'Prospects Services, the training firm already infamous for dumping a bunch of trainees under a London bridge in the middle of the night during the Queen's diamond jubilee last year, has achieved the second worst results of any contractor on the government's Work Programme. Is it embarrassed? Apparently not.
Prospects "success rate" for moving the jobless into work on its West Country contract was 2.3%. This translates into fewer people than the DWP thought would have found jobs if they hadn't been on the scheme.
in its written evidence submitted to MPs on the work and pensions subcommittee and published earlier this month, one might have expected a little contrition. But no: everything is going swimmingly, apparently.
Prospects says its "experience and belief" is that there is no "creaming and parking"....that the "black box approach" which gives it a free hand "ensures innovation and allows for greater flexibility" and that the "prime provider model" which puts bigger firms like Prospects in charge does "not preclude innovation".
The firm only seems to identify one serious problem - that the pesky trainees complain too much! "It has been our experience that some complaints arise because of unrealistic expectations on the part of customers, arising from the way the programme was explained to them by JC+ staff" So there is a contractor's view of the Work Programme: the customer is always wrong.
Source: Private Eye
Prospects "success rate" for moving the jobless into work on its West Country contract was 2.3%. This translates into fewer people than the DWP thought would have found jobs if they hadn't been on the scheme.
in its written evidence submitted to MPs on the work and pensions subcommittee and published earlier this month, one might have expected a little contrition. But no: everything is going swimmingly, apparently.
Prospects says its "experience and belief" is that there is no "creaming and parking"....that the "black box approach" which gives it a free hand "ensures innovation and allows for greater flexibility" and that the "prime provider model" which puts bigger firms like Prospects in charge does "not preclude innovation".
The firm only seems to identify one serious problem - that the pesky trainees complain too much! "It has been our experience that some complaints arise because of unrealistic expectations on the part of customers, arising from the way the programme was explained to them by JC+ staff" So there is a contractor's view of the Work Programme: the customer is always wrong.
Source: Private Eye
