Wednesday 27 January 2010

Contradictions

When so many people are desparately in need of even one job it seems unfair that some people have more than one. Like Professor Russel Griggs OBE who recently became a board member of Scottish Enterprise. As the article points out, Griggs has a number of other jobs, including being Chair of A4e Scotland. His own website shows 13 previous roles, mixing the private and the public sector, and 11 current roles.
On 25 January 2010 Mark Lancaster MP asked a written question of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: - how many hours of training A4e staff working on contracts let by her Department undertake annually. The answer came back from Jim Knight MP: - "Staff training is an internal matter for A4E and therefore not one that the Secretary of State can offer information about, or comment on." And yet A4e recently got a grant from the Dept. for Business, Innovation and Skills: "A4e will be working with employees to establish processes for informing and consulting staff on the future of the company. The project will involve the design, launch, establishment and assessment of an employee engagement process.
Sector: Training
Number of Employees: 837
Project Grant: £11,700.00"

Strange that one government department can say that A4e's staff training is nothing to do with them, while another gives them a grant for staff training.

1 comment:

  1. Dame Edna Bouquet27 January 2010 at 15:53

    The A4e website claims they have taken on 800 new staff for the FND contracts. But of course, the site makes no mention of how much they spent on training. But does say they spent GBP 1m on refurbishing their offices.

    I, like you, think the UK taxapayer has a right to know how their money is being spent or not being spent.

    I like the "A4e will be working with employees to establish processes for informing and consulting staff on the future of the company". When has A4e ever consulted staff? Looks like Emma's CBE has 'addled' her brain

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