Working Links

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Working Links (Employment) Limited
Founder(s) William Cook, Keith Faulkner, Sir Leigh Lewis
Headquarters Covent Garden, United Kingdom
Number of locations 100+ (2012)
Key people Phil Andrew
Employees 1000
Website workinglinks.co.uk

Working Links (formally Working Links (Employment) Limited) is a public, private and voluntary company in the United Kingdom.

Working Links works in some of the most deprived areas of the United Kingdom to address the challenges faced by long-term unemployed people. Within their marketing literature, they claim that they have helped over 240,000 people into employment as of August 2012. However, this information has yet to be independently confirmed. According to its website, Working Links offers support to help people move from social exclusion to social inclusion.

Working Links' public sector share is managed by the UK government’s Shareholder Executive on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The private sector shareholders are Manpower and Capgemini, and the voluntary sector share is owned by Mission Australia.

Since 2006 their turnover has grown from £63 million to £123 million (2010), and they now employ over 1,000 people in the UK. The company has been the subject of fraud allegations and has had the highest referral rate of Work Programme suppliers for sanctions against welfare recipients.

History

Working Links was established in 2000 by the Shareholder Executive, Manpower, and Ernst & Young Consulting. Ernst & Young Consulting merged with Gemini Consulting, a branch of Cap Gemini, to form Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young was renamed Capgemini in 2004. The charity Mission Australia acquired a share of the company in 2006, rendering Working Links the first public, private and voluntary organisation in the UK.

It has delivered contracts on behalf of government departments primarily to get people back into work, starting with Employment Zones and also including Pathways to Work, Progress to Work, New Deal, New Deal for Disabled People and Flexible New Deal.

Working Links also delivers government skills programmes on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and offender rehabilitation programmes on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

In 2011, Working Links won three contract package areas to deliver the Coalition government's new Work Programme. This made Working Links the third largest Work Programme provider in the UK. The three contracts acquired were the South West, Wales and Scotland and, as of May 2012, receives around £120 million a year from the DWP and various other governmental bodies, handling around eighty government contracts, employing two thousand people.[1]

Work Programme

Working Links referred the most cases for financial sanctions (11,910) to be taken against welfare recipients amongst Work Programme suppliers between June 2011 and January 2012.[2]

Richard Whittell from Corporate Watch said the Work Programme appeared to be focused on slashing benefit rather than putting people into work. "These figures give the lie to the government's claims its welfare reforms are about helping people into work".[3]

"By the time it's finished, more people will have been sanctioned by the Work Programme than properly employed through it. Every month thousands of people are having their only source of income stopped and being pushed into hardship. Companies like Serco, Working Links and G4S may not be very good at finding people suitable work, but they're dab hands at punishing them. The private firms say they make their referrals to job centres in line with government guidelines."[4]

Working Links sub-contract work to companies such as Triage and Routes To Work in North Lanarkshire.[5] The BBC broadcast a documentary in which five former employees of Triage claimed that disabled and jobless people processed by the company were referred to as LTB's (Lying Thieving Bastards).[6] A spokesman for Working Links said "We work with a number of subcontractors all of whom go through a stringent vetting and approval process. We take any allegations of poor practice seriously and will be looking into matters further."[7]

Allegations of fraud

In May 2011 a former auditor of Working Links claimed that the level of fraud at Working Links escalated to "a farcical situation" and was "endemic" but that he faced a "stonewall" from managers. Mr Hutchinson said he had encountered "a multi-billion-pound scandal", after working for Working Links and A4e in the welfare-to-work industry.[8] Working Links said: "We firmly reject any assertion of widespread fraud within our business."[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Profile: Working Links and A4e", Telegraph, 24 May 2012
  2. ↑ "David Cameron's back-to-work firms want benefits cut more often", The Guardian, Daniel Boffey, 30 June 2012
  3. ↑ "David Cameron's back-to-work firms want benefits cut more often", The Guardian, Daniel Boffey, 30 June 2012
  4. ↑ The Guardian, Daniel Boffey, 30 June 2012
  5. ↑ "Back-to-work firm attacks offensive behaviour claim", The Herald, 29 January 2013, retrieved 2 March 2013
  6. ↑ "'Lying thieving b******s': BBC documentary lifts the lid on offensive code used to describe disabled and jobless", The Independent, 28 JANUARY 2013, Retrieved 2 March 2013
  7. ↑ "Back-to-work firm attacks offensive behaviour claim", The Herald, 29 January 2013, retrieved 2 March 2013
  8. ↑ "'Billion-pound scandal’ in welfare to work", Telegraph, 23 May 2012
  9. ↑ "Liam Byrne: 'IDS has been asleep at the wheel over A4e", Telegraph, 24 May 2012

External links

Workfare Programmes
Workfare Providers ('Primes')
Workfare Companies
Opposition
Litigation
Legislation
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