Facts and Figures
WHO WE ARE
A4e is a leading public service provider, serving thousands of people across three continents – Europe, Australasia and Asia. A4e’s core mission is to improve people’s lives. We work in partnership with governments, public sector organisations, private sector companies, voluntary and community groups to deliver a range of front line public services, including employment and welfare, training, education and money and legal advice.
Our work focuses on the following key challenges:
- Increasing employment – helping people find and keep jobs and helping others set up their own businesses
- Reducing re-offending – by education, training and embedding a work ethos to assisting rehabilitation back into the community
- Financial inclusion – providing access to money advice to help people make informed financial choices
- Skills and training – ensuring that people can access the employment and learning opportunities that are right for them
- Healthcare – improving access to health and social case services and empowering disabled people through employment and advisory services
OUR MISSION: IMPROVING PEOPLE’S LIVES
In the UK, over 20 years ago, large numbers of Sheffield steelworkers began losing their jobs as the sector fell into decline. Emma Harrison started A4e in response to a need to help provide redundant workers with the training they needed to find work in other industries. And – the flip side of the coin – A4e were then able to supply companies with newly trained and enthusiastic workers.
Improving people’s lives drives everything we have done from that point on – whether we are helping people back into the workplace, advising them about debt management, providing skills and training to young people, or providing skills to offenders to help their rehabilitation back into the community.
We are a private company with a social purpose at our core. Our mission is to design, manage and deliver services that reach more people in more ways, to help improve their lives.
Ultimately, we deliver real solutions, to real problems, faced by real people.
KEY FACTS AND FIGURES
Currently, every seven minutes of every working day someone on benefits goes back to work through A4e’s delivery of the Work Programme, which started in the Summer of 2011.
For every £1 spent by the Government on our Work Programme services, we deliver £1.95 in revenue to the taxpayer.
During 2010 and 2011, we supported 310,050 people across all our services , throughout the UK and internationally:
- United Kingdom 299,000
- Australia 9,100
- France 650
- Germany 500
- Poland 900
A4e IN THE UK
We operate across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from 200 offices and, as of April 2012, we have a team of more than 3,300 committed and expert staff.
Since December 2005, A4e has operated more than 500 contracts for over 80 funding or awarding bodies. Each of these individual contracts is governed by different processes and procedures, including funding allocations, training qualifications, ways for engaging with customers and performance measures.
We deliver services in the following ways:
- Helping people into work or set up in business
In 2011, we assisted 30,126 people into work, helped 10,695 people gain a qualification, worked with 13,523 employers to improve the capacity of their workforce and helped capacity build 79 Third Sector organisations.
Work Programme
In 2011, when the Work Programme was launched by the current coalition Government, A4e secured five Work Programme Prime Contracts and five Sub-Contracts, working in 10 of the 18 geographies covered. Figures for performance under the Work Programme will be released by the DWP later this year.
DID YOU KNOW: We expect to work with over 500,000 customers over the five-year Work Programme contract.
Previous welfare-to-work schemes
Prior to the introduction of the Work Programme, and under the previous Government’s Flexible New Deal (FND) programme, we led the market in achieving long term job sustainability. Around one in every three people that started the FND programme, which ended during 2011, subsequently found employment.
A4e also outperformed the market average in meeting performance targets on the previous Government’s New Deal for Disabled People, and Pathways to Work schemes in each of the geographical regions in which we operated, with the exception of London. On Pathways to Work, A4e secured jobs for 24.2% of those it supported, exceeding the industry average of 23%, and our performance rose to 28% in the last two years of the contract.
Enterprise
By April 2012, Work Programme enterprise coaches had also supported more than 750 people as they set up their own businesses.
A further 600 people were supported into self-employment through A4e’s delivery of the New Enterprise Allowance scheme in Wales, Birmingham, Solihull and the West of Scotland.
- Working in partnership
We are committed to providing the best service to those we help, and building the right partnerships to do that.
A4e currently works with over 700 organisations from the public, private and charity sectors to ensure those we support have access to a wide range of specialist services.
DID YOU KNOW: Of more than 200 partners working with us to deliver the Work Programme, 50 % are from the Third Sector and a further 14% are from the Public Sector.
A4e also works with a wide network of over 2,000 employers, from large multi-nationals to small and medium sized companies, helping them recruit and train staff at all levels.
- Reducing re-offending through our work with offenders and ex-offenders
We provide education and training to offenders in prison and ex-offenders in the community in order to provide them with positive options for the future.
DID YOU KNOW: We are the largest independent sector provider of offender learning.
- We currently provide education and training to over 8,500 prisoners within 28 prisons across the UK
- During 2011 we delivered almost 200,000 hours of learning and vocational training to offenders and ex-offenders.
- Through our Careers Information and Advice Service (North East) we give impartial advice and guidance for prisoners in all seven prisons in the North East of England. Each month, A4e works with over 1000 prisoners, helping them plan for a positive future on release.
- A4e has over 400 staff delivering courses in prisons that range from basic literacy to the arts, painting and decorating, welding, catering and construction.
- Since 2005, A4e has delivered over 1.2 m hours of learning and vocational training to over 100,000 offenders.
- Providing Skills and training to help people fulfil their potential
A4e Learning & Skills is the direct delivery arm for vocational learning, including Apprenticeships and other work-based training qualifications. We work with businesses developing and delivering solutions for a variety of companies including those businesses that have signed the Government’s pledge to improve the skills of their workforce.
We work with learners and organisations, delivering Apprenticeships, Advanced Apprenticeships and National Vocational Qualifications or, as they are now known, Qualification Credit Frameworks (NVQs/QCF), as well as a range of short courses in a variety of industry sectors, such as:
- Business & Administration
- Customer Service
- Childcare
- Health & Social Care
- Horticulture
- Hospitality & Catering
- IT Users
- Team Leading & Management
- Retail
- Teaching Support
- Warehousing
- Employment Related Services
We engage with thousands of employers, locally, regionally and nationally each month helping them to up-skill their workforce. Through this, we help businesses to target resources effectively, help address any skill gaps and develop staff to ensure there is an adaptable workforce that meets business needs.
- Vocational training through our Vox centres
A4e Vox Centres provide hands-on vocational training for young people and unemployed adults in their local community, giving them the skills and confidence they need to successfully enter the workforce:
- We currently have nine Vox Centres delivering practical activities. They are located in Brixton, Sheffield, Grimsby, Nottingham, Birmingham, Stockton, Wakefield, West Bromwich and Newport.
- 39% of all pupils in our Vocational Centres have been excluded from school, 64% are at risk of being excluded and 72% achieve qualifications
- Our enterprise activities reach over 12,000 young people per year
- We facilitate 7,000 work placements per year
- Using Grimsby Vox as a case study, A4e has achieved the following outcomes:
- 88% of those referred remain on programme for the duration of a full academic year
- 87% achieve full qualifications within the year;
- 65% of those learners who are under the age of 16 are re-integrated back into mainstream education;
- 95% of learners at 16 progress into positive destinations, including college, employment or post 16 training providers
- Money, debt and legal advice
We help people with money worries and legal issues by providing them with accessible support and advice through a range of front-line services.
DID YOU KNOW: We are the largest provider of telephone-based legal advice on behalf of the Legal Services Commission. We are also the largest supplier of Community Legal Advice Centres.
The Money Advice Service is a new and independent organisation that provides free, unbiased money advice for everyone in the UK. A4e is responsible for the delivery of the face-to-face element of the Money Advice Service in England and Northern Ireland. This means that A4e can help more people, in more ways, by giving them the skills and confidence to make positive choices about their money, which will ultimately help improve their lives.
From April 2011 to date, A4e has delivered more than 45,000 individual face-to-face Money Advice sessions
Our other financial advice and guidance services:
- Our advice4stoke debt and benefits advice team, working with Stoke City Council, have seen over 3,500 clients, identifying over £16m and rescheduling almost £12m worth of personal debt
- In September 2009 we launched a new telephone based advice service in Northern Ireland, Advice4DebtNI, which has already rescheduled nearly £3m worth of debt
- A4e has trained over 4,000 youth workers, through Young People and Money, which has had an impact on the lives of over 150,000 young people who are out of work, education or training.
Further to this:
- Our Community Legal Advice Centres in Hull and Leicester have dealt with over 60,000 legal problems between them, in less than two years
A4e INTERNATIONAL
Currently we operate in five countries internationally, helping approximately
40,000 get back into work.
Australia
- A4e employs 314 staff (including trainers) and operate from 23 sites.
- More than 10,000 people are actively seeking help to find work.
- We are delivering skills development and training across three states:
NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.
France
- A4e operate from four centres and nearly 11,000 people have accessed our services since 2007.
- We are helping 16-25 years olds from urban areas, into employment, training, apprenticeship and entrepreneurship, supporting disabled workers return to work and assisting those at the end of their welfare support payment with career planning to help them back to work.
- New projects are being developed to support disadvantaged families and young people at risk of leaving school early.
Germany
- 8,700 people have been referred to us since 2006, and 1,910 were placed into jobs before we completed our contracts.
India
- We are working with the Government of India to create an inclusive, collaborative, transparent and scalable skills solution
- We were appointed by the Ministry of Rural Development to train 8,370 learners from Below Poverty Line (less than $1 a day) communities in vocational skills
- We have helped 5,000 domestic workers get trained and certified for the first time
Poland
- During 2011, 900 people accessed our services
- 887 people gained a vocational qualification during 2011
CORPORATE ACTIVITY
Our Group Board
Sir Robin Young – Non Executive Chairman
Mark Lovell – Executive Chairman
Andrew Dutton – Group Chief Executive Officer
Steve Boyfield – Non Executive Director
Jo Blundell – Group Development Director
Matt Stevens – Chief Financial Officer
Sir Hugh Sykes – Non Executive Director
Advisors to Group Board:
Roy Newey
Our Management Board
Andrew Dutton – Chief Executive Officer
Jo Blundell – Group Development Director
Nigel Lemmon – Executive Director
Caroline Roberts – Group HR Director
Matt Stevens – Chief Financial Officer
Susan Yates – Executive Director
Our Financial Record
2011 2010
Revenue £234m £191m
EBITDA £15.8m £10.1m
Customer Feedback
A4e supports thousands of people through a range of programmes, so what our customers think of our service is very important to us.
Independent research shows that our customers believe A4e helps improve their lives. You can read the findings here
