A4e originally entered the Australian market in 2009 as a provider of Jobs Services Australia provision on behalf of The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) in Sydney and New South Wales. The integration of AETS will supplement this through offering accredited training predominantly in business, hospitality, retail and community services.

Shula Kentwell, Chief Executive of A4e Australia, said “we are delighted to welcome AETS into the A4e group; this is an important investment in the Australian business, which is progressing well.  The deal will significantly increase the range of services A4e is able to offer to out of work Australians as well as helping employers who are seeking trained staff and wanting to up-skill their existing workforce”.

“With the Australian focus now being very much on ensuring people are able to secure long-term sustainable employment, it is a natural and logical step to bring an employment services specialist like A4e and a skills acquisition-focused specialist like AETS together,“ she said.

In announcing the appointment, ERSA Chairman, Rob Murdoch, said: “We are delighted that Kirsty McHugh has agreed to join ERSA.  Kirsty’s background and understanding of the issues around economic development, employability and skills, housing, health inequalities will be invaluable in her new role.”

“Kirsty McHugh will work with the Board and wider membership to build on ERSA’s success to date, broadening its profile and deepening its engagement with employers, Government and other stakeholders.”

Kirsty McHugh said: “This is a key time for the Employment Services sector, with the implementation of the Work Programme and changes to the benefits system likely to impact on every part of the sector.  I look forward to leading ERSA through these changes; working with Government and other stakeholders to achieve our shared goal, ensuring the best possible support is available to help benefits claimants achieve long-term, sustainable employment.”

Ms McHugh joins ERSA from Business in the Community, the largest business-led charity in the UK, where she was the Director of Social Policy and Investment.  Prior to joining Business in the Community, Kirsty worked variously as a policy and public affairs specialist at the British Chambers of Commerce and the trade association for the UK shipping industry. She graduated from University College London in 1993. 

On the site you will find out all about their approach to the Work Programme, what they are looking for in potential partners and subcontractors, and what Reed in Partnership can offer you in return.

There is an online form on the ‘Contact Us’ page of the website. If you are interested in partnering with Reed in Partnership to deliver the Work Programme in one or more of the framework lots please complete the form and they will get back to you in due course.

Stakeholder Events

To provide more information about Reed in Partnership’s approach to the Work Programme they will be running the following partner events in October:

7th October     Crowne Plaza, Birmingham           9.30am to 1.00pm

8th October     Holiday Inn Bloomsbury, London    9.30am to 1.00pm

11th October   Crowne Plaza, Manchester            9.30am to 1.00pm

13th October   Novotel, Edinburgh                          9.30am to 1.00pm

You can register your interest in one or more of these events on the online form.

The letter also, for the first time, provides an indication of the minimum turnover that a provider, or collective group of providers acting as a consortium, would require to be considered for the Framework. The letter states:

“We currently anticipate the minimum value of Work Programme contracts to be £10m per annum. Given what is likely to be a more challenging reward model weighted far more heavily to the delivery of successful job outcomes, we have determined that the value of business awarded to a single organisation should not normally exceed 50 per cent of its existing annual turnover. This means that we would not expect to place organisations on the Framework whose current turnover is less than £20 million per annum unless such organisations can provide during the competition robust evidence of their ability to manage within these anticipated financial constraints.”

Given this new criteria steer, DWP are giving providers who have submitted an Expression of Interest an opportunity to reconsider whether they still wish to progress to the ITT stage for the Framework. The emphasis appears to be on targeting organisations who are aspiring to become Work Programme subcontractors, but who have misperceived that they need to be on the Framework to fulfil this role.  

This note is to let you know that Ministers have decided to discontinue external inspection and improvement support for the quality of our contracted employment provision. This means that external inspections will no longer be carried out by Ofsted in England, Estyn in Wales and HMIE in Scotland. It also means that the Learning and Skills Improvement Service will no longer provide support to providers, although some of the workshops that they deliver through Price Waterhouse Cooper will continue over the next couple of months as we have already made this financial commitment.

For provision in the future, the DWP Provider Assurance Team will extend its remit to cover, in a light-touch way, some of the quality issues that formed part of external inspections. A new single quality self assessment tool will also be developed to replace both the existing Self Assessment Report and Quality Assessment Questionnaire. We will provide further information about what this will mean in practice as our development work progresses.

Momentum Scotland has now been confirmed as the new preferred bidder. They were not one of the originally successful organisations in any of the other Work Choice Contract Package Areas. Momentum Scotland, based in Glasgow, is a not-for-profit organisation focused on providing employment and other support solutions for disabled people. The organisation is part of the Rehab Group, based in the Republic of Ireland, which also includes TBG Learning.

Steve Black, Head of Development at Momentum Scotland, told us: “We are in the process of finalising our post tender discussions with DWP with the expectation that we can move towards contract award shortly. We are still on course to ensure that service delivery can begin on 25^th October 2010.”

Australia’s welfare to work commissioning follows a three year cycle. Even though, therefore, the new Jobs Services Australia programme only began in 2009, there is already debate as to what the potential purchasing arrangements for 2012 might look like. The last tender round, in 2008, saw UK providers such as A4e and Reed in Partnership enter the market for the first time.

Like Britain earlier this year, Australia is facing a close run General Election later this month. With overall unemployment falling, however, welfare reform has not been dominating the electioneering headlines. Both the ruling Australian Labor Party and the opposing Liberal National Coalition appear to be committed to the Jobs Services Australia model. Mark Arbib, Minister for Employment Participation, points to 370,000 job placements being made by Australian providers in the past year, and a third of these outcomes being for the hardest to help customers, as testament that the current system is working.

Mathias Cormann, the Shadow Minister for Employment, appears to largely agree, although is more critical of the handling of the 2008 tender round, arguing that the allocation of new contracts did not sufficiently reflect provider performance records at the time. He has therefore pledged that the top performing 75% of Job Services Australia contracts will be rolled over for a further three years in 2012 if the Coalition is elected. Labor may also push for a full or partial contract rollover.

Jim Carley said: “This visit has provided a great opportunity to build new relationships with many providers, industry trade bodies and government officials. There is a lot of interest in Australia in the developments in the UK market since our own General Election, and clear policy interest in how we support specific groups such as the work that NOMS is leading with offenders. Equally, there are some impressive areas of emergent best practice in Australia which could add clear value within the UK market, and a keen interest from more Australian providers to work with their counterparts in the UK.”

All of Dering’s employees were notified of the situation last Friday, and placed on garden leave, with a redundancy consultation period now underway. DWP and other providers for whom Dering is a subcontractor have also been notified.

The company has claimed that the reasons for its failure stem from alleged non-payment of invoices and breach of contract on the part of one of the largest prime contractors with whom it works, and it is understood that Dering are considering legal action.

Stephen Dering told us: “The current circumstances have been very difficult for us, and we are bitterly disappointed that we have had to call in the administrators at this time. We are very proud of what we have achieved, and my first thoughts are for the loyal and talented staff who have been instrumental to our journey and who now face a very uncertain future. Equally, the situation means that we can no longer take forward the valuable work that we do in supporting the needs of long term unemployed people who are deaf or hard of hearing. We will be working pro-actively with our industry partners in the weeks ahead to ensure disruption to the services to these customers is kept to a minimum”.