Looking for a job? Why not become a DWP provider instead

In recent time the Work Programme has gone live and organisations (businesses) have been working with communities to improve their employability. This began under Labour where huge mistakes were made and private businesses were allowed to bring their own buckets to shower of money soirées.

Since then nothing has changed (apart from an increase in bonuses) and unscrupulous private businesses are still able to tender for huge contracts and provide no measurable service quality either before, or after they begin.

In South Birmingham we have two training providers for the unemployed; one named Pertemps and the other named Intraining; they provide work experience opportunities/employment training and operate as referral agencies for the JobCentres.

The city used to have another main competitor in the way of WorkDirections but they, due to unsatisfactory performance and community complaints, lost many of their contracts. They since re-branded as Ingeus (recently Ingeus Deloitte) and last year won many national contracts as a provider and subcontract supervisor.

This came as a surprise to many as their client reputation certainly wasn't one of high regard and their attitude to employment/training was one of contract satisfaction and not client support.

Today I received a phone call from a concerned ex client who had been passed to Ingeus (they do not operate in the area) despite being told he would be contacted by Intraining.

Upon calling the JobCentre it was clear that Ingeus do not work as a contract provider for the area and that Intraining and Pertemps are the two choices. 

On the surface it would appear that the JobCentre has exclusive providers but in reality these providers simply refer when they check their postcode lottery. A phone call to the Operations Manager of Intraining confirmed this was the case and the question of how Ingeus continues to be granted contracts in non contracted areas was answered.

The question of whether this information sharing is legal is not one I can answer; on the surface it would appear that it should only be passed between legal contractor Intraining and the JobCentre and any subcontracted organisation should seek permission once again.

Ingeus themselves have been very diligent maintaining this balance of contracts and cash-flow especially when they found a new bedfellow in the way of Deloitte, an organisation who work closely with the Government on its funding and it's social policy structure.

Despite the Governments rhetoric about supporting British businesses to grow Ingeus Deloitte (a worldwide mash of companies) have won the majority of the national contracts and continue to push for legislative changes and beneficial working practices in order to continue lining their pockets.

This 'big society' only saw a meagre amount of contracts (2 I believe) going to not-for-profit organisations despite their evidenced previous successes and large private organisations are still able to circumvent their poor performance by sub-contracting for their piece of the action.

This matters because at each stage the provider gets a fee for the clients contract and continued financial support throughout the process however the Government continues to clip the wings of the JobCentres who have the majority of contact.
Why are they not rewarded in some way if they too can satisfy these contracts?

This system stinks; why should the taxpayer pay for a system of sub-contracting that takes a referral from someone it subcontracts to and gets paid for doing so. They are middle men taking a cut for their own work and just like Capita in Birmingham the 'Big Society' starts with a big business and ends with the small society.