http://www.ncl-coll.ac.uk/about_us/news....

ERSA has also been circulating an e-mail to the same effect, highlighting that the entire Employability division has been bought out and is therefore secure. It appears that Newcastle College has national ambitions. Who knew colleges could even do that?

LSC statement on the sale - http://www.lsc.gov.uk/news/latestnews/ne...

Relatedly, rumour has it that A4e has definitely secured the Surrey & Sussex Pathways contract previously held by Instant Muscle.

Cashflow is the amount of money being received and spent by a business in a period of time

Flexible New Deal will be operating across half the country from October 2009. These are the key points from the contract specifications:

So far we've heard that the preferred bidders include:

• Shaw Trust have won 17 contracts. It's unclear whether this includes the 4 contracts they've taken over from Instant Muscle
• A4e have won apparently 13.
• Sencia are advertising for NDDP staff in 4 areas - Glasgow, Greater Manchester, South Tyne & Wear, and Greater Mersey & Liverpool.
• Reed in Partnership have 3.
• Working Links won Ayrshire but not all that much else.

Update 26/3 - Sold! Carter & Carter, who have been in trouble for the past year or so, have gone into administration. The restructuring announced here didn't work out. Unlike Instant Muscle, they are apparently committed to meeting their financial obligations, including on staff pay. Guardian report - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/... Times report - http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/bu...

A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable effect, that is against the interest of the incentive makers. While perverse incentives are equally possible in government-run delivery of services, this article focuses on their application to delivery by third-party providers.

Cherry picking, Creaming and Parking

Instant Muscle has gone bankrupt, resulting in the closure of their delivery sites across the country. The entire workforce of over 200 was made redundant on February 28th without notice or pay, and many are interviewing for positions with competitor companies. According to rumour their Pathways to Work contract in Surrey and Sussex is being transferred, with the new deliverer being announced within the next couple of days. However, no official announcements have been made by the DWP concerning Instant Muscle or the fate of its contracts at the time of writing. 

There's been a lot of confusion in the past couple of years over what happens to people delivering welfare-to-work contracts when a new organisation wins the contract. So it seemed reasonable to put what we do know in one place as a primer for staff and organisations who haven't run into TUPE issues already.

The DWP Commissioning Strategy is the document which sets out how the department designs, buys and manages contracted employment services. It was published in February 2008, and builds on the recommendations of the Freud Report.

• 5 to 7 year long Prime Contracts
• 80% payment on results, primarily 6 month sustainments
• Contract areas larger than Districts, smaller than Regions
• Prime Contractors do not have to deliver *any* services directly

The FoI request we submitted some months ago has been partially answered, and it made sense to put what we did get online. We asked for details on:

1. POEM bidders, their quality and finance scores, and agreed contract values and performance targets for the winners
2. Pathways to Work bidders, their quality and finance scores, and agreed contract values and performance targets for the winners
3. Portfolio management applied to Pathways to Work Phase 2

Owing to the quality of bids, rather more than usual made it through to the ITT stage - between 7 and 12 in each District. This round also marks the entry of Serco into tendering, following their recent heavy investment in building a sector presence.

With confirmed contracts on Phase 1 and preferred bidders on Phase 2, it's about time we took a look at how things have panned out for the various bidders, and what it means for the industry.

We recently acquired the New Deal results for the first year of the new 'prime contract' regime in London and the South East. Rather than keep it to ourselves, it seemed only fair to share them more widely, along with some explanation and analysis.