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Workstep (Blackpool)

I am delighted to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) to his new position of Minister with responsibility for disabled people and to wish him well in that post. Supporting people with disabilities to obtain useful and satisfying employment and to remain and, hopefully, progress in it is rightly an issue that commands great public interest and cross-party support. One such long-standing initiative has been the supported employment placement scheme, currently known as Workstep, whereby funding from Government—in this case the Department for Work and Pensions—is matched by a host employer. Among the local authorities who have taken part in this scheme has been my own, Blackpool council, which is Conservative controlled and whose adult social care and housing department has been responsible for administering it. The factsheet from Blackpool council issued in August 2007 stated:"““Workstep recognises that disabled people often face complex barriers in finding and/or keeping a job...Workstep is for you if you are disabled as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995...once the right job has been identified, you will receive ongoing support and advice to help you continue in your job and develop your skills and abilities.””" Unfortunately, the sequence of events that I have to relate tonight strongly suggests that for some of the people on Blackpool's Workstep scheme those supportive words have not been lived up to. Blackpool council initiated a process at the end of April this year that led to five months of pressure, anxiety and uncertainty for the people concerned and their families and friends. At that time, Blackpool had 30 people on the Workstep scheme, of whom 11 held contracts with Blackpool council but were placed with host employers. A number of the Workstep employees had been in long-term employment with host employers—hard-working and dedicated to the jobs they were doing, which provided them with self-esteem and financial stability. However, suddenly, without prior warning or consultation, those people were told that Blackpool council had reviewed Workstep scheme. The 11 who were contractually employed by Blackpool council but who—in the rather cold words of the note that was issued to them by the social care department—"““provide work to another organisation””" were told, along with their employers, that the council would no longer support the scheme as previously operated. As a result, I was contacted by family and representatives of two of the people affected, who were my constituents, and subsequently by an employer in my constituency of a third person. All those people had been left concerned and bewildered by not only what had been proposed, but the manner in which it had been presented. The ““Changes to Workstep—Employee Information”” document, which was read to one of my constituents at a meeting organised by Blackpool council's adult social care department on 22 May, said:"““It has been identified that it is not financially viable for Blackpool Council to be paying, or partly paying individuals who do not provide work for the Council. We need to make 2 per cent. savings across the Council. Many senior management posts were made redundant last year, but more savings are required. The money paid out by the Council to support this scheme is greater than the money brought in. Unfortunately the Council cannot support the scheme in this way any longer.""We have already spoken to your host employer about this and have asked them to consider if they will take you as an employee with their organisation, with a new contract of employments and on their terms and conditions. If the host employer agrees to offer you a position and you do accept, you will need to resign from your position at Blackpool Council. If this does not happen you will be at risk of redundancy.””" The note to employers gave a similar financial reason for changing the scheme but added that"““as the individual has been working with you for such a long time and is trained and experienced in the role they have been undertaking, we would like you to consider appointing the individual. We are allowing discussions until the end of May. If agreement cannot be made about appointing the individual to your terms and conditions, our plan is to issue 12 weeks notice that the individuals are at risk of redundancy.””" I am not going to name in this House tonight the individuals about whom I was contacted—they have been put through enough pressure by these events—but it is worth quoting what one of them said about these notes at a subsequent meeting between him, his family and advisers, the host employer and officials of Blackpool's social care department to discuss the situation. They said:"““I enjoy working here...with wonderful caring colleagues and have no desire to work anywhere else...the wording of this made me feel like I was a bag of rubbish waiting for the bin men to collect. I thought it was very sharp and impersonal. I feel like just a number being disposed of.””" In the wake of those concerns and complaints, I wrote on 20 May to Steve Pullan, the executive director for adult social care at Blackpool council, who had initiated the process to alter the position of these Workstep employees, asking him why the council proposed to terminate their contracts. What had further disturbed me since being made aware of the proposals was that conversations between my Westminster office and the contract provision delivery team of the Minister's own Department had confirmed that despite the funding provided to Blackpool council for the Workstep scheme by the Department—some £400 a month per employee—the council did not consult the Department's officials or, as far as I am aware, Jobcentre Plus, before acting unilaterally. Nor did it discuss the possibility of transitional arrangements to ease the stress and turbulence with which these employees were now threatened. I asked about the motivation for acting now, given that the Department had not altered its national funding or criteria, and the next national review of Workstep was not due until late 2009. The letter that I received back from Mr. Pullan did not address the financial issue but said instead, rather disingenuously, that as the Workstep contract"““has an end date in 2009, we thought it worthwhile to look and plan ahead.””" He admitted:"““These people have been with the host employers for many years””" but said that since Workstep was designed to encourage progression and as"““the group of 111 mentioned above had not moved onto secure employment with the host we have actively reviewed the situation.””" My two constituents have worked with their host employers for about 20 years each—indeed the original placements were made via Lancashire county council, from which Blackpool council inherited responsibility for their contracts when the Blackpool authority became a unitary one 10 years ago. Why, therefore, had Blackpool council waited until now to decide that it needed to be moved on to encourage progression? It is perhaps not surprising that when comparing the reasons given in the notice that the adult and social care department issued with those given to me by Mr. Pullan in his reply to me, the relative of one of those affected said in an e-mail to him that"““the clear shift of emphasis from efficiencies to forward planning is puzzling and disingenuous.””" What is equally puzzling is that, only five days after I had received my letter from Mr. Pullan, an e-mail sent by another council official to the employer, who had also queried the reasons and timing for the changes, said that"““this decision has been made both on financial grounds and in order to deliver the objectives of the Workstep Scheme.””" The employer challenged the council about why"““this just came out of the blue—if the scheme migrated and changed over the years you should have been in contact with both (the employee) and (us) so that a scheduled plan could have been put together””." The official replied that"““you are correct in stating that we could have taken these steps any time since 1998!””" The council has continued to deny any financial motives for its actions, and, indeed, at a meeting with me last week Mr. Pullan again sought to insist that his junior officials had misunderstood the situation in their written explanations—but to do so not once but twice, in writing, looks at the very least, to echo Lady Bracknell, like carelessness. My meeting with Mr. Pullan came only after four months and two further letters from me both to Mr. Pullan and to Councillor Lily Henderson, the cabinet member with responsibility for his department's administration of Workstep, in which I questioned whether the council's actions were not against the spirit and possibly the letter both of equality and disability legislation, and also the Government's partnership with local authorities on Workstep. As well as being very slow to respond to direct questions from me and representatives of my constituents, the council has been evasive as well as insensitive in not appreciating how it has turned the lives of vulnerable people upside down more than a year in advance of a national review—as well as running the risk that because host employers had been placed under an unreasonable deadline, these people would end up redundant and demoralised. The fact that these issues have dragged on over the summer has exacerbated the situation. I have discovered that the assessments that were supposed to take place for employees to access their potential for progression were, at least in some cases, never properly carried out. I am disappointed that, despite both Councillor Henderson and Steve Pullan being made aware of the human impact of this situation, they failed to act urgently to relieve it. I have known one of my affected constituents and his family for 10 years. At the end of July, I visited him and his elderly mother in their home, where she was increasingly house-bound and where he had taken on increasing caring responsibilities. It was clear that they were both very upset and stressed at the threat to his job, and a note sent from the council's own occupational health doctor to the host employer over the summer confirmed that. Sadly, on 1 September, my constituent's mother died and since then he has been on sick leave. He is keen to return to work, but his doctor has advised against it at present. On 25 September, two women representatives of Blackpool council called on him and told him that the"““redundancy steps were still in force and could be acted upon at a time of their choosing””." The money saved by Blackpool council by abandoning its contractual obligations and top-up funding would, as Mr. Pullan has admitted to me, be comparatively meagre—probably less than £30,000 if enacted for all 11 employees. After all, the overwhelming proportion of the money comes not from the council but from employers, and the Government. Blackpool council is Conservative controlled, but I am pleased to report that my constituents' cases have been robustly supported by their individual councillors from both sides of the council, and I pay tribute to the strong advocacy by Labour councillor Fred Jackson and Conservative councillor Jim Holdsworth. I appreciate also the involvement of the council's chief executive, Steve Weaver, in trying to achieve closure on some of these issues. But even now the situation remains uncertain and not properly resolved. Mr. Pullan tells me that seven of the 11 individuals have now been transferred to host employers, but of course their salaries and terms and conditions are not guaranteed to be the same as they were. Of the other four, the gentleman who lost his mother is still at risk of redundancy. In one case, the council appears to have reversed its position and guaranteed employment until 2009, but whether that will be via the existing contract or by transfer to the host employer is still not clear. My office was told by the employer in my constituency that his employee was made redundant by the council, paid redundancy money and then re-employed by the host employer. When I raised this at my meeting with Mr. Pullan, he was unaware of the situation and I am now waiting for clarification. After all the inconsistencies and unequal outcomes that Blackpool council has produced, the decisions still appear to have been taken without any consultation with the Government or its agencies. In addition, the upheaval on which Mr. Pullan embarked and in which Councillor Henderson colluded ignored the overall context in which local authorities as providers of Workstep are obliged to operate in return for being funded by the Government. The Minister's predecessor—my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire), to whom I pay tribute for her commitment and advocacy as Minister with responsibility for disabled people—made that very clear in her letter to me in July after I had discussed Blackpool council's proposed action with her. She said that there was:"““clear recognition that some individuals will require long-term support in work, possibly for the whole of their working lives. In these cases Workstep providers should continue to provide support for as long as the customers require it. I feel it would be wrong for ""a provider to put pressure on any individual if they are not in a position to progress, or if it puts their current employment position at risk. This is clearly contrary to the overall aims of the programme.””"