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    Millionaire Boss Of Welfare-To-Work Firm Quits

    David Cameron's "family champion" has quit as chairman of her welfare-to-work company A4e.

    Emma Harrison's resignation comes a day after she quit her role as the Prime Minister's back-to-work tsar amid a police probe into a string of fraud allegations against the firm.

    The former unpaid Downing Street adviser said she was standing down because she did not want the "continuing media focus" on her to be a "distraction" for the company.

    Ms Harrison said: "This has been a very tough decision for me as I have spent my entire 25-year career building up this business and I believe so strongly in the importance of the work it does.

    "But it is precisely because this work is so important that I do not want the continuing media focus on me to be any distraction for A4e, for its more than 3,500 employees, and for the tens of thousands of people across the UK and globally that look to this company to give them hope of finding employment."

    The 48-year-old, who swapped her country mansion for a week on a council estate when she appeared in Channel 4's Secret Millionaire reality TV show in 2007, founded A4e in 1991.

    It makes virtually all its money in the UK from Government contracts by running schemes to get 120,000 "problem families" back-to-work.

    Earlier this week it emerged four former employees were arrested by Thames Valley Police at the firm's headquarters in Slough in January on suspicion of fraud and bailed until mid-March following an internal investigation by A4e.

    Pressure is now building on the Government to suspend the firm's existing taxpayer-funded contracts.

    Questions have also been raised about how much Ms Harrison pays herself.

    The firm paid £11m in dividends last year, 87% to Ms Harrison, one of its five shareholders.

     

    77 comments

    • DAVID  •  Manchester, England  •  3 months ago
      THE UNPAID ADVISER!!!!!!!!!! she was getting contracts worth millions from cameroooon... Lets face it. cameroooon has more bent mates than the Kray twins. .
    • Tanya  •  Milton Keynes, England  •  3 months ago
      being unemployed i had to do this course it is 12 weeks 9am-4pm 5 days a week of sitting in a chair doing nothing (ok that is a bit of a lie we had to apply for 5 jobs a week) and they say that this will help us get work, we were told to apply for jobs that had already closed we were told " it would be good practice" the staff were rude and treated us with no respect what soever. oh and they told us to lie on our C.V and say that we had volunteered to do the course the true is you do the course or you loose your money. i think training would be a better idea bring back free training. i am now doing a course with a work programme called Maximus they are no better i have been with them since september and as of January i had seen my adviser twice the second time i chased him he said he would ring the next day but he never did
      • Jake24 3 months ago
        Tanya, I had dealings with Maximus about 3 years ago, you are right, they are useless. All they did was supply the jobs page from the local paper, or on the computer which had jobs from the jobcentre advertised. I'd already got the local paper and looked on the jobsite so it was a complete waste of time and money.
      • Ritch 3 months ago
        and they i expect gets grants from the government for doing nothing.
      • super_slo_mo 2 months ago
        Who is the founder of Maximus, imagine ho much his company must be milking from the government.
    • Whatsupdoc  •  Runcorn, England  •  3 months ago
      Nice little piece of corruption, to give herself an £8 million dividend. Especially as she hasn't earned it.
    • angelmaker  •  Birmingham, England  •  3 months ago
      Its no big surprise .This is what the tories always do .Leach as much out of the public as they can before they are booted out, leaving behind a wasteland .
      • Jacques le Reaper 3 months ago
        And I thought that was Labour?. I will have to ask the Kinnock's and Prescott's what they think.
      • Stingo 3 months ago
        You've hit the nail on the head Angelmaker - exactement!
      • Robert 3 months ago
        Blair made a fair bit out of it too,but none of them made as much as John Major.
    • Flipside  •  London, England  •  3 months ago
      Andy Coulson, David Laws, Liam Fox and now Emma Harrison. What a great judge of character Duplicity Cameron is. Why do you need a private company to do this sort of job at hugely inflated rates anyway, surely it could be done by public employees who are already being paid. The money being paid to this company and this woman in particular is a national disgrace and if Cameron was in opposition now he would be saying that if he was elected then this would change. Why is there not a sustained outcry from Labour who are the weakest opposition in history and totally ineffective.
      • David W 3 months ago
        listen pal the man is a #$%$ it wont be long before he goes to sleep just ignore cameron he is an #$%$ he will be BROKEN UP VERY soon
      • Stingo 3 months ago
        It's alright for you David W - you've got a referendum coming up - we are stuck with the incompetent half wit.
    • PHILIP  •  3 months ago
      She has just stepped down as the back to work champion and the chairman of the company. However she still is a major shareholder within the company. Nothing has really changed. She and her company will still be making millions at the expense of the unemployed.and troubled families. Shame the government cannot see that this company and the contracts it tries to fulfills are a failiure, and actually do little to help the unemployed and troubled families it is supposed to help.
      • CU812 3 months ago
        You said shame the government cannot see this as a Failure. It was David himself who started this, just another screw up for the tories. Remember when his close advisors said not to hire Andy Colson, but he did anyway. Remember when the General in the Military said we are at the breaking point with all the wars we have going on. What did David say... " Let me do the Thinking " as if this prat would know anything about fighting all he knows is how to bully people.
    • N  •  3 months ago
      Get rid of Cameron now, he can't make any decisions without advisors. Guess what, they are employed friends of his and they milk the system until caught. At this point Cameron tells them to resign and take a golden handshake worth millions and then gives their position to another of his comrades to boost their pension pot up also. We are under a corrupt government equalling those of the worst governments.
    • PETER  •  3 months ago
      A4e,adults for education,is a joke.finding myself redundant at the start of the downturn,i ventured in to see what it was about. well,take it from me,100% waste of taxpayers money.what a circus.i hope the telegraph investigates this one.
    • Odininasgaard  •  3 months ago
      Private enterprise exists soley for the purpose of generating profit, not to benefit societal needs unless it can make a profit from desperate people by instilling false hope in them!
    • CU812  •  Birmingham, England  •  3 months ago
      Another embarrassment for David. Where is his brains where he sits down, more corruption for the tories.
    • sean  •  Brighton, England  •  3 months ago
      "I remain passionate about helping troubled families" trills this opportunistic fantasist whose original business plan to reduce unemployment so impressed a gullible David Cameron he gave her nearly £200 million in government contracts. Having taken the lion's share of the £11 million her underperforming company paid itself in dividends, Emma Harrison now walks off into the sunset saying she doesn't want the "continuing media focus" to be a "distraction" for A4e. In other words she doesn't like being in the spotlight and is distancing herself in the event of any prosecutions for fraud.
    • Peter  •  Portsmouth, England  •  3 months ago
      Still she's made a nice little nest egg from the taxpayer making false promises to vulnerable people desperate to find work and then putting Nero to shame with the company's bowing skills - No wonder Cameron liked her so much - lots of bulls**t, no substance and fleecing the ordinary taxpayer of this country. A2E have a chunk of a criminal justice contract, still she might get to see an end users perspective if there is any justice.
    • ROGER P  •  Ilford, England  •  3 months ago
      Easy come, easy go for our money when it's dished out by our inept government - we work for it and they give it to any Tom #$%$ and whoever, without accountability. Disgusting.
    • ROBIN P  •  3 months ago
      So much for Cameron's big society !! The boss earns £8.6 mil in Dividends and the unemployed work for nothing !! sounds about right , Another error in Cameron's judgement exposed. The man is a criminal !!
    • super_slo_mo  •  3 months ago
      She got CBE and 8 million in a year for her effort! good hard working and patriotic family will not earn that in a life time.
    • M  •  3 months ago
      If this woman can afford to pay herself so much would this government please tell us just exactly how much it has cost the taxpayer to get each person in work. Also, was the placement a proper job or a short time employment. Perhaps someone who benefited from this scheme would like to post a comment.
    • Stephen  •  Maidenhead, England  •  3 months ago
      When will the good people of England realise that the Eton brigade is only interested in big business and making money for their own kind. The working classes and unemployed are of no concern to them except (it appears) as a convenient distraction to their plans to restore the class system into the country. Soon only their kind will be able to afford health care and university education. Without education the good normal people of England will be kept down and in their place just as the Eton tories wish.
    • Mahatmacoat  •  London, England  •  3 months ago
      This kind hearted lady worked for no salary, just to help people. The only money she got was the £8.7M dividend. Greedy parasitic witch. The taxpayers must have paid far too much for the contracts if she could take that much for herself.
    • MAT  •  Cranbrook, England  •  3 months ago
      This goverment seems to be well known for people bailing out when found dodgy dealing, all great friends of Mr Cameron says a lot for our supposed leaders.
    • nutcase  •  Bathgate, Scotland  •  3 months ago
      cow