Work trials and work experience will be made mandatory for long term jobless as part of a major expansion of employment support and welfare reform to get people back to work…. So says Yvette Cooper Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Furthermore
A lot of people are still having a tough time finding work and we’re investing £5bn to give them more help. We’re working with businesses, local councils and voluntary sector groups as part of a major change in the way the welfare state delivers more personalised support to help people into work. But in return everyone has to do their bit to find work or take up the new help that’s on offer. Otherwise it’s not fair on everyone else who’s trying desperately hard to find a job and support their families.”
And
….thousands of jobseekers who have been out of work for a year will get tailored help to get jobs from specialist organisations through the Flexible New Deal. The contracts mean companies will be paid according to the number of people they get into sustainable work.
So the Benefit Busters won’t be out of a job with their bully-boy tactics forcing people into work with the threats of benefits sanctions. And it is about these private companies making lots of lovely profit… (and ‘sustainable’…well, that’s one ambiguous word which could mean anything)
And the icing on the cake, the Pièce de résistance….
Mandatory work trials and work experience will be developed through a pilot scheme in several areas from next year. Where jobseekers have been out of work for more than six months but have turned down work trials, support or training that could get them jobs, advisors will be able to require them to take up a work trial or work experience placement as a condition of continuing to receive benefit.
Let’s be clear…mandatory work trials is a euphemism for workfare.
NL and the Tories are on a binge when it comes to attacking the poor, it is a vile hideous feeding frenzy witnessing these reactionaries outbidding each other on who can shaft the poor the most.
The crisis of capitalism was not the fault of the poor yet the poor are being scapegoated, witch hunted and blame for this crisis. Yet the real enemy, as always, is getting away with it….
I would hope there could be a legal challenge to this proposal for workfare, People will be made to work either for free, or in many cases at below the minimum wage. The poor exploited and business getting labour for free. Pure tory policy from the NL bunch.
I too hope that Chris but on what grounds that’s the thing. Workfare will also drive down pay and conditions, this isn’t just an attack on the unemployed it is an attack on everyone, that’s why the TUs should be at the forefront of a campaign.
The work programme does not pay minimum wage, that is illegal, the word work is before programme so its not training is it. im not a violent man but i see blood on the streets in the uk through the sheer frustration of the masses of people, at the way the system as failed.
This is obscene and borders on criminality!! What are their plans for those of us chronically ill, homebound/bedridden??? I also noted for the recent years, that hostpital doctors and GPs alike, witholding results showing pathology, disease states, and minimizing symptoms.
Are we suppose to crawl to work???
This should be exposed to the rest of Europe, through Social Networs, You Tube, and we should contact the Media in the rest of Europe..
ESA is the new benefit for sick and disabled people. NewLabour brought in these welfare reforms in collusion with the Tories but with a cloak of silence because they were ashamed of them. The most ground breaking change in welfare in forty years but these reforms never make it on to Labour’s list of achievements parroted by every Minister at every media opportunity. Why not?
Now the Tories have blown the cover claiming them as their own.
All the claims are that people will be ‘helped’ in to work. Sounds great.
But there are no new jobs so ‘helping’ one person gets in the way of another person. There is no money to follow a sick person to the workplace and incentivise an employer to bear extra costs of sickness. There is no magic way to make a sick person better. Encouragement and advice and help is welcome but that has always been available.
So what is new that will get half a million sick and disabled people off ESA and on to JSA and save all this money because JSA pays less. The new factor is the ATOS computer that runs on non medical criteria invented by US insurance firms that didn’t want to pay out. So the whole ESA claim starts with fear as people are ‘assessed’ and declared well. The new factor is reclassifying sick people as well. No wonder they are ashamed.
But some peopel appeal and get put back on ESA for six months until the next bullying assessment. And what is the new factor that will get these people back to work. Fear. Sanctions and loss of benefit if the private contractor thinks they aren’t striving hard enough. ‘Conditionality’ which means threats is the only new factor in placign these people in work.
What sort of country has a sick benefit system run on fear. Plain bullying. No wonder they are too ashamed to let the public know what they have done.
Frances, indeed it is one big fat con. ESA is a minefield and utterly bureaucratic, the ‘tests’ have been made stricter so more barriers and hurdles.
What kind of society is this turning into that bullies and threatens people with loss of money. The poor did not create the crisis in capitalism it was the ideology of the neoliberalism that NL worships along with the free market piracy of the banks.
Yet they are not being shafted!
One simple way forward is the government to get the money back from the banks……
Acording to Neo Labours classification of a “sustainable job” it is just a job that lasts “13 weeks or more” (the magic 13 weeks will be familier to anyone unlucky enough to have had to endure the pointlesss crap that is the New Deal and must be some arbitery time that classes somebody from being long term unemployed to a new claiment for figure rigging perposes).
I have tried to get a work trial with a couple of local employers and the government is in cloud cuckoo land as to just how bad they are being hit with the recession, one said we would love to take you on but we are going to have to make cut backs with our existing staff as there just isn’t the work for them to do let alone enough for you. And the other said I have gone down from 12 full time employees to just 3 including myself and my PA, as things stand what other staff I am just managing to hold on to are old existing staff I have had to put on part time, how is it going to look if I take you on on a sceame if I tell them I haven’t got the work for them? which is a point.
i have been reading that the gdp after the bank bailouts is around 56% the usa is 71% and italy 100% and the figures are mentioned for the uk as not that bad.
the clawbacks from peoples benefits such as the sick disabled the unemployed for irresponsible lending banks’is a total disgrace,how cameron can turn round and say were all in this together i dont know.
the raise in the retirement age is unforgivable and some will not see retirement because of these policies they appear to want people to work until the grave.
they appear to have shut up about the idea of private pension schemes after that didnt work or pull any weight,its the laughing stock.
Congratulations to David Cameron and the Tories. Not something I have ever said before. But credit where credit is due. The first glimmerings of common sense.
In his conference speech David Cameron said – if you can work you must show responsibility – IF YOU CAN’T WORK WE WILL LOOK AFTER YOU.
It’s a milestone because it’s the first time one of these two major parties (NewLabour/Tory) who have worked together to bring in these welfare reforms has acknowledged that there is a constituency of sick people who need protection and help rather than bullying. The ‘support’ group was designed to give these people help with protection from sanctions but this government is not allocating any one to the ‘support’ group.
Now at least the Tories for the first time are acknowledging that not all sick people are scroungers and many need to be helped and supported without threat. This is a giant step forward.
Of course that still leaves the problem of telling which is which, the problem of people who have variable conditions, the fraught interface beween commercial employer logic and illnesses that are not kind. It’s a sort of ‘poverty’ trap at the transition from able to disable which is very uncomfortable if you insist on only having two crude categories of saint and sinner.
But the dichotomy at the heart of these reforms has at last been identified and these problems can now be addressed honestly. Perhaps now they have realised that there are two categories they might even go on and admit that there are more. Let’s give up the endless talk of ‘help’ and talk openly about the threats and sanctions and worry about who it is not safe or fair to bully.
So Mr Cameron – now that you have at last recognised that some people are severely and enduringly sick – please – if in doubt err on the side of care and compassion and look after them. Please put far more sick people in the ESA ‘support’ group where they can have every help back to work but the help is voluntary and without threat and sanction. Let them help themselves at the speed they can cope with under their own control. In fact treat them in a dignified and appropriate manner for people claiming sick benefit because theya re sick.
These are difficult problems because people won’t fall neatly in to your two categories and every sick person is frightened of the confrontation with the DWP and the assessment by non medically qualified administrators who are judge and jury.
But at least you have finally recognised that there are different categories and some people need to feel safe and be protected. This is an enormous step forward from the gung ho – every one can be made to work approach – that we have had up until now.
So well done Mr Cameron. Let’s hope Mr Brown and Yvette Cooper were listening to your speech and saw the first glimmerings of compassion and common sense entering this debate. The first recollection of what a sick or disabled person is and what it means.
Cameron’s words might seem well-meaning, but they are ultimately meaningless. Do his policies agree with them?
A few words in a speech reveal nothing about what actually sneaks through in the bills that get passed. Those are the things that will affect change, and they are conveniently written in impenetrable legal jargon. Which is why we need to stand together and support each other in collectively educating ourselves and questioning them. We need to get OUR voices heard, not place our hope in politicians.
Always read the smallprint.
She talks just as much shit as her husband… or is he doing the talking and her just being the puppet?
What a silly system we live in.
Surely the “trial” in “work trial” means that the person on workfare under the scheme can leave said scheme any time they want without penalty? How many “work trials” will unemployed people be forced to undergo? I mean if a “work trial” is three weeks long if you do nine “work trials” you’ll have done more workfare than someone unfortunate enough to participate in one of Freud/Purnell/Cooper’s six month “work for the dole” pilots.
What a bunch of fuckers!
This must be pure Cooper.
I didn’t see this in Purnell’s white paper.
i know someone who has claimed benefit since 1981 and has never worked other than compulsory goverment schemes does not apply for jobs and has never been told by the jobcentre he HAS TO APPLY FOR JOBS IN GLENROTHES OR STANDREWS yet when i signed on that was all they offered crap jobs in glenrothes or st andrews usually glenrothes working seven days a week on min wage yet this idiot gets off scot free
maybe he will get a wake up call when he is forced onto work trials at least he wont be able to lie in bed all day which is what he does most of the time except when he is working for cash in hand and signing on oh and by the way he also in 1981 had savings which exceeded the amount allowed in 1981 to claim benefit so he has also committed benefit fraud for 28 years i have reported him yes but nothing appears to be done about it but if he ever does get taken to court i hope he gets jailed for benefit fraud
So Allan, your logic is that everyone else screws the system but not you. Everyone else lies and cheats etc. etc….. Ad nauseaum..
Let’s think about this clearly. An ex Labour Minister at DWP said in the Grand Committee on the Welfare Reforms that the new rules were invented to catch feckless fit 22 year olds who didn’t want to work.
That’s fine. Fraud is fraud where ever it takes place. Fraud detection is supposed to deal with it.
The main purpose of the JSA system is to look after people who can’t find jobs. The main purpose of the ESA system is to look after the sick and disabled who can find it almost impossible to find and/or keep jobs.
Why distort the whole system because some people defraud it instead of dealing with fraud as a separate issue. Let’s not lose sight of the central purpose of the benefit system and the vulnerability of the people who the benefit is designed for.
The new figures have just come out for ESA showing only 5% of claimants are being awarded sanction free unconditional support. The DWP is glorying in the new reduced level of claims being approved. Commentators are calling this a new stricter test. They don’t understand that the new test is not a stricter version of the old test. It’s a completely different beast. The old test was done by a doctor who had access to a complete medical history. The new test is medical free and done by an operative with a computer that takes in no medical information and asks a set of Mickey Mouse questions about what the person ‘can do’.
As the Green Party Disability Spokesperson says – it’s a computer garbage in garbage out test.
Are we really going to run a sick benefit system that denies benefits and repeatedly harasses and bullies sick people and destroys their peace of mind. Let’s clearly keep in mind what the real aim of a sick benefit system is. To help sick people.
Lets not forget that MP’s were defrauding their own benefit system and unlike more petty fraud (even though I understand the principle that fraud is fraud etc.)(simple comparison):
a) no prosecutions for MP’s (Most jobseekers who have been overpaid by no fault of their own are branded fraudsters although they were paid directly into their bank account by DWP making an error. A lot of jobseekers use cashpoints to check their balance and if they have enough they withdraw. They wont wait 3 months for a statement as some banks do now to check its their money to withdraw nor keep going in getting a statement from the bank every week)
b) asked to pay back rather than forced including no ceasing of assets or powers to take money without the persons consent (i.e. the Administration Act that allows DWP to take back over payments of Jobseekers etc. but no use of similar powers to get back overpayments to MP’s)
c) no decrease in salary or other fines (Jobseekers become sanctioned)
d) no limits or prevention from creating new claims of similar effect. They are trying to reform the rules etc but no one has been banned from now til general Election of making new claims. (Jobseekers on the other hand wouldn’t be banned from signing on however could get an 6 month sanction)
[...] programmes, and associated ideas, were the work of David Freud, the investment banker who was employed by the government (not a Work [...]