I was hardly surprised to see that Leanne Wood was unimpressed with the comments of Cardiff University Professor, Patrick Minford in today's Western Mail.
It's all very well saying that those who are claiming should be "more flexible", but sometimes, there just aren't jobs available.
To take the Rhondda as an example, in mid-September there were 270 live vacancies at the local Jobcentre Plus but 1,580 claimants - that's 1 job for every 5 claimants.
How about Clwyd South where there's 168 jobs for 990 claimants? That's the same ratio.
Ynys Mon's pretty much the same - 269 live unfilled vacancies for 1,172 claimants. Almost the same.
Wales needs to develop an entrenepeurial, improved work-based culture that treats people well, looks after them, nurtures their talents and gets them to contribute to the society in which we live.
This can only be achieved by valuing people, not writing them off and dismissing them.
As we suffer through a downturn not of our making, we must inspire Welsh based industries to grow in their communities, and then, through job creation and fair redistribution, we will get the fairer society that we are working towards.
Showing posts with label Jobcentre Plus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jobcentre Plus. Show all posts
Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Jobcentre Plus Office Roll-out
Westminster's Public Accounts Committee released it's report into the DWP's Jobcentre Plus Roll-out last week.
The report is glowing in it's appreciation of the savings made by the office rationalisation plan that replaced 1,500 jobcentres and social security offices across Great Britain with 800 modernised Jobcentre Plus offices.
The rationalisation has been such a success that we can very probably expect more of this nature from others, such as the DVLA, Driving Standards Agency and Courts Service who have all been in touch to get the low-down on what made it so successful.
This is, of course, the rationalisation that saw more than 50 DWP offices close in Wales between 2004 and 2008, leaving 32 towns without a local office, and whose continuation sees another four offices undergoing consultation and with a total of 600 jobs on the line according to PCS Wales.
One of the trumpeted successes was the saving on 16,500 full-time posts as part of the 2004 Spending Review.
Sadly, finance appears to be the only success to which the report could point: 'a more cost effective network...not able to demonstrate clearly whether the project has achieved the business case objective of increasing the number of clients finding work' (2), while 'the improved office environment has not increased customer satisfaction levels significantly' (3), which makes the phrase 'improved' look strangely out-of-place.
In plain English, we've saved some cash, but we've not bothered to work out if we're doing our raison d'etre any better and the 'customer' doesn't think it's made much difference.
I'm all for cutting the waste, but too often these things cut into the bone, and if people in rural and urban Wales are being held back because of their inability to get to a Jobcentre Plus and have the service they need/require, then the changes have failed. Unless you're a government accountant.
The report is glowing in it's appreciation of the savings made by the office rationalisation plan that replaced 1,500 jobcentres and social security offices across Great Britain with 800 modernised Jobcentre Plus offices.
The rationalisation has been such a success that we can very probably expect more of this nature from others, such as the DVLA, Driving Standards Agency and Courts Service who have all been in touch to get the low-down on what made it so successful.
This is, of course, the rationalisation that saw more than 50 DWP offices close in Wales between 2004 and 2008, leaving 32 towns without a local office, and whose continuation sees another four offices undergoing consultation and with a total of 600 jobs on the line according to PCS Wales.
One of the trumpeted successes was the saving on 16,500 full-time posts as part of the 2004 Spending Review.
Sadly, finance appears to be the only success to which the report could point: 'a more cost effective network...not able to demonstrate clearly whether the project has achieved the business case objective of increasing the number of clients finding work' (2), while 'the improved office environment has not increased customer satisfaction levels significantly' (3), which makes the phrase 'improved' look strangely out-of-place.
In plain English, we've saved some cash, but we've not bothered to work out if we're doing our raison d'etre any better and the 'customer' doesn't think it's made much difference.
I'm all for cutting the waste, but too often these things cut into the bone, and if people in rural and urban Wales are being held back because of their inability to get to a Jobcentre Plus and have the service they need/require, then the changes have failed. Unless you're a government accountant.
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