A4E Improving?

[Lazy Cow]

It could be that I'm being absurdly naive and overly optimistic.  I am aware that this is possible! 

However, I think I am beginning to see signs of improvement by A4E.  

I'm in an unusual position because A4E have said that I am not one of their "typical" Work Progamme customers.   Their first salvo was to try to persuade me to dumb myself down so that I might conform to their own stereotyped belief about what a "typical" Work Programme customer might look like.  

I rejected that notion very firmly.   A4E have, after all, made an implied representation to the DWP that A4E are competent to help each and every customer sent to them for the Work Programme scheme.   If A4E's own analysis and calculations did not include a Work Programme customer who is not "typical" of whatever they think "typical" is, that is not my problem and it is not the taxpayer's problem either.   Instead, it is up to A4E to raise their own game to my level, not to try to demand that I should try to dumb myself down in order to make their own lives less challenging. 

I realised that it is impossible to achieve anything even slightly sophisticated with A4E if one tries to do it via the bottom of their food chain.  Trying to "cascade" anything upwards with an organisation like A4E simply amounts to an exercise in trying to kick dead whales uphill, in which is most unlikely to succeed.  A4E's appalling, only semi-literate website reveals that a chap called Mark Lovell seems to have replaced Emma Harrison as being the new helmsman of the company, so I sent him an e-mail last week, via his PA. 

The question that I asked Mark Lovell cannot be answered by anyone except him but it is predictable that PAs don't understand the words in front of them, so Mark Lovell's PA redirected my e-mail to one of their other Directors, who is - I am told - A4E's Executive Director in charge of delivery of the Work Programme scheme on A4E's behalf.  E-mails that have been schlepping back and forth between myself and the Work Programme Director's PA confirm that I am to expect a phone call from the Work Programme Director sometime today.

If this Director actually phones me as promised, I intend to try to embark on a root & branch sort-out of A4E's shabby, inept, down-market delivery of the Work Programme scheme.  It is no wonder that their preliminary "success" figures were so appalling when we all saw those (via a leak of the documents) earlier this year. Anyone who does anything with the astonishing lack of talent and ability shown by A4E cannot expect their results to be any better than abysmal. 

So we'll see and I am conscious that I could well be hoping for too much but ya never know, I feel.....  It is worth speaking with this Work Programme Director on the phone, I reckon, just in case A4E really do mean it when they claim to have cleaned up their act and to have put themselves onto a properly competent, professional footing during the last couple of years.   It is not impossible that they have actually set about doing that which they claim to have been doing.

I've started this new topic so that we can keep everything relating to it in one place, as it were. 

I'll provide further updates as and when I hear any more.  I do feel that getting hold of A4E's boss of the Work Programme scheme is a definite start and, with a bit of luck, maybe they'll accept my comments about some of the improvements that A4E so clearly needs to make with the Work Programme scheme.

I'm also expecting a phone call from a journalist today.  I can't tell him anything except my own experiences with being one of A4E's customers on the Work Programme scheme but I plan to give him the URL for this Google group and maybe he might make contact with other people via this group.   It is worth a go, anyway........

Grapplin, very many thanks once again for everything that you have been doing.  If we all get together and chip in with our own observations, and we each deal with the bits that each of us is good at, it is not impossible that the customers might be able to cause some genuine improvements with this wretched Work Programme scheme, I hope.

LC  

[Gissajob]

Well LC - you have been busy!
I fear you may be doing A4e's work for them but admire your persistance.
Although undoubtedly a lot of the shortcomings are unique to A4e I feel that it is also true that many are endemic in the WP itself and would exist no matter who is doing the "providing".

Still let us know how you get on.

G.

[Lazy Cow]

21.05 BST and Work Programme Director lady from A4E (one Ms Tracy Ellison) has not telephoned me, plus her PA has not sent me another e-mail either.  Perhaps A4E imagine that doing anything so trivial as phoning a customer when they have promised - in writing - to do so, is an optional extra and/or a waste of A4E's valuable time?  However, it is all in writing and Lazy Cow is a lawyer.........

If this woman phones me tomorrow, she's going to have to do some apologising because I have spent many, many HOURS of my own time trying to knock some sense into A4E's Directors.  How dare they imagine that I've got nothing better to do than to sit around waiting on their convenience? 

A4E now have until close of business tomorrow.  If Ms Ellison has not telephoned me before then, I will forward the e-mails between myself and A4E's Directors (via their PAs) to Margaret Hodge MP, Mark Hoban MP, that dozy twit Chris Huhne MP (who is my own MP) and a few others tomorrow evening.

Grrrrr.

LC

[Grapplin]

I'd have been surprised if you had got a call.
Don't forget that the more you look at it in any detail, the more the whole thing is just a ponsi scheme. You only
have to look at the chain of companies involved in the CPUK episode.
I was going to mention Margaret Hodge MP in reply to your 1st post.
Keep calm and carry on. Don't get mad, get even, and if that doesn't work then get mad.

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Grapplin and Gissajob

Thank you so much for your sympathetic replies. 

I have had an e-mail from Ms Tracy Ellison, A4E's Work Programme Director, this morning.  After having wasted my own time and her PA's time for several days, it seems that Ms Ellison was "only joking" when she promised to telephone me, first on Monday and then on Tuesday this week. 

Ms Ellison's e-mail this morning informs me that,

"I would like to assure you that I take any and all concerns from our customers incredibly seriously and I continue to investigate"

There is nothing for Ms Ellison to investigate.  I have done ALL of the relevant work on A4E's behalf.  I have then recorded the results of my investigations in lengthy, detailed e-mails to Ms Ellison so that she need do no more than simply read that which I have told her.  Presumably, despite her seniority within A4E, Ms Ellison finds herself challenged by the English language.

It seems that an unnamed individual who rejoices in the title of "Regional Director" might contact me at some unspecified time in the future.  Ms Ellison has not had the common courtesy to tell me the name of this "Regional Director" or to provide any direct contact details for this person. 

I was merely exasperated, hitherto, by the inefficiency and incompetence of A4E's Directors.   I am now furious about it, and I will continue to be furious until A4E's Directors have pulled themselves together properly and have started to behave as if they were sentient adults. 

I also object when people whom I don't even know have the temerity to imagine that I am willing to be addressed by my first name by them and I am insulted by their insolence in assuming that I might reply in a similarly informal fashion.   What on earth passes for Eddikashun in this country nowadays?

Lazy Cow can usually hit the nail on the head when she tries, so I have replied to Ms Ellison, demanding to know whether A4E intends to dip its hand into its demonstrably deep pocket on my behalf or not?  That is a perfectly straightforward question and I am not prepared to tolerate any obfuscation from A4E about it.   I only actually need their support for nothing more than small change in A4E's extravagant eyes, so there is absolutely no need for Ms Ellison to try to involve Uncle Tom Cobley And All in the question.

God, I am angry!

LC

[Grapplin]

Why be mad or angry when you're winning. Always keep calm even when you're not, it gives you multiple multiple goes at the problem and annoys the othe side.
You seem to be asking for a reasonable result, which looks nothing more than what the WP claims to provide, and yet they're showing the WP up as the nonsense it is.

[Lazy Cow]

Dear Grapplin

Thanks very much for your recent reply.  I really do appreciate it. 

You are right in your comment that there is no sense in becoming angry with any of this nonsense from A4E.   It is merely proving to be a simply colossal waste of my time to try to get A4E to do that which, presumably, they claimed to be able and willing to do in their representations to the DWP and to Ministers. 

So!  I've been keeping the pressure on A4E.   The exact re-training programme that I want to do would cost A4E around £500-£800, I suspect.  The cost of enrolling in the specialist re-training scheme is actually only £30 but it would also be necessary for me to attend around a dozen CPD-accredited training sessions in London. I reckon that the return travel from home to London and back would probably be around £70 a time (and about six hours of schlepping by me in total every time.)  In A4E's terms, the actual cost is peanuts but it is far more than I can afford out of JSA.

So far, the famed "Regional Director" has telephoned me, so kicking ass with A4E does yield a few results, though not many as yet.   This Regional Director lady for the South East said that the purpose of her phone call was to ask me what I am proposing?  I pointed out that I have written down every possible detail in the lengthy e-mails between myself and Ms Ellison, so what else does this Regional Director lady want to know? 

So far, A4E have not produced the necessary authorisation.  The Regional Director now needs to trot off to talk to various of her colleagues, I gather.  A4E's pretentious Bureaucracy Bandwagon had its wheels oiled this morning, I presume. 

Meanwhile, I have an investigative journalist and a TV camera coming to visit me at home tomorrow.  The journo wants to hear from Work Programme customers who have been conscripted to A4E and from some of their current and past members of staff, I gather.  I reminded the Regional Director that, so far, I cannot truthfully utter a single word that would flatter A4E's Directors and their dismal performance. 

The ball is now firmly in A4E's court and there is nothing for me to do now except to sit back and wait to see what happens next.

None of the political propaganda about the Work Programme scheme even hints that trying to get one of the WP providers to actually DO something useful is more difficult - and more exhausting - than trying to kick a dead whale uphill. 

If A4E had to go and sell their wares to sceptical buyers who have a genuine choice, A4E would go bust in five minutes flat.  That is pretty obvious now.

I think you and Gissajob were the people who advised me that the less one says to one of these WP providers, the better.  You were right about that!  I had had no idea that something so straightforward - and so absurdly simple - could become so complicated and so time-consuming once A4E got their incompetent talons onto it.

Oh well.  Thank you very much, again, for your moral support and for your sound, sensible, calm advice. 

LC

[Gissajob]

Well LC
Full marks for tenacity.
I had posted a long. intelligent (ahem!) and considered reply to your previous entry but encountered technical gremlins and it appears to have disappeared into the ether with its underwear in a tangle.
So you will have to make do with this.
Good Luck with your interview.  Give 'em hell - actually all you need to do is tell the truth - concisely!
As for them stumping up money!  Well they probably got £400 attachment fee and whilst they stand to make thousands more if you get yourself into sustainable long term employment they will not fork out the sort of dosh you are talking about expect "there are no funds available" or words to that effect.
Realistically they may fork out for things like a new pair of work boots, a certification etc. BUT only if there is an absolute nailed on job offer on the table - this is of course putting the cart before the horse in most instances.  These people are not here to get anyone trained unless it means backhanders from the like of Learn Direct and/or an instant return in the form of govt payments.
Be concise (TV is different from a court and time is of the essence), give them lots of nice soundbites.
X

[Grapplin]

Meanwhile, I have an investigative journalist

OMG. You don't do things by half.

A while ago, while posting so called non-sense about the unemployment figures I was asked for more info from
a well known editor! It's always nice to know that at least someone sensible knows you're on to something.

None of the political propaganda about the Work Programme scheme even hints that trying to get one of the WP providers to actually DO something useful is more difficult - and more exhausting - than trying to kick a dead whale uphill.

Of course, it has an unlimited supply of raw materials, it doesn't have to advertise for them - they get sent, it doesn't even have to pay for them, in fact it gets paid for taking them!
Once in stock it then gets paid for throwing them out the door asap - quality doesn't come in to it.

What about the other 700,000 less capable of getting a result than you. I know quite a few unemployed who barely
use the internet for example. I help occasionally by checking out a companies website, but I fear most of them are
just cannon fodder.

[Lazy Cow]

Hi Grapplin and Gissajob

Many thanks for your replies. 

I didn't find the journalist.  He found me via the Watching A4E blog.  When he phoned, it was soon obvious that he knows much more about the details of the Work Programme scheme than I do and he knows far more about the internal workings of A4E, too, because some of their staff members have contacted him. 

I've never been interviewed by a journo before so I'm hoping that he understands how to "lead" a lay-person like me, by asking questions that only require short, snappy answers. 

I'm only a "witness as to the facts that I've seen with my own eyes," obviously.   There is sure to be another Work Programme customer with a much more interesting story than mine.  The journo said that from his point of view, I'm prepared to be named in their programme and I'm prepared to allow pix of myself on the TV screen etc (though I fear for their camera because I'm not remotely photogenic so it will need a miracle for the camera to survive trying to cope with my mug!  I wish I could afford what Clarissa Dickson Wright calls a "visagist.")

I did consider the publicity (which would only be tiny, I know.)  My conclusion is that unless I am prepared to stand up and be counted, the pollies would be entitled to ignore me.   Someone has to be seen to stand up for the customers and it might as well be me if the journos can't find anyone better, I reckon.

Anyhow, the Good News is that A4E have caved in and have confirmed that they will provide as much financial support as is needed in order for me to do the re-training project, and that they'll provide the necessary sponduliks up-front.  They won't get any backhanders from anyone involved with the legal profession - so I wonder whether A4E are actually going to dip into their own coffers, for a change?

That said, I've become very aware of personality.   The relevant A4E Regional Director is a lady, who told me that she did a degree in Accountancy when she went to a university near me.  Right. I've got a degree in Law and a close friend of hers is now a barrister.  Straightaway, this A4E lady and I have stacks in common and we are able to "speak the same language" as one another.

I'm very aware that this might not happen with another A4E customer who has been conscripted onto the Work Programme scheme.  Many, many of the others would be nervous about dealing with letters and e-mails, might not know how to and might become tongue-tied on the phone etc. Not their fault in any way - it just depends on what one's own professional background is/has been.   

Also, whilst A4E have agreed to fork out anything between £500 to £1,000 on my behalf, will they finance that by telling half a dozen other customers, "We have no money"??

It comes back to what Grapplin has been saying for ages.  Someone needs to open the "black box" and to have a good look at its contents, I reckon. 

LC

[Grapplin]

He found me via the Watching A4E blog.  When he phoned

All with your permission I'll hope, - I don't need any details.

I've never been interviewed by a journo before so I'm hoping that he understands how to "lead" a lay-person like me, by asking questions that only require short, snappy answers.

I think you always say too much, I try to say as little as possible, but keep it accurate and then fill in more details
later only if needed. but bear in mind I'm clueless.
Real-life people,  (as opposed to internet-people:) have sometimes said, he doesn't say much but when he does
we should/have to listen, - that does me!

have caved in and have confirmed that they will provide as much financial support as is needed in order for me to do the re-training project

I'd have bet good money on that happening and quickly!

Careful someone doesn't try to turn you into one of their great success stories as in the Mr. Stubbs case.

I think you'll do all right,

open the "black box"
Black box to me should mean something that is already known to work - like a PC. The user doesn't need to
know what's actually in the black(or cream) box or how it works - just that it does.
The WPs black box is just - we haven't got a clue what might or might not work.

The best thread of wp 'customers' experiences that I know of it is of course
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?309173-Ingeus/page83
The rest of the stuff is all over the place.
Good luck.

[Lazy Cow]

Well!  I'm still preening after my short career as a maybe TV star.

I'm thinking of adding the following to my CV:
"Bluddy good on telly."

They filmed the interview for about 30 minutes, it felt like, though I appreciate that they might only use 30 seconds (if any of it) on TV.  I did assure the journo that I will not be in the least bit offended if he doesn't want to use any of the material from this morning.  If I'd ever had a burning desire to go on the stage, I'm sure I'd have managed to do it whilst I was still a nubile young dolly bird.  Also, I agreed to the interview and I do not feel that the TV people owe me anything in return. 

The journo said that he will e-mail me about what to watch and when if I  want to see the finished result but, before that, he has asked me not to identify him or his TV programme.  I believe that some sort of media etiquette probably means that he needs to invite A4E to comment before he airs anything on TV.

I thought the questions were interesting.  The ones I can remember are:

1. Do I feel that A4E have ever treated me badly?   No.  They've always been pleasant and polite in their dealings with me, though I am aware that some of their other WP customers might not have had the same harmless experience as I've had.

2. What is my impression of the Work Programme?  I think it is a pointless waste of everyone's time.

3.  Do I feel that I've been treated like a guinea-pig?  Yes, because I was sent on the WP very soon after it started.  Nobody knew what to expect from it and the providers had no idea how to provide it, either.  

4. Do I think that is A4E's fault?  Not really.  I think it is IDS' fault, mainly.  He was the one who ignored Leigh Lewis (who was the Permanent Secretary of the DWP until he retired in 2011.)   Mr Lewis told IDS that Mr Lewis felt that the idea of the Work Programme scheme should not be rushed into with a crash, bang and wallop.  Mr Lewis  felt that the DWP should be given time to try the idea out via a couple of trial pilot schemes first, then they would need to evaluate the results of the trials, work out where the weaknesses were and iron those out etc.  Mr Lewis advised that the new scheme shouldn't be launched nationwide until it had been designed very carefully etc and Mr Lewis  thought that it would take 4 years before the Work Programme scheme would be ready for a nationwide roll-out.  IDS ignored his own most senior mandarin, so it is the politician's fault that the Work Programme is proving to be such a disastrous waste of time and money for all concerned. 

3.  Do I feel that A4E's involvement strengthens the role of the JCP?  No. All that is actually happening is unnecessary duplication, in that I am now required to produce jobsearch evidence to A4E as well as to the JCP.  It would have been much brainier to give the £5bn to the JCP and to make their ability to do things much more flexible than it was in the past or has become since.  The JCP staff have a much better idea of how to do this work than the companies like A4E have. 

4.  How do I feel about the Work Programme now that I've been on it for a year?  I think the first year has been wasted because the providers have not known how to provide it, the customers have not known what to expect and so forth.  The second year might be less useless than the first year but that is the best, I think, I can hope for.

5.  What efforts have A4E made to find me a job?  None.  They are expecting me to do ALL of the work of job-finding on their behalf as well as my own.

6.  What about re-training and re-skilling?  A4E has "come good" for me in the last 24 hours, and I suppose it has taken about 6 weeks to sort it all out.  However, once I found some re-training & re-skilling that is actually worth doing for me, I then went straight to the very top of A4E in order to get them to agree.  If I had not made a huge fuss, in writing, at the top tier of A4E, it certainly wouldn't have been agreed as fast as it has and it probably wouldn't have been agreed by them at all.

7. Did A4E find me a genuinely useful type of re-training?  No.
A4E would not have begun to know how to find it.  They don't have the skills or the knowledge to do so.  I had to find it by myself and then more or less force A4E to agree to it.

(.....Gotta nip out quickly.....More later.)

[Gissajob]

OK so I can find nothing to disagree with!  I must be becoming compliant in my old age after a lifetime of swimming against the stream.

Bet the camera loved you.

[Grapplin]

2. What is my impression of the Work Programme?  I think it is a pointless waste of everyone's time.

... and taxpayers money.

Sounds like you did well!

[Grapplin]

I think you and Gissajob were the people who advised me that the less one says to one of these WP providers, the better.

I didn't mean it as advice, just it's the word on the street and on the interweb, as here from your favorite site.

I know I am SCARED to speak out at A4e, just in case they take it wrong and punish me for it.

His blog mentions JOC  a4esucks.blogspot.co.uk

[Lazy Cow]

I'm going to publish some burble that is probably irrelevant to anyone except me personally, but if I can force A4E to do something which is exotic in their terms then I am sure that at least one other Work Programme victim can do so as well, so please bear with me. 

My A4E Personal Adviser asked me a few weeks ago whether I thought I would find it useful to do an NVQ course?  I looked at him blankly.  I have no idea whether it is even possible to do an NVQ course in Law but if it is, the content wouldn't be any better than GCSE standard.  It would be of zero practical use to me and if I were going to do A level Law or summat, I might as well nip down to my local FE college for that.  My personal adviser said, "So you don't think that an NVQ course would improve your chances of getting back into the legal profession?"  I said, "It definitely wouldn't." He looked miserable and we left it at that. 

I thought, "What's up?  Have A4E managed to get their claws on some money or a tame provider of the NVQ courses they are suddenly banging on about?"  I decided that that question is not relevant to me personally but since A4E had offered the idea of an NVQ course then they had accepted the principle of re-training and re-skilling. 

Therefore I contacted the Association of Women Solicitors, who have been running their hugely successful Returner Course for the last 30 years:

http://www.womensolicitors.org.uk/aws-returner-course

http://services.lawsociety.org.uk/events/node/55006

[Lazy Cow]

I wasn't wildly impressed with the content of the current Returner Course.  Asking the Law Society how to get one's name restored to the Roll of Solicitors can be done by e-mail or phone.   The Law Society Library is probably located in their HQ in Chancery Lane, London W1.  Southampton University's Hartley Law Library is easily as good, is open to the general public and is only about 5 miles away. 

I asked the AWS whether they could suggest anything cheaper than their Returner Course?  The AWS advised me to contact a charity called LawWorks:

http://www.lawworkschoices.org.uk/

I told LawWorks that I would like to learn about Social Welfare Law and would they be able to help me? 

http://www.lawworkschoices.org.uk/index.php

It only costs £30 for an unemployed legal beagle to join LawWorks and they are a charity, so A4E were not going to get far if they tried to wriggle out of that, I felt!

LawWorks e-mailed me to tell me more.  The £30 buys FAR more help than their website suggests, plus they could offer to each me about Social Welfare Law at a professionally-qualified, competent level, they said, via CPD training sessions. 

I phoned LawWorks.  Whereabouts are the CPD sessions held?   As I suspected, they are mostly held in London, where the large firms of solicitors who support LawWorks are nearly all based. They lend conference rooms to LawWorks foc.

The LawWorks lady said that after each CPD session, the course material is published on-line, so it wouldn't necessarily be fatal if I can't afford to travel to London...... I told her that Emma Harrison trousered an £8.6 million dividend last year alone, so A4E can easily afford a few train fares and I asked LawWorks to say nothing to A4E that might give them the idea that they could get something on the cheap & nasty.  A4E continue to make more than enough money to enable me to do this. 

Then I set about with the cudgels to bludgeon the Directors of A4E into submission.  A cosh is easily good enough for such an amateurish, skill-less, sub-literate outfit as A4E, imho.

A4E have caved in.  Their Regional Director confirmed that they will pay all of the costs involved including, I imagine, the costs for at least 12 visits to London.  A4E will book the mainline rail tickets, they will pay for them at the time of booking and I'll just collect the tickets at the station.

I sent LawWorks another long e-mail yesterday arvo, confirming A4E's agreement in principle and asking several more questions, so that A4E and I can both start to get a better "feel" for what the real costs are likely to be and what sort of timescale is likely. 

For the time being, that's me (personally) sorted.  Natch, I made sure that I copied A4E's Regional Director and my Personal Adviser in on my e-mail to LawWorks.   Nothing inspires A4E quite as readily as the thought that I could release the whole of the paper trail to the national media if A4E so desire?

It should NOT be necessary to have to be bloody-minded with those untrustworthy little bar stewards A4E in order to get something done, but if being nice doesn't do it then being bloody-minded instead will. 

Clearly, I might well be the only Work Programme customer who needs LawWorks but the next customer might be an expert in IT, Engineering or something and s/he might need the same sort of specialist re-training.  Someone who is already an expert in their own professional field is likely to know where to get the sort of re-training that would actually have a genuine value for him/herself.

I feel it is selfish to hog the bone for myself alone.  Also, I see this as a way to drag some genuine competence into the bluddy Work Programme scheme.

LC