployed and other groups. There are web sites promoting opposition and plans for a decent benefit system that could really cope with people’s needs. As mass unemployment returns pressure for change will increase.

 Labour looks set to leave behind a new class of helots – the work-for-the dole underclass. An incoming Conservative Administration will have plenty of conscripts for its plans for workfare. Both ideas were pioneered by the same person – once adviser to Labour and now the Tories, the exceedingly wealthy Lord Freud.

Andrew Coates

􀁺For more information, visit Ipswich Unemployed Action: http://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/

Well, it’s all off the Flexible New Deal. Contrary to what I was led to believe by other people, it is TNG that I have to report to.

The New Deal Scandal site, and others, have  already shared their knowledge and experience of this “provider” (for example here)

I wonder if any of this relates to the contents of the Jobcentreplus Flexible New Deal document, “What you can expect and what we can expect from you.” (FNDI 10/09).

It begin with  two pages explaining what the FND is.

One page on what we can expect from you. That is  responsibilities we owe to the DWP and the ‘Provider’.

Then “What happens if you don’t meet your responsibilities”?”

Answer: Sanctions. Seven pages  ( Page 7 to 13), from a total of 14,  about them.

Ends with “How to make a complaint.”

On Page 2 there is some stuff about ’service standards’.

It would have been more useful if they explained how the Flexible New Deal is going to be delivered, what is consists of, and what responsibilities the ‘provider’ TNG, has towards its clients.

But of this, nothing. 

Reed in Partnership - the  word ‘partnership’ should make anyone wary.

They are subcontracted to provide the flexible New Deal. In Suffolk.

Flexible New Deal has raised issues about them in the recent past.

We have yet to hear any criticisms of how they treat ‘customers’ locally. And we shall be scrupulous in fulfilling any demands they make on our members and supporters  - insofar as they correspond to Reed’s own criteria.

That is their “set of six core values “,  “Accountability, Honesty, Efficiency, Forward Thinking, High Performing and Customer Focus”. (here)

Any experiences of these – please comment.

Mick’s Blog contains some important stuff,

“Many hundreds of claimants are unjustly imprisoned every year because overpayment amounts are being ‘wildly exaggerated’ by the DWP, welfare benefits expert witness Neil Bateman has told MPs . In one case he assisted with, a woman prosecuted for a £47,000 overpayment had in reality under-claimed benefits.  

The shocking revelations were made in written evidence to a House of Commons committee currently examining the standard of DWP decision making.”

More here.

Signs that things are starting to happen,

No to Welfare Abolition

the national planning meeting

Manchester University Students Union, Steve Biko Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR, rooms MR1 and MR2

Saturday 14th November

Arrive 11.30am for 12 noon start. Finish 5.30pm.

* The aims: stop the implementation of the welfare reform (abolition) bill; build a network of solidarity between claimants; create links between unemployed workers and workers in the PCS

* The day: 1. Share information 2. Plan a national action 3. Build a strategy and work out how we can co-ordinate nationally

The Welfare Reform Bill is a massive attack on the disabled, single parents, unemployed workers and workers in the Department for Work and Pensions and we cannot allow it to be implemented. 

14^th November is our chance for welfare and disability rights activists, members of unemployed workers’ groups and trade unionists to get to together, build links of solidarity and plan our struggle. If you are organising against welfare abolition or want to start doing so, please make sure people from your group come along!

We say to the government and the bosses, we do not exist for your benefit!

Free lunch will be provided.

Let us know you are coming by emailing hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com.

Contact rebecca.galbraith@yahoo.co.uk if you want to use the free creche.

Contact hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com if you need transport from London

Naturally, Manchester is rather a long way from Ipswich….

Bypass the Benefit Delay Scandal

Jobcentre Plus gets correspondence sent to the below published address for the Suffolk (?) area:

Bury St Edmunds BDC
Thorpe Road
Norwich
NR99 1AD

It actually then gets redirected to:

Bury St Edmunds BDC
St Andrews St North
Bury St Edmunds
IP33 1TT

This is intentional to delay your appeal and your correspondence going to a decision maker.

Post a letter today to the actual Bury St Edmunds BDC Address via first class Royal Mail service it should arrive tomorrow or the following day.

Send it to the Norwich address (notice the NR99 postcode, this is a special postcode it doesn’t really exist) it can take up to a month for anyone from the BDC to process it (I have seen a document I sent to the BDC with a stamp confirming this).

Appealing?

Next time use the actual physical address not the Norwich processing centre address and they should be able to process it within a week.

Hope this helps.