Whatever happened to that site?

[Grapplin]

Voice of WP on Tue, 07/08/2012 - 11:00am.
<cite>Very interesting that the volume of posts has slowed now that moderation happens before a post.</cite>

Who'd have guessed that if a forum was off most of the time(for whatever reasons) that many of the users would drift away.

<cite>Is that because people have lost interest or the moderators simply do not allow the sort of posts that made it through before to see light of day now?</cite>

I don't think many are posting, perhaps they've boycotted it!

Rose Wiseman on Tue, 07/08/2012 - 11:58am.
<cite>We are committed to keeping channels of communication open with users of the forum, and have found email to the best means for reaching individuals and addressing their concerns.</
cite>

LOL.

stephw2w on Tue, 07/08/2012 - 12:54pm.
<cite>It also takes more time and effort to put a considered point across about a subject.</cite>

I do. - it's taken me ages to do all these >cite<s!

<cite>I hope the "moderate before publishing" approach does work for ID.</cite>

I think it will be too slow, bit like having a discussion by 2nd class post.

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Grapplin

I agree with you.  I seem to be one of the characters whose attempts to post anything on there are now vetoed automatically, not that anyone from Indus Delta has had the courtesy to e-mail me in the way that you have quoted.......!

I don't think it matters one jot.  I believe that this particular Google group is a much better idea than the Indus Delta forum anyway.   We all have you to thank for setting it up for us and I, for one, am very grateful to you. 

LC

[Grapplin]

Hi Grapplin

I agree with you.  I seem to be one of the characters whose attempts to post anything on there are now vetoed automatically,

I didn't know that ppl were being refused when I wrote that, haven't posted there recently, be interesting to see if turns up!
Posted it there about 4.50pm. No emails, but not expecting any.

I don't think it matters one jot.  I believe that this particular Google group is a much better idea than the Indus Delta forum

I think ggs are better for just a few private conversations. I've used it as an alternative to email while chatting to a mate a few miles away, - doesn't suffer from the random delays of email turning the conversation into a 2 Ronnies mastermind sketch.

Anyone can create one in seconds, just click on Groups then Create, and delete the group when you're finished(I'm often tempted!). As they're a cross between an email list and a group, the problem with an open group is letting ppl post without seeing each others email.

I copy&paste from the comments box to here in case the post disappears. If you want to do that click on NEW TOPIC and you'll then have a total of about 4 readers!

[Gissajob]

Well it didn't take too long before the orgy of mutual back slapping has begun on ID:
This:

Submitted by Voice of WP on Sat, 11/08/2012 - 9:36am.

@everyone

This is now like the Indus Delta of old, sensible, properly moderated discussion which informs and still challenges but in a more professional environment.
I did suggest pre-moderation and it was shot down but it appears to have achieved something positive - well done Indus Delta

I predict that VP will bore everyone to sleep.

[Grapplin]

Well it didn't take too long before the orgy of mutual back slapping has begun on ID

Looks very quiet to me, still negativity there.

[Gissajob]

Well now Judi
looks like someone is missing us (or at least you!):

Posting Responses

Submitted by Voice of WP on Fri, 31/08/2012 - 5:01pm

Given that we are seeing very little by way of new topics nor responses to exisitng topics, I wonder if this is because the moderation is blocking just about everything or have previous posters given up on ID.
It does seem strange that nothing is coming through from the original bunch (Lazy Cow et al) who were always very vocal.
Regardless it does seem as if the discussion part is now so sterile that it is pretty ineffective, either that or loads of people have nothing to say. Interested in points of view regardless.

Astonishing that Voice who was so vocal (if you forgive the pun) in calling for us to be banned, is now missing us.  I have no intention of ever posting on ID again after having been banned 4 times (Consignment400, Consignment399. consigned_to_oblivion and writebetweentheeyes).  Any site that so blatantly edits, moderates or just simply ignores "off message" opinions (no matter how valid) is just not worth the effort.  As far as I'm concerned Voice can go play with herself!

[Gissajob]

They really are missing you:

Submitted by Tyn on Tue, 04/09/2012 - 9:59am.

I must admit, I do miss some of the more constructive contributions from those I would describe as 'critical friends' such as Lazy Cow.

Would you describe yourself as a "friend" I wonder?

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Grapplin, Hi Gissajob

Many thanks for bringing News From The Dark Side! 

I did like Tyn - who seemed to me to be an eminently reasonable, sensible, well-balanced individual equipped with ears and a brain.   

Voice of WP is merely whingeing that she's got nobody left to torment nowadays and so the Indus Delta forum has become as boring for her as I warned her it would become if she got her own way about banning the only lively members on the thing.  

I'm not prepared to bother with Indus Delta any longer.   The people who run the thing seem to me to be convinced that that W2W workers have nothing to learn except from each other.    That's OK with me.    Let them wallow in that fanciful notion - the only losers will be themselves, after all.... 

The Work Programme providers have further to fall than any of their customers have and I'm too lazy to get involved with the stress that the Work Programme providers are placing on their own staff.  My A4E "adviser" imagined that he might be able to transfer his own stress on to me.  There is no chance of that, as the lad will realise in the fullness of time, I expect.

LC. 

[Gissajob]

Well said LC!
Couldn't agree more.  The discussion (what little there is left) on ID seems very boring and confined to relativlely few individuals.  I cannot imagine the mindset that believes that banning all off message opinions will somehow magically lead to an invigorating and relevant discussion.
They remind me of a small child with fingers firmly inserted into ears and shouting loudly "LaLaLaLa .....can't hear you!"
I will drop in from time to time to monitor them but I feel they are dead in the water.

[Grapplin]

Yep, the site's just like we said it would be!  I've no idea why the moderation is so diabolically slow.

Overall I'm surprised at how little clue the w2w 'industry' has. They don't seem to realize their most valueable asset should be their 'customers'. But unlike most industries where the customers are always right even when their wrong, in the w2w 'industry' the customers are always wrong even when their right, afterall if they were right they wouldn't be unemployed would they.
Perhaps they realise the end is nigh and they're busy just rearanging the deckchairs.

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Grapplin

Over on the Watching A4E blog, Jonty Olliff-Cooper has come to life.   He is the young man, aged about 32, who has the grandiose job-title of being A4E's "Director of Strategy & Policy." 

I doubt whether Jonty's sudden enthusiasm for the Watching A4E blog will last for long.  

Do all the other Work Programme Primes have the same attitudes as A4E have, do you know?  What about their sub-contractors?   How much A4E-type brainwashing goes on, do you know? 

Thanks

LC

[Gissajob]

Hi LC
Well Jonty seems to be getting a well deserved kicking* over at ID.
* I guess that with his public school background that would be a good thrashing?

As for the uniqueness or otherwise of A4e:  Other providers have their critics too (see Ingeus thread here http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?309173-Ingeus/page71) which covers a number of the pimps.
However A4greed does seem to have its own special brand.

I think this is because:
1.  Enemma Harrison's character and outrageous milking of the system for her own benefit.
2.  The political string pulling that has gone on
3.  The propensity for fraud within the company
4.  The hypocrisy of "improving peoples' lives", "social purpose company" etc. etc. whereas we all know thet they're just into making money from the public purse
5.  The almost religious self-belief that they are right and everyone else must be wrong (bit like a religious sect).
6. The fact that their approach really doesn't work

Still what would I know?

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Gissajob

Many thanks for your reply. 

You, kiddo, have upset Jonty big-style by getting the ASA to knock the "social purpose company" nonsense on the head.  Jonty doesn't know what to call A4E now.  (I suggest "blurred sector company" since Jonty was waffling about the "blurred sector" in the Grauniad as far as I could gather.)  I think you did brilliantly with the ASA, even if poor ickle Jonty is discomfited.  Waking him out of an otherwise complacent slumber won't have done him any harm. 

Jonty won't stick around to be mauled on Watching A4E, though.   Mark Lovell and the others will collar Jonty in short order and tell him to ignore historian, I expect. 

I agree with all of the 6 numbered points that you have made about A4E.  I had been wondering whether I'm the only person who has those perceptions about A4E, but I am reassured to learn that I have not been alone in thinking these things. 

The truth is that A4E haven't a clue what they're doing.  Neither have most of the W2W insiders who post on Indus Delta.   It astonishes me that anyone could actually want to be employed in the W2W industry.   The wannabes could always try getting themselves lives instead, it seems to me. 

My own A4E "adviser" asked me plaintively what I thought I needed from A4E.  [Truthful answer - nothing and I expressly forbid you to interfere with anything involving me!]  However, I told him that some high-level business contacts in the Southampton-Portsmouth area would be useful, since I'm short of those.  He agreed that this would be useful but said that A4E doesn't have any high level contacts in the local business community.  I barked, "Why the hell not?"  He replied miserably that I'm the only customer in A4E's Southampton office who seems to be able to string two words together without intensive assistance and intervention from A4E.  I thought, "Dear God.  This A4E mob are even more useless than I had imagined." 

The long & short is that this lot are only cabable of trying to shoehorn  probably hitherto long-term unemployed, unskilled candidates into unskilled jobs and that is the only thing they even want to attempt to do, as far as I can gather.  Even the JCP staff are less dozy (a few of them, anyway.)

I watched Emma's video about the history of A4E.  She banged on at length about the Sheffield Steel Workers from 25 years ago.  Apparently these Steel Workers didn't want any sort of re-training.  They just wanted jobs, she insisted.  Unskilled jobs in that case, one presumes.  No wonder this spiel was music to the government's ears.  Don't invest a dime in actually teaching anyone anything but claim to be "helping the unemployed" all the same.  Emma & Co aren't going to spill the beans about the fact that they're being paid a fortune to do sweet Fanny Adams. 

As for Jonty, he's in the wrong job.  The kid wants to be an MP so that he can recycle Hot Air.  I suspect that he wouldn't have agreed to be shipped off to A4E if he had known that The Blessed Emma was going to get the chop-off from Cameron & Co just a few months later.  Her sudden unpopularity in Downing St is seriously inconvenient for Jonty, especially since pollies are not known for having elephantine memories of youngsters like him. 

Ah well! 

LC   

[Grapplin]

Over on the Watching A4E blog, Jonty Olliff-Cooper has come to life

I visit there, I knew you where there before you said, as well as your text I could tell by the layout of your posts!
Perhaps JO-C's rearranging the deckchairs, he pops up in few places now and again,

Do all the other Work Programme Primes have the same attitudes as A4E have, do you know?  What about their sub-contractors?   How much A4E-type brainwashing goes on, do you know?

Yes. they're all as bad as each other as far as I can tell, I don't think it was A4E that was top of the sanctions league. A prime in one area can be a sub in another area!
Everyone's fed up doing basic maths and literacy tests.
I think the smaller subs are better. I can't see any economic or other reason to have big for-profit companies in the chain, I think the whole wp idea is totally ridiculous.

[Grapplin]

The truth is that A4E haven't a clue what they're doing.  Neither have most of the W2W insiders who post on Indus Delta.

Isn't that my line!.
They're not all bad, but I am surprised at how little some of them seem to know about basic economics, business, human nature, and the labour market.

I'm the only customer in A4E's Southampton office who seems to be able to string two words together without intensive assistance and intervention from A4E.

There's probably another reason, everyone knows that unless you know exactly what your doing, it's best to say as little as possible to a wp provider.

The threading doesn't seem to be working half the time here for me.
Editing don't work. but you can just reply again, even to your own incorrect post, and then the delete the 1st incorrect post.

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Grapplin

The Indus Delta forum seems to have become moribund!   Maybe the WP performance figures have been circulated around the W2W industry prior to public announcement and publication. Several of the Primes seem to be worrying about the Market Share Shift arrangements that the DWP is threatening to implement in Spring 2013. 

I'm following the Watching A4E blog with interest to see whether Jonty Olliff-Cooper of A4E  will actually respond to Historian with anything more than flannel and yet another a feeble attempt at PR.   He ought to get the problem by the scruff of its neck and assure Historian that he is going to break with A4E's tradition by dealing with the issues properly for a change.  Whether he'll have the cojones to do that is another matter, though! 

LC

[Gissajob]

Hi LC
You say:

Maybe the WP performance figures have been circulated around the W2W industry prior to public announcement and publication.

Well I doubt it - they wouldn't be kept secret for long.  My guess is that they all have a good idea of their own performance and can compare that with their targets.  What they don't know is how badly others are failing!  The whole scenario may be giving the term "race to the bottom" a new meaning!
I penned (or keyboarded) a  long post on the Watching A4e site and the Jonty thread but must have consumed too much wine as on pushing ENTER it seems to have disappeared into the ether never to be seen again.  Either that or I've found someone else to censor my great thoughts.
I bet Jonty is wishing he'd never gone to A4e.  Sheffield is a long way from the seats of Tory party power and he could be soon forgotton - or just shunned for being associated with Enemma.
He seems to have been recruited to push for the Family Champion thing - I read a long incomprehensible and naive paper written by him.  As that has gone by the board he is a bit of a spare whatsit at a wedding!

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Gissajob

Yes.  I think that your interpretation about why the W2W industry seems to have gone quiet is more likely to be right than my own hypothesis was. 

I just find it strange that anyone could want to be involved with the W2W industry in the first place.    Sure, it is phenomenally well-paid considering that there is no need to do anything of the slightest quality.  However, it would give me the creeps to get involved with anything that is so blatantly lacking in both quality and integrity. 

I'm sure you're right that Jonty Olliff-Cooper must be kicking himself all round the block.   I've only read one article by him but, in that, he does come across as not having a clue what he is waffling about.   Maybe spieling out rubbish is a popular pastime in the Tory party nowadays? 

Hey ho!

LC

[Grapplin]

LC said:
The Indus Delta forum seems to have become moribund!

It's a patient in a stable condition, ie. dead.

Maybe the WP performance figures

The WP and MWA were mentioned a few times in parliament on Monday, I was there, well erm not really!
Offal results due November.

Work Programme (Data-sharing)

12. Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab): If he will make it his policy that Work programme providers should be allowed to share comprehensive data with local authorities on their own performance. [119825]

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban): From June 2012, providers have been able to share management information on referrals, attachments, job entries, and specified information on job outcomes with local authorities that have signed confidentiality agreements.

Nick Smith: The Government’s own Cabinet Office says that publishing data about our public services makes them better, yet the Work programme has been shrouded in secrecy. Will the new Minister let the light shine in?

Mr Hoban: The right hon. Gentleman should remember that this is a two-year programme. Payments are made after six months of sustained work activity based on work outcomes. We need to build up the evidence to see how effective the Work programme is. I am confident that the statistics to be published later this year will demonstrate its effectiveness. It is a vital part of the work that we need to do make sure that we get more people into employment

The most ridiculous thing I heared was:

Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con): The mandatory work activity scheme is important in sending out a signal that sitting around on benefits is not an option under this Government. May I therefore congratulate my hon. Friend on securing its extension, with another 70,000 people a year doing placements in return for receiving benefits? Is he as ambitious as my constituents to see it extended to all able-bodied people on benefits?

When they can't find more than 28,000 places, never mind 170,000, how the hell are they going to find 5 million MWA places for "all able-bodied people on benefits?"
I think he needs a email!

[Grapplin]

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120910/debindx/120910-x.htm

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Grapplin

Thanks for the stuff above.  I noticed a TV clip the other day, showing Mark Hoban being evasive with a journo about when, exactly, the promised first statistics for the WP scheme would be available.   Hoban just kept repeating "later this year" and refused to be more specific. 

Hoban was crowing about the 7,000 new jobs, whilst avoiding the small matter that these 7,000 new jobs are almost all attributable to the Olympics and nearly all of them are jobs in London. 

As for the MP who wants to see the MWA scheme extended, he clearly has no idea how this might be achieved - or what it might cost to try to implement it - but he imagines that the ubiquitous "someone else" is on top of that bit! 

Meanwhile, young Jonty has become conspicuous by his absence over on the Watching A4E blog, I notice.   It is useless to ask a child to try to defend A4E or, indeed, any of A4E's competitors...... 

LC

[Lazy Cow]

The Indus Delta site appears to become more stupid by the minute (though which person with a brain-cell would be surprised by that?)

As far as I can gather, the idea of pre-moderation seems to have been ditched.  However, Lazy Cow seems to have been banned from the thing all the same. 

The owners of Indus Delta are firkin dreaming, of course.  If they think they can p*ss me about and then get themselves the chance to do so twice, they seriously do inhabit the place called Fantasy Land.

Meanwhile, IDS did the stupid thing of refusing to be kicked out of the DWP role in the recent resuffle-ish.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/15/welfare-bill-iain-duncan-smith

No worries.  There are plenty of other ways that Cameron can divest himself of IDS, it would appear.  

Lurvely.  With Friends in High Places, who needs Enemies?  I'm not sympathetic because I believe that IDS is past his use-by date.

LC

[Grapplin]

Lazy Cow wrote:
The Indus Delta site appears to become more stupid by the minute

There was a new topic there on a Sat/Sun a few weeks ago from Logan, so I guessed the mod is
sometimes off.

There's an interesting new thread there ATM from a unemployed advisor/skills coach, worried about getting
conscriptedLOL. I'm not banned - but can't be bothered posting there.

The owners of Indus Delta are firkin dreaming, of course.  If they think they can p*ss me about and then get themselves the chance to do so twice, they seriously do inhabit the place called Fantasy Land.

I read between the lines, and I don't think they know what they want. The whole industry is just hot air.
I agree with Gis's comments about id on the W site.

Meanwhile, IDS did the stupid thing of refusing to be kicked out of the DWP role in the recent resuffle-ish.

It was well reported that he wouldn't move before the reshuffle, he prob wants to finish-off his reforms and
Ultimate Chaos, he doesn't realise its going to be the other way around!

[Gissajob]

I couldn't help but laugh as I saw the following has somehow slipped past the ID censors and started a new thread:

WOMEN ACCESSORIES ONLINE

Submitted by lilylara158 on Tue, 25/09/2012 - 5:24am

It is wonderful items for sure so get Mulberry-outlet as well as wear attractive with delight! Nice bracelets as well as good charms will definitely make your mood coolest! Mulberry-outlet is among the most recognized and privilege brand name in modern world. So you will look luxury as well as stylish with uncommon precious jewelry from Mulberry-outlet! This terrific and preferred business offers stunning as well as distinct for you so do not doubt! Purchase from Mulberry-outlet as well as you will positively happy with our splendid jewelry. Mulberry-outlet trinket is undoubtedly finest option for make gift to your beautiful as well as or to your buddies. It is dreams of every girl to have a lovely as well as one-of-a-kind bracelet from Mulberry-outlet so make gift for your partner as well as acquire that terrific bracelet!

Seems the censors are getting a bit lax.
 

[Grapplin]

There's certainly something odd with the moding there.

[Gissajob]

They seem to have missed this one too!

Got my own job without Providers Help

Submitted by Logan10 on Wed, 26/09/2012 - 1:49pm

Question i have now got a Job myself with no help from Provider . I will not give JCP or Provider any details of my employment nor have i signed any paperwork. Can Provider still claim outcome money ? If so why ? And who do i complain to ?

Got to give that Logan respect for persistance!

[Grapplin]

They seem to have missed this one too!

It's gone alread!

I agree with your comment elsewhere, they must know exactly how many £400s and £1200s have been
paid out.

Got to give that Logan respect for persistance!

LOL.

[Gissajob]

Well LC!   I see you've made a reappearance over on ID!
I know it's Hallow'een but do you really want to visit the dark side???

[Grapplin]

made a reappearance

Well I can't find it?

[Gissajob]

On this thread:
http://indusdelta.co.uk/discussion/jsa_why_do_claimants_not_have_to_justify_spending_public_money_receive/9765
I think I will refrain from their site.  I have been tempted to comment but find that if one comments the moderator allows a reply, if you then try to counter your post is either binned or heavily censored.  This has the effect of making it look like you have lost the debate.  It's like playing a game where the referee is totally biased to the other side - with no possibility of appeal.

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Gissajob

Please check the dates of my posts on that thread!  It was before we were kicked out of Indus Delta.  Someone else has revived the thread very recently.

Generallly, though, the biggest news story to have hit the Work Programme this year was Channel 4 News' pieces about A4E on 24 and 25 October.   Indus Delta and its contributors have been remarkably coy about discussing a news item that affects every single person working on the Work Programme and in the W2W industry generally.  Yet the ID people are remarkably unwilling to speculate about their own futures, it seems to me......   That is just weird, in my view.

A few weeks ago, I went to a "mock interview" at A4E.  I told the "mock interviewer" that I wanted him to interview me for a mock job at the UK Border Agency.  They have an office near Portsmouth Ferry Port.  I know nothing about Immigration to the UK, Asylum Seekers who are already in the UK etc but I'm keeping an eye open for job vacancies with UKBA.   I know a lot about Immigration to Australia because my close family (and half the people in my extemded family) now live in Oz.  I'd like to know more about how all this works in the UK.

The "mock interviewer" is a member of A4E's staff whom I respect.  He used to work in the HR Dept of Hants County Council, so although he has no direct knowledge of how the central Civil Service do their job interviews, he was better than anyone simply taking wild guesses about what the Civil Service actually do. 

The "mock interview" was useful.  The main piece of advice that I got was, "Read the job description & the person specification etc in minute detail.   Preferably, learn those documents off by heart.  Whether or not you think the person specification describes a chameleon, not a human being,, is irrelevant!  If you want the  job then *stick to the script* that the UKBA have provided for the vacancy and do not stray from that script by even one millimetre."  Excellent advice, I felt.  I cam work with that sort of really sensible, cogent advice.

At the end, the guy asked me whether I had any questions.  I asked whether the UKBA's function is likely to be outsourced and privatised?  He declined to answer the question as part of the mock interview - as I had suspected that he might. 

However, afterwards the A4E man told me his private opinion.  He said that he's been reading and "has heard" that several MPs are now asking serious questions about the wisdom of outsourcing public cervices, after the G4S debacle with the Olympics. 

At the time of the mock interview, I had already been interviewed ny Channel 4 News but they had made bluddy sure that they didn't tell me a word about their own plans for the eventual News articles.  Also, I didn't mention a word about that to the A4E man.

Now, though, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems to me that if the A4E man was right about MPs and G4S, A4E have just provided the sceptical MPs with loads of new, equally serious, questions about the wisdom of outsourcing W2W to an unregulated, unprofessional, undiscipined W2W industry.   An industry of spivs and charlatans who know everything about how to jump onto a gravy train and how to milk cash cows but who know sod-all about how to do the actual job once they've got their own bums on the gravy train.  

[Lazy Cow]

PS - Sorry about the typos in my earlier post.

[Gissajob]

Hi LC,
You're right about the dates on the post.  I should have known better, particularly as another rebel (osdset) appears there.  Silly me!
I  have always opposed the provision of public services by the private sector.  This in spite of always working in the private sector. It seems to me that the profit motive adds nothing but serves only to drive down pay and conditions for those actually delivering the service.  I heard an interesting programme on Radio 4 (file on 4) on this very subject.  Listen again at BBC Radio 4 - File on 4.  Nothing specifically about the WP but interesting nontheless.
On a personal note.  I seem to have been parked by A4e - last appointment 2 weeks ago - am waiting for a letter to tell me when next one is.  Hope they've forgotton about me - I certainly won't be earning them any outcome payments!

[Grapplin]

On a personal note.  I seem to have been parked

Quite likely, there's a lot of it going on. I know 2 WPers who haven't been called up for so long that they're convinced they are no longer even on the WP!