Only one UK charity wins a prime contractor bid on new Work Programme 2

Finance | Vibeka Mair | 4 Apr 2011

Just two of the 18 prime contractors on the government’s new Work Programme are voluntary organisations, one in the UK and the other in Ireland, while 289 charities, including Mencap, the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and the Prince’s Trust, will be sub-contractors.

UK welfare-to-work charity Careers Development Group (CDG) will be a prime contractor in east London, in partnership with employment and training firm Maximus.

The CDG will also be part of the Work Programme delivery for two successful Maximus bids in West London and the South-East.

A CDG spokesman told Civil Society that it would support the charity sector in its East London programme:

“We will have 15 sub-contractors,” he said. “Out of these nine will be charities. We have a great opportunity to show how the charity sector can help people back to work. It is important as a charity to support other charities in this field.”

The other charity prime on the Work Programme is Dublin-based Rehab JobFit, who will work with support services firm Interserve in Wales and south-west England.

An Interserve spokesperson said its contract with Rehab JobFit would be worth £130m over five years. The total value of the Work Programme contract is likely to be between £3bn and £5bn over seven years, based on a payment-by-results structure.

The Shaw Trust, the Wise Group and BTCV all failed to be appointed prime contractors but will play a role as sub-contractors.

Environmental charity BTCV said the news was a disappointment for the civil society sector. Deputy chief executive Ron Fern commented:

"BTCV is a beacon of creativity and ambition in difficult times and we are obviously disappointed that the government has not given BTCV, and the voluntary sector in general, the opportunity to demonstrate its ability to lead on these types of contracts."

The big private-sector winners were Ingeus Deloitte, Serco, A4E and G4S.

The organisations named as preferred bidders will now go onto contract signing and the Programme will begin in June when the first customers are referred from Jobcentre Plus.

Directory: BTCV | Mencap | National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureau | Prince's Trust

Place a comment

John
Adams
5 Apr 2011

CDG is not as the DWP state a "voluntary sector" organisation!

It is supposedly a registered charity but its practices casts doubts on that.

It obtains all of its funding from the DWP via JC+ !!

Last year it spent £20,000 of taxpayers' money just to be "The Platinum Sponsor" of the annual welfare to work event organised by the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion...money that would have been better spent on helping people back to work...as their contract requires!

[Reply]

Alex
4 Apr 2011

This article seems incorrect

One winner Working Link has 3 shareholders

The government's Shareholder Executive has 1 share held on behalf of the Secretary of State for Work + Pensions ( so the DWP has awarded the contracts to themselves )

Cap Gemini and Manpower have 1 or 2 shares

Mission Australia has 1 share, and is described as a charity

So there are other charities that have won, but they have used e.g. Working Link name

We are a public, private and voluntary company, bringing together private sector drive, public sector ethos and voluntary sector ethics.

Our public sector share is managed by the government’s Shareholder Executive on behalf of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Our private sector shareholders are Manpower and Capgemini, and our voluntary sector share is owned by Mission Australia.

[Reply]

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.