Emma Harrison CBE is just the sort of person that really irritates me. Always smiling, utterly self-confident with boundless ambition, enthusiasm and energy, she seems to fit perfectly the profile of the 'oustanding self starter' required by those equally irritating job adverts in the quality Sunday papers. She has risen from engineer in a Sheffield steel works to multi-millionaire owner of A4E (Action for Employment) with nothing short of world domination in her sights. She and her company benefitted enormously from Labour government contracts and counted David Blunket as an adviser. But that was then and unbridled ambition means that she can now claim David Cameron no less as a close ally.
As a passionate entrepreneur, no doubt she has been working assiduously behind the scenes lobbying the new Prime Minister into giving her the opportunity to prove that her seemingly unique philosophy will work with some of the most challenging families in Britain. On Friday it paid off as the Prime Minister announced the launch of a new initiative 'Working Families Everywhere' as part of a major speech on support for relationships and families.
According to David Cameron, "We have known for ages that a relatively small number of troubled families are responsible for a large proportion of the problems in our society." I don't think probation officers would demur from this and certainly Inspector Gadjet regularly highlights this group. He went on to say that just 46,000 families in the UK with little or no history of employment are estimated to cost the state a staggering £4 billion per year in benefits and services such as social workers, police time and YOI places. He wants the new initiative spearheaded by Ms Harrison and her company to focus attention on 500 such families and offer them tailored support. The website states:-
"Now, under this programme, every troubled family will have their own champion able to use every existing resource to help them get going, face up to and sort out their problems, whether they be parenting challenges, poor health, debt, addiction, dependency or lack of motivation. Most importantly, it will involve helping people into meaningful employment to help create happy, working families with a new sense of purpose and an active role in society."
Interestingly on her website she talks about helping 100,000 'never-worked' families, but is making a start with a modest 6 that will be carefully chosen and exposed to media attention. Do I sense a bit of self-publicity here in the form of another Ch 4 tv documentary? Whatever, she does have a business to run as well as changing the world.
I guess I might sound a touch cynical or negative about the whole thing. After all as professionals haven't we struggled for years trying to help this same group? This is just the sort of pioneering, experimental, non-bureaucratic, potentially life-changing stuff that I've always wanted to hear in order to prove to the Daily Mail and Inspector Gadjet that people can change if given some positive attention. But the trouble is I've also got this nagging doubt that the whole thing just might be more 'smoke and mirrors' so loved by Tony Blair and his ilk. Exactly how many families are going to be funded? There's no mention of helping re-house people away from sink estates. Or help with kids excluded from school. I hear on Ch 4 News that the Sure Start budget is not ring fenced at all and will be 'discretionary' spending by Local Authorities. If that is true, it's a direct contradiction of what David Cameron said on Friday:-
"That’s why we are not only protecting funding for Sure Start children’s centres, but increasing their focus on the neediest families."
I really do wish I could believe what politicians tell us, but the track record isn't good and I guess we're all a bit 'edgy' at the moment.
It's been years since I believed anything anyone in government said. I can't see any reason why she should do any better than probation or other social services but will no doubt cost an awful lot more.
ReplyDelete"She has risen from engineer in a Sheffield steel works to multi-millionaire owner of A4E (Action for Employment) "
ReplyDeleteShe is, in other words, an "entrepreneur" who is mostly adept at finding inventive ways to feed at the public trough.
Such people are role models in patronage states like Nigeria or the Congo. That she is considered a role model here is worrying indeed.
It was the previous but one incumbent of No 10 that finally destroyed the last shreds of belief in politicians that I might have had. His self proclaimed heir is just reinforcing Janet Daley's 2003 prediction "What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make people believe has happened". How right she was.
ReplyDelete