MPs demand Cameron acts after police launch fraud inquiry

Over job placements:

UK: David Cameron is facing demands to suspend his 'back to work' tsar Emma Harrison after police launched a fraud inquiry.

A senior MP was to table a parliamentary question yesterday asking if he would block the A4e company's contracts.

Mrs Harrison, appointed to help problem families find jobs, caused uproar this month when it was revealed she had paid herself £8.6million of mainly taxpayers' cash.

On Friday, detectives visited her company A4e's offices amid claims that it took funding for putting some clients back to work for only a day.

Whitehall sources say ministers are demanding urgent reassurance there is no 'systematic fraud' designed to rip off the taxpayer.

Margaret Hodge, chairman of the influential Public Accounts Committee, went further.

She said she would be asking the Department of Work and Pensions 'whether, given the allegations of fraud, they will be suspending their contracts with A4e until this matter is resolved'. She added: 'I think the Government should certainly consider suspending them. It is of great concern that any such investigation is necessary.'

A4e - formerly called Action For Employment - was set up to retrain redundant Sheffield steelworkers and Mrs Harrison built it into an operation spanning 11 countries.

On Friday police visited the company's offices in Slough, Berkshire.

They stayed for up to four hours and demanded staff hand over documents and computer files going back two years.

A source at the company claimed the police were investigating allegations that the company had been given generous fees from taxpayers for finding 'jobs' lasting no more than 24 hours.

The fraud investigation will make uncomfortable reading for Mr Cameron, who has hailed Mrs Harrison as an inspiration in his campaign to help the unemployed.

He made her 'families tsar' in December 2010 to advise on getting 120,000 troubled households back to work. Daily Mail