Thursday 26 July 2012

Government pays people to set the questions, mark their own answers and decide what the prizes will be: shock

Bob E has dug up a few choice morsels/chunks of vomit for our amusement and pleasure:

Exhibit One

The Merlin Standard has been designed by the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) with providers and representative bodies to help evolve successful, high performing supply chains, and champion positive behaviours and relationships in the delivery of provision. The development of the standard responds directly to concerns raised by providers, especially those not operating as prime contractors, in ensuring appropriate fairness within supply chains.

So who's obtained the coveted Merlin Standard thus far, then, Bob?

Exhibit Two:

A4e
Avanta
Careers Development Group
EOSWorks
ESG Group
G4S Welfare to Work
Ingeus UK Ltd
Interserve Working Futures
JHP Group Ltd
MAXIMUS Employment and Training Ltd
NCG (Intraining)
Pertemps People Development Group
Prospects Services Ltd
Reed in Partnership
Rehab Jobfit
Seetec
Serco
Working Links


Just remind us, Bob, who was 'helping' the DWP draft the rules on who qualifies for getting their snout in the trough?

Exhibit Three:

The Merlin Standard pilot stands out as one of the most unique, innovative and collaboratively structured projects that the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) is currently undertaking. It aims to introduce a new qualitative accreditation that considers the supply chain behaviours of prime contractors towards their subcontractors. Carley Consult, an SME based in Nottinghamshire, were appointed as contractors to DWP in 2009 to deliver key aspects of the pilot process, including designing the draft criteria and assessment model for Merlin. In aspiring to an industry led solution, the approach has involved key contributions from industry trade bodies, other DWP providers and DWP itself.

The Merlin pilot is subject to wider industry collaboration, through a dedicated Advisory Group formulated by DWP on which Carley Consult participates. The 22 strong Advisory Group includes representatives of the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA), the Association of Learning Providers (ALP), the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO), The British Association of Supported Employment (BASE), Faith Action (a third sector umbrella body), local authorities, the Commission for the Compact, and key DWP suppliers.


And, picking one of those assocations at random, who might their members be..?

Exhibit Four

3SC
A4e
Action Deafness
Advance Employment
Advanced Personnel Management
Avanta - incorporating TNG and Inbiz
BEST
Black Country Housing Group
Bromford Group
Business in the Community
Calder UK
Campbell Page
Careers Development Group
Carillion Energy Services
Catch 22
Clarion
Community Links
Crisis
Enham
EOS
Epcot Career Solutions Ltd
ESG Skills Ltd
G4S Welfare to Work
GOALS UK
Groundwork
i2i
Impact 21
Ingeus
International Learning Centre
Interserve
Ixion
Kennedy Scott
MAXIMUS Employment and Training
Mencap
MyWorkSearch
Newcastle College Group / Intraining
Outset CIC
Panda Employ Ltd
Papworth Trust
Pinnacle People
Pluss
Prevista
Prospects
QED-UK
RBLI
Reed in Partnership
Rehab Group
Remploy
RNIB
Sarina Russo Job Access
Scope
Seetec
Serco
ShawTrust
South Bank Employers' Group
St Loye's Foundation
St Mungo's
Steps to Work
The Citizens Trust
The Salvation Army Employment Plus UK
The Wise Group
Tomorrow's People
Turning Point
Twin
Vertex
WISE Ability
Work Solutions
Working Links
YMCA Training


Strip out the ones which are offshoots of government departments, and that list lookes pretty similar to the one in Exhibit Two.

5 comments:

A K Haart said...

"The Merlin Standard pilot stands out as one of the most unique, innovative and collaboratively structured"

I suppose "collaboratively structured" is about right.

Mark Wadsworth said...

AKH, tee hee.

IH, sure, but what puzzles me is that the Tories didn't boot out all the Labour luvvies and install their own. I've stumbled across dozens of examples of this where Labour Luvvies have moved seamlessly across to being Tory luvvies (Lord Turner, Capita, A4E, the bloke in charge of raiding dormant bank accounts, Will Hutton, Lord Hutton, Alan Milburn etc etc)

Sarton Bander said...

2 Brands, one ruling class.

Pogo said...

"The Merlin Standard pilot stands out as one of the most unique,"

Obviously no understanding of grammar is needed to obtain or spin this accolade... "unique" is an absolute and cannot (correctly) be qualified.

:-)

Mark Wadsworth said...

SB, that's the worrying bit.

P, well spotted. But maybe there are degrees of uniqueness. We could e.g. argue that the island of Great Britain is unique; and that the Antarctic continent is also unique.

But clearly the island of Great Britain is quite similar to either half of NZ, or to Ireland, but there is nothing even vaguely like the Antarctic anywhere else.