Unemployment Business Prospering as Seetec Boss Rakes it in and Expands Empire

SEETEC has offices in Ipswich, running the Work programme, and (until George Osborne pulled the plug on that nice little earner) and the Help to Work Workfare programme.  Many of our readers are all too familiar with this company which lives off public money.

It now runs one of the newly privatised probation services in Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

Private Eye this week (No 1411)  reports that this arm of Seetec  is already in  “trouble”. An audit completed before Christmas found “problems” with Seetc and South Yorkshire CRC, run – no you could not make this up – by French catering and cleaning firm, Sodexo.

Private Eye notes that this bunch of chancers had a turnover of £1.4 million; today this stands at more than £80 million, largely by profiteering from state money.

The report states that Seetec was part the national Help to Work – that is Workfare schemes, work for no pay –  only got 4.7% of participants into work.

Seetec, the articles notes, had a “mixed” performance. People round here know just how “mixed up” this scheme was.

Private Eye says that Seetec’s owner-boss Peter Cooper got £1.6 million in dividends alone last year.

Here is their latest scheme to expand their empire and rake in more income from the public purse:

Seetec launches new Skills Academies

Over 40 guests attended the launch of the Seetec Skills Academies at Essex County Cricket Club on Wednesday 25^th November with guest of honour Graham Gooch OBE.

Seetec, an Essex based skills and employment specialist which has been supporting people back to work and improving their skills for over 30 years, was delighted Graham Gooch could attend the launch of its exciting new skills provision and celebrate the new partnership with Essex County Cricket Club.

This is their own puff:

Seetec has over 29 years experience as one of the UK’s leading employment and skills training providers, supporting over 100,000 customers per annum to move into sustained employment.   Seetec delivers large scale national contracts such as the Department for Work and Pensions’ Work Programme across 3 regions as well as various ESF programmes through the Skills Funding Agency and Apprenticeships.

Seetec also delivers a range of contracts designed for specific customer groups such as our Work Choice contract for disabled customers and local programmes for lone parents, young people and NEETs, ex-offenders and graduates.

Seetec.

Last we forget another gang running the Unemployment Business here is a report from earlier this month.

Scandal-hit welfare-to-work agency A4E sees its profits quadruple

By SARAH BRIDGE, FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY

A4E, the welfare-to-work agency rocked by fraud allegations which led to the resignation of its founder and chairwoman Emma Harrison in 2012, saw turnover fall but profits quadruple last year.

The firm, which is a key partner to government schemes, said the number of UK jobseekers referred to it was falling due to the economic recovery, but that it was seeing an increase in its Australian operation.

In the last set of accounts before it was bought by rival Staffline Group, A4E recorded turnover of £166million in the year to March 2015, down from £189million, and profits of £9.2million, up from £2.3million, due mainly to a fall in operating expenses.

Harrison, who has appeared in TV’s Secret Millionaire, set up A4E in 1991 but resigned after six staff were jailed and four received suspended sentences for falsifying the number of people helped back into work.

Harrison, who stepped down as David Cameron’s families tsar, was also criticised for taking an £8.6million dividend from A4E on top of her £365,000-a-year salary.

Staffline has said that after a full audit by the Department for Work and Pensions, systems were now in place to prevent any recurrence at the Sheffield-based company.

Sure…..

A4E are Back – to Face New Allegations of “Incredibly Dangerous” cuts.

Just when you thought they’d gone away…..

Hat-Tip Tobanem

One of the companies at the heart of the government’s welfare-to-work programme is facing allegations that it introduced an “incredibly dangerous” cost-cutting move that could put the lives of many disabled benefit claimants at risk.

Earlier this year, A4E allegedly introduced a new policy that forced advisers with no specialist training or experience to start working with “vulnerable” claimants with mental health conditions, learning difficulties and drug and alcohol problems on the government’s Work Programme.

The company had previously only allowed advisers with “in-depth knowledge of the barriers faced by our hardest to help customers” and “experience of working with disadvantaged, disengaged and/or disaffected people” to work with this group, many of whom were claiming the out-of-work disability benefit, employment and support allowance (ESA).

The claims – which are strongly refuted by the company – raise new questions about the government’s much-criticised efforts to support disabled people into work, with new figures released this week showing that only 1.6 per cent of former incapacity benefit (IB) claimants who were now claiming ESA had secured at least three months’ work within their first year on the Work Programme.

The allegations emerged during a case for constructive dismissal taken by whistle-blower Chris Loder, a former A4E adviser, from Fleetwood in Lancashire.

Disability News.

The word “refuted” is incorrect.

Rebutted or denied are the correct words.

The article continues.

Loder was lauded as a “high performer” by his bosses, achieving nearly 200 per cent of his target for finding jobs for claimants, and was the top-performing sales adviser in the north-west and Cumbria region.

He worked for A4E for nearly 18 months, but was recruited to work only with those claimants of jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) who were closest to the jobs market, finding job vacancies among local employers and securing job interviews for A4E customers.

But after A4E introduced its new policy, Loder was told that all advisers in his office would have to work both with clients in his group and with those who faced more complex barriers, including people with mental health conditions, learning difficulties, and other impairments.

The new policy had already been introduced in two other local offices, and was later rolled out across the company.

In a statement seen by Disability News Service (DNS), Loder says the measures were introduced by A4E in his office in February this year.

After they were introduced, about two-thirds of his new caseload of customers had complex barriers.

Loder, who came from a sales background and had no experience of working with disabled people, warned his manager in Blackpool repeatedly that the new policy was not safe and would put the health of vulnerable benefit claimants at risk.

He says he told his manager that he was worried about the effect his “demanding” way of working with clients would have on vulnerable customers, “in particular people with mental health conditions”, because he “wouldn’t be able to see the signs of the conditions deteriorating”.

He also said he was concerned that his actions “may wrongly result in their benefits being sanctioned”, which could also affect their health.

He was refused extra training that would give him the skills to work with these client groups, and eventually resigned on 20 March, claiming constructive dismissal.

He told DNS that the company’s new policy could lead to the deaths of vulnerable claimants.

So, no training, work for A4E and bingo!

You have super-powers!

We’ve had the DWP playing at psychology. They’ve dabbled in psychometric tests, Online Cognitive Behaviour Therapy  and all the rest.

Now A4E have gone better: their employees are all  full blown psychiatrists, social workers, and special needs teachers.

Respect!

Here’s a timely reminder of what’s happening across the system:

4 A4E Fraudsters Plead Guilty.

Four former employees of scandal-hit welfare-to-work firm A4E admitted swindling taxpayers yesterday.

The guilty pleas follow a police investigation into the troubled company which is paid more than £200m by the Government each year.

Julie Grimes, 50, Aditi Singh, 30, Bindiya Dholiwar, 27, and Dean Lloyd, 36, admitted dozens of offences of fraud and forgery.

From the friend of the Dole Queue, The Daily Mail. 

Watching A4E comments,

The Daily Mail reports that the first four ex-A4e staff in the long drawn out fraud case pleaded guilty at court in Reading yesterday.  They admitted a total of 32 offences of fraud and forgery while working on a scheme called Inspire to Aspire, which ended in 2011.  (There’s a fifth person who couldn’t get to the court and will plead guilty later.)  The Mail claims credit for this case, but it was a whistle-blower who brought it all to light, and A4e has always claimed that it was their own audit processes which revealed the fraud, and they notified the police.  However it was revealed, it is embarrassing, to say the least.  Money was claimed for job outcomes which were fictitious.  The fact that this first batch has pleaded guilty means we won’t get to hear the details, but it appears to have involved forging outcome forms or signatures.
Sentencing hasn’t happened yet.  Eight more people are due for trial in October (!) so this drags on.

This is worth a chuckle,

A4e STATEMENT ON THAMES VALLEY POLICE INVESTIGATION – 3 FEBRUARY 2014

Four former A4e employees today (3 February 2014) admitted fraudulent activity at A4e while employed to deliver the European Social Fund (ESF) ‘Aspire to Inspire’ Lone Parent mentoring programme in the Thames Valley region.

Following the guilty pleas at Reading Crown Court today, A4e Chief Executive Andrew Dutton said:

“I am deeply disappointed that a small number of people who formerly worked for A4e on the  ‘Aspire to Inspire’ contract in the Thames Valley up to 2011 clearly let down the people they were supposed to help, and in turn the taxpayer, DWP and A4e.

A4e co-operated fully with the police enquiry, after our own internal investigation first brought these incidents to light.

Since these events took place, we have augmented our controls and processes to seek to ensure that nothing like this could ever happen again. This includes implementing all of the recommendations for improvement made to us by White & Case LLP following their independent review of our core processes.

Furthermore, rigorous audits undertaken by the DWP and the Skills Funding Agency have concluded that there is no evidence of fraud on any of the contracts that we currently hold with them.  A4e has, of course, committed to paying back in full the total value of unsubstantiated claims that were made to the Department for Work and Pensions as a result of the activities of these former employees.

I would also like to say thank you to our 3,000 loyal, hard-working and principled staff who each day deliver public services to the highest standards that help to improve the lives of thousands of the most vulnerable in our society.  I am intensely proud of what they do and deeply sorry that the allegations have for so long cast a shadow over their good work.”

We expect there to be massive increase in fraud when this happens  in April 2014.

Almost one million people will be forced to work unpaid for six months if a new government work scheme is extended across the country, a thinktank has said.

Under the Department for Work and Pensions community action programme (Cap), which has completed a pilot stage and whose rollout is expected to be announced this autumn, people on jobseeker’s allowance for longer than three years must work for six months unpaid or have their benefits stripped from them.

As indicated above, this is not “if” the scheme is introduced but when it is – in a couple of months!

Is Seetec the new A4e?

Seetec (South East Essex TEchnology Centre) is a relatively local “training” organisation that has become a significant workfare player in recent years. Their wikipedia page states their success of seeking 4,417 benefit sanctions to “Work Programme conscripts” in just a single week. They use the Provider Direct sanction hotline more than any other provider.

A4E Fraud Charges as Work Programme Collapses.

The Crown Prosecution Service announces,

Sue Patten, Head of Fraud at the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Following an investigation by the Thames Valley Police Economic Crime Unit, the CPS has authorised charges against six women and three men in connection with alleged fraudulent activity at Action 4 Employment (A4E), a social purpose company contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to deliver the ‘Inspire to Aspire’ employment and training scheme.

“It is alleged that between February 2009 and February 2013 nine A4E employees including one contract manager, seven recruiters and an administrator, employed across three A4E offices in the South East of England, committed numerous offences of fraud. It is alleged that they forged documentation to support fraudulent claims to the DWP for reward payments which, under the terms of the contract, were paid out when the scheme successfully placed individuals in employment. It is alleged that many of the reward payments related either to people who never attended A4E or to clients whom A4E had not successfully placed in employment. The contract was to deliver motivation and training and to assist people to find employment.

“The nine individuals are charged with a total of 60 offences, including conspiracy to defraud, multiple counts of forgery, and making and possessing articles for use in fraud.

“This decision to prosecute was taken in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors. We have determined that there is a realistic prospect of conviction and that a prosecution is in the public interest.

“All individuals will appear before Slough Magistrates’ Court on 14 October 2013.

“All individuals are now the subject of criminal proceedings and have the right to a fair trial. It is extremely important that nothing should be reported which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

When will they get round to Emma?  we ask.

Meanwhile the Work Programme is disarray.

The government has put a brave face on its failures by saying,

More than 168,000 jobseekers have escaped long-term unemployment and found lasting work – normally at least 6 months – through the Work Programme, an increase of 37,000 in three months, new figures show.

Minister for Employment Mark Hoban said: “Previous schemes didn’t provide the right support for the long-term unemployed and offered poor value for money for the taxpayer. We launched the Work Programme to tackle this so people got the help they needed to find a job and, crucially, given support to stay in work.”

Johnny Void says,

Statistics released by the DWP today show that the performance of the Work Programme – which was already achieving less than doing nothing at all – is steadily getting worse.

By June 2013 a lower percentage of people who had been on the scheme for one full year had found a job which lasted at least 6 months  – known as a sustained job outcome – than in the previous two months.  In April 2013 14% of claimants who had been on the scheme for one year had found sustained jobs, by June this had dropped to 13%.

Following intervention by the UK Statistics Agency, the latest Work Programme figures now focus on the numbers of people finding work after spending one year on the scheme.  This change has been introduced to reflect that the longer someone has been on the two year Work Programme, the more likely they are to find a job.  This means that the number of job outcome payments, paid to welfare-to-work companies when someone has been in work for six months (or 3 months for the ‘hardest to help’), will rise over time.  This has nothing to do with the Work Programme becoming more successful – it simply means that as more people are referred onto the programme, and more people have been on the scheme longer, then there will be more job outcomes.

The Morning Star points out that this is no success,

Employment Minister Mark Hoban can manipulate his figures for as long as he wants to portray his Work Programme as a glowing success, but he’s wasting his and our time.

A programme that delivers a proper job to a measly 4 per cent of participants after a year on the scheme is a failure and does not merit ministerial praise as “significantly improving.”

The Work Programme has in year two of the scheme found sustained employment for just 17 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds even though the Department for Work and Pensions estimated that, left to their own devices, 30 per cent would be able to do so.

Similar negative results apply for workers aged 25 and over, those coming off employment support allowance and, worst of all, disabled workers.

The cruel, short-sighted policy of shutting down Remploy factories – imposed by both Con-Dem and new Labour governments – has prevented growing numbers of disabled people from earning their own living.

Further, the disproportionate effect of the bedroom tax on the disabled exposes the bogus claims made during last year’s successful Paralympic games in London.

By any standards, the government’s flagship employment policy is a failure in terms of finding people proper jobs.

In the meantime people coming off the Work Programme are beginning to be shunted onto yet more ‘schemes’ run by the usual ‘providers’.

A little birdie tells us that a “big shake up” in planned for us at the start of December.

This does not sound promising.