By Kevin Jenkins
This morning, 4th Feb, James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, received the Third Sector Taskforce’s report (Download here) on the role of the third sector in welfare to work reform. The taskforce was set up jointly by ACEVO and the Department of Work and Pensions DWP in summer 2008. ACEVO Chief Executive, Stephen Bubb chaired this morning’s launch and stressed to James Purnell that the sector has a key role to play in creating jobs and volunteering opportunities.
On behalf of Community Links I travelled to Birmingham to present evidence to the enquiry.
Reflecting on our 11 year involvement in New Deal delivery as we drove towards Birmingham to present our evidence to the DWP review of New Deal – the ACEVO / Groundwork / DWP Taskforce, it seemed ironic that we (Community Links) needed a “new deal” to be able to compete for the new contracts in the future.
Arriving in good time after 120 miles on the road, it was annoying to discover that the previous consultation session was over-running and our one hour of opportunity was now going to be squeezed into just 45 minutes.
After formal introductions / forewords given by the attendees, David Freud and Tony Hawkhead (the chair of the session), we had just 38 minutes left for several organisations to put their cases forward!
Our case was as follows:
Concerns about contracting ‘welfare to work’ services
- VCO currently not on a level playing field
- Perception / attitude by government that private sector always the best and that VCO are inferior (in terms of poorer quality, outputs, meeting cost and time deadlines)
- Some of the big providers, we feel, are profiteering by taking a management fee and then sub-contracting the actual work. Why not give it directly to the on-the-ground provider?
- The type of organisation delivering ‘back to work’ programmes is the key to successful getting numbers of people into work
- Community Links would only look to scale up in London, not other parts of the country (the process needs local knowledge)
To go for big contracts VCOs need:
- Access to capital
- 70% of payment up front
- To address cash flow
- To get rid of TUPE
- To build their capacity to deliver the services
Possible solution:
1. DWP to set up a fund
- to put bids together (again large companies have dedicated bid writing teams)
- to carry some of the risks
- provide investment up front and setting up costs
2. Investigate reduction to the size of regions and/or contracts – e.g. £10-15M/contract
Our case was received with respect by all present, indeed it soon became apparent that our points were shared even by the large national providers.
Following our appearance in Birmingham we have used every available opportunity to make our case heard and our New Deal operation has had a recent visit from Tony McNulty, the Minister for Welfare and Employment reform and his predecessor Stephen Timms.
For us the case is simple:
If the DWP are serious about maintaining locally based third sector organisations as main welfare to work providers, given the unique attributes we bring, then we need a New Deal model that we can compete for on a level playing field with the national (and international) companies that are hovering.
Given that our services of excellence are in one of the most deprived inner city areas of the country, we hope to inform DWP thinking! We wait and see.
