Work Programme Isn’t Working, Say Councils – Welfare Weekly
Local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales are issuing a call for a radical re-think of welfare-to-work policies, according to Welfare Weekly.
The Industrial Communities Alliance, the all-party association representing more than 60 local authorities in Britain’s older industrial areas, says that welfare-to-work policies have nearly always been based on the false premise that there are plenty of jobs available.
To read the full article, visit Welfare Weekly’s story.
It goes on to say that both the Coalition Government and the Labour Opposition are considering reforming the policy – but we already know that it simply doesn’t work, no matter what spin is put on it.
Welfare-to-work schemes have never increased anybody’s chance of getting a job.
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Labour can’t come out and scrap it as they introduced it. However, I’ve said many times that the real point of workfare is the transfer of public funds to private pockets where it can be divvied up later by the crooked businessmen and corrupt politicians involved. Nothing here encourages me to to change my view.
I’m glad to debunk another myth: The Work Programme was introduced by the Coalition Government in June 2011. Even if Labour had introduced it, a Labour government would do away with it quite happily, and in fact intends to do so – if elected to office in 2015.
That being said, as a Labour member I am not keen on the proposed replacement which seems little different.
The Work Programme is different from all workfare and similar schemes. Labour – and Thatcher before them – certainly had schemes like or tantamount to unpaid or barely paid labour for the unemployed – especially for the young – even if they weren’t quite as vicious or sanction-heavy as the present.
e.g. the New Deal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal_(United_Kingdom)