Hello StJA, Im posting this again since I still havent heard from you in response to it. Conversation started March 6 Christian Garland 3/6, 12:43pm Hello StJA, Having last night seen the updated list of supply chain partner organisations in the Work Programme - September 2013 - it was quite a shock to see you listed again. The DWP excel spreadsheet in question, lists you as being: 668 CPA 9 A4e St John Ambulance T2 Voluntary Sector and 1242 CPA17 A4e St John Ambulance T2 Voluntary Sector...both regions being the same as two years earlier. Pasted below is the email that was sent to A4e in February this year, which received no reply. As you will see, pasted into that at the start are your own comments from facebook from December 2013. It is alarming to say the least if you are in fact involved in the Work Programme, but saw fit to claim you werent, and very dishonest. However, I would certainly believe your organisation over A4e, and giving you the benefit of the doubt at this stage, it looks to be that this notorious workfare profiteer has once again, erroneously listed an organisation not involved, as being one of its workfare supply chain partners. Some further clarification from you would be appreciated, as would directly asking for an explanation from the said workfare opportunist - thank you. From: Christian Garland (christiangarland@hotmail) Sent: 10 February 2014 18:50:59 To: [email protected] ([email protected]); [email protected] ([email protected]); [email protected] ([email protected]); [email protected] ([email protected]); [email protected] ([email protected]); [email protected] ([email protected]) St John Ambulance Hi, wed like to confirm that we have made checks and and we have no involvement with this scheme. December 9, 2013 at 10:03am St John Ambulance Thanks for getting in touch with us about this. We have checked and would like to clarify that were not involved in this programme. We hope that helps. December 4, 2013 at 1:47pm Dear A4e, As you will see from the quotes pasted here, St John Ambulance are not and never have been involved in your workfare supply chains, so it is alarming you should erroneously list them as a partner organisation in the version of workfare known as the so-called Work Programme. Im referring to their listing in the DWP document Work Programme Supply Chains, on page 25 under CPA9 South East - Thames Valley and Hampshire and Isle of Wight, Voluntary Sector T2, and CPA17 South Yorkshire, Voluntary Sector T2 on page 45. Of course, the big game of pass-the-parcel that is outsourcing and tendering allows workfare partner organisations - and indeed workfare third-parties - to hold their hands up and say not us! when faced with criticism. However, whether or not an organisation has decided to participate in the variants of workfare is one thing, but incorrectly listing an organisation that has never been involved, quite another. The smoke and mirrors and weasel words of workfare supply chains can be seen when a workfare third-party is faced with criticisms for being thoroughly implicated in something which can and does involve claimants being sanctioned for not jumping for joy at the prospect of being helped into work by the likes of A4e. Then the evil twins of PR - technical pedantry and ambiguity - are called on to insult the intelligence of critics by saying how A4e, Ingeus, Serco, or whoever, dont decide benefit entitlement, or dont sanction anyone. They dont, but they are indeed involved in the same process which leads to just such an outcome, and know it. To be sure, however opaque and fragmented the chains of chains that the DWP and workfare industry use, they do not include organisations that have never participated, so you really need to explain why you did just that with St John Ambulance. All those unfortunate enough to have been forced onto the so-called Work Programme, not sharing the starry-eyed can-do positivity of the workfare outfit they are sent to, can be and frequently are sanctioned by the Job Centre, if the third-party workfare advisor decides they are not engaging. The DWP legislation facilitates this, by being really as clear as mud, and open to any and all interpretation to allow Job Centres and the workfare industry rather more interpretation than claimants. An advisor can interpret perceived non-compliance, by a claimant for not accepting the help that is offered: fake smiles and first names being the Twenty-First Century gloss for Duncan Smiths Victorian workhouse ideology of self-help, individualizing what is a social, societal problem, as the fault of individual moral failings. Once again however, it needs to be asked why you saw fit to list St John Ambulance in two of your workfare supply chains when they were never participants in the first place. It is also important here to counter in advance, any use of the business-speak term, barriers to employment, by be restating that the biggest barrier to employment remains what it always was: unemployment, and no amount of self-help positive thinking twaddle can change that. The DWP likes to cynically cook the ONS statistical books by no longer counting those compelled onto workfare, or sanctioned, in the figures, so it can *appear* as if unemployment has fallen, when it hasnt at all and the actual total is indeed far higher than is ever officially claimed: a modest estimate being something like 2.8 million. So far, *30* Big Name companies and charities have ended their involvement with this tawdry sham, and the number of Big Name charities to have cut their ties with the so-called Work Programme - and in plenty of cases all other variants of workfare - is now actually higher than the number of Big Names still in, and it is to be hoped this continues to increase further . What A4e needs to do here, is explain why an organisation that is not and never has been, a partner in any of its supply chains has been listed as just that.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 21:15:53 +0000
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