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March 2013 |
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Mhairi Doyle
help,’ she says. ‘People would come in and they wouldn’t have a scrap of food in the
house, so I used to give them their giros early – as long as they told me the truth,
that was the only criteria I had. I didn’t want people lying to me, but it was so hard
for people, because they were used to lying.’
*****
In the late 1990s she was seconded to the Training Enterprise Council to set up an
‘employment zone’ aimed at people who were long-term unemployed. Realising
quickly that a lot of her clients again had substance issues, she developed an initiative
with the Social Partnership, a Liverpool-based training and employment agency.
‘It was a specific, specialist employment zone advisor who other advisers could
send people with drug or alcohol issues to,’ she says. Many of the clients had never
worked, but the fact that they were listened to – many for the first time in their lives
– and given the time to change meant that the project flourished. ‘It was really
successful because we looked at the individual as an individual, found out what
their issues were and helped them to resolve them, and then moved them into
employment. It worked because we were personalising it.’
In 2002, she was the first ever Progress2Work coordinator to be appointed, and
again made the most of her links with the Social Partnership and other agencies.
‘We set up the ‘fixers’ programme, which gave people a job, with training, for a year.
It was an intermediate labour market scheme and we trained them up as
community drug workers. The vast majority of people who came through that had
former issues with substance misuse, and most of them had a criminal record as
well, but we got them placements in things like probation – we actually had a
placement in Walton prison at one time – and anything that was in the health and
social care field. That was really successful.’
Key to the success was giving people a chance to believe in themselves, she
stresses, although – as through much of her career – she often had to overcome the
resistance of senior management in the civil service. ‘They’d hide when they saw
me coming. But we were getting 97 per cent of the people into jobs – and I mean
proper jobs, not crappy minimum-wage jobs. There was one man who was in his
30s and hadn’t worked since he was 17. He started out as a drug worker and a few
years later he was running a housing project and earning more than me. That was
the sort of thing we did. I saw miracles happening every day.’
By the time Progress2work came to an end in 2011 – having had more success
in Liverpool than elsewhere – her role had grown to cover the whole of Merseyside,
with a vast remit. ‘I was a drug coordinator, Progress2work coordinator, a social
inclusion manager. I was dealing with drugs, alcohol, homelessness, people in the
criminal justice system, I managed the prison adviser team, I had asylum seekers,
refugees. But I always just did what I thought needed to be done – if something
was right it was right.’
However, the change of government and relentless bite of austerity measures
have meant an end to this ethos, she believes. ‘The pressure that’s being put on the
staff in job centres now is ridiculous,’ she states. ‘The vast majority of the staff want
to help people, but people are too frightened to tell them the truth about their
situation now, and we’re not psychic. The consequence of that is that they’ll get their
money stopped. The government brought in the incapacity benefit reassessment
and that’s what I spent my last year doing. But I used to go around all the service user
groups, take my badge off and tell them what they needed to do, and then I’d go
around the drug workers and tell themwhat they needed to do, to keep people safe.’
*****
Although retired, she’s still a trustee of the Social Partnership and is on the board
of both Birkenhead YMCA and a homeless hostel in Bootle. ‘I’m still keeping my
hand in, and I’m still in touch with my colleagues,’ she says.
What’s the morale like among them these days? ‘It’s hellish. Nobody wants to
work in that situation. We always tried to do our best for our customers – it was
always a caring organisation, but it’s not now. There’s no job security and the front
line’s getting cut. They’re losing all the people with the experience, and everybody’s
fighting against everybody else now, whereas we all used to work together.’
Her tireless work on behalf of her clients, however, saw her awarded the MBE
in the 2013 New Year’s honour’s List, ironically an award that her mother had
turned down years before. ‘I got this letter with “Cabinet Office” on the front,’ she
says. ‘I had no idea – it was such a shock. I just didn’t believe it. I phoned my
husband and asked him what to do, and he said, “bugger your socialist principles
– you deserve this, you should take it”. So I’m going to Buckingham Palace on the
day after my 27th AA birthday. It’s just phenomenal.’
But, with the present administration in place, she holds out little optimism for
the future. ‘I’m very disappointed in the way the government is talking about
unemployed people,’ she says. ‘It’s horrific the way all of them are talking about
scroungers and skivers. The problem is that none of them understand – they’re all
sitting there in their little offices in Whitehall, making up all these things.
‘I think the new [universal] benefit they’re bringing in is really going to work
against our clients, and it’s all going to have to be done online when a lot of them
don’t have access. At the same time they’re cutting back on all the Citizen’s Advice
centres – they’re hammering the people who really need the help. Public service
isn’t just about the people who can look after themselves. It should be about the
people who can’t look after themselves as well.’
DDN
‘We were getting 97 per
cent of the people into
jobs – and I mean proper
jobs... There was one man
who was in his 30s and
hadn’t worked since he
was 17. He started out as
a drug worker and a few
years later he was running
a housing project and
earning more than me.’