Below is an exert from a New Deal contract.

Main Aims and objectives:

Ensure a range of tailored quality work placements across all occupational sectors are available to all clients.

Oh dear, PPDG appear to have suffered a terminal failure to meet that objective. I have bent over backwards to accommodate them, but they have failed to provide me with a placement that meets my suggestions. In practice they have a limited number of participating employers and are relying on you accepting one of those rather than meeting your requirements as a client and their obligations as a provider. Tailoring? No, off the peg, poorly fitting with limited choice.
There are many explanations given, which may all be true, but the reasons are irrelevant, it simply means that in practice the contract cannot be fulfilled and that therefore in its current form, at least under PPDG, and perhaps with just about anyone, New Deal is a lost cause in Kidderminster as it isn't being implemented effectively. Somebody, ultimately John Hutton, hasn't done his research before going ahead with this program, or alternatively has but has chosen to ignore it. If PPDG can't provide this, they have defaulted on their contract and therefore should be sanctioned in the same way I would be if I don't meet the requirements of my contract as a New Deal participant. What justification is there for ploughing public money into a failing business? Time to go home, reassign the staff or make them redundant?
All this perhaps wouldn't be so bad if it was a cost cutting exercise, but it is the complete opposite. According to PPDG itself, it is costing £3900* per person per 13 week New Deal course. That is approximately double my annual Jobseeker's Allowance. Looks like the unemployed are a bargain for the state compared to the alternative? I've got a suggestion. Here in Kidderminster we only have our bins empted twice monthly. How about taking the money that the private entity Pertemps pockets and buying a dustcart and a crew to run it, recruited from the ranks of the unemployed i.e. real jobs doing a useful public service? Perhaps because by doing that you wouldn't have an army of New Dealers servicing the livelihood of a Cabinet Minister, and the Chief Executive of PPDG Colin Birchall?

I originally wrote this in the absence of the Marches District (Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire) contract because I couldn't find it, on the assumption that it would at the very least, be very similar to the example used above. Well sure enough, the contract has now been supplied to me and it is clear that the following occupational areas must be delivered:

• Business Admin
• Construction
• Engineering
• Healthcare and Public Services
• Retail, Customer Service, Warehousing and Distribution
• Forklift truck and Warehousing
• Transportation
• Manufacturing
• Hospitality
• Bricklaying
• Plumbing
• Glazing and Window Fitters
• General Labouring
• Plastering
• Floor and Wall Tiling
• Carpentry/Joinery
• Painting & Decorating
• General Construction Maintenance
• Electrical

Now, I interpret this in the following way. When I request a placement doing electrical work, I expect to be provided with it because that's what it says Pertemps have to do in their contract. If they send me elsewhere, they have defaulted. Seems straightforward.

* This was a figure provided from Pertemps during conversation, therefore it only represents hearsay. Now that I have received the schedule of payments from Jobcentreplus, the standard fee being earned by Pertemps per person per age 25+ 13 week New Dealer is £1973. This excludes the cost to the state of the the normal Jobseeker's allowance plus £15 that you receive. On top of this travel costs minus £4 can be claimed back from Pertemps. A client who needs childcare can claim from £135 to £200 per week, which Pertemps can claim back. In total, this means that cost to the state can be in excess of £3900. You could pay for someone to have an operation with that, or provide dental care to poor but not in receipt of benefits people who are scared to go there because they know they can't afford it.