You may remember that I wrote a post a couple of days ago on workfare and councils apparently taking part. Well, after that, Labour Representation Committee joint secretaries wrote to key Labour activists whose constituencies are part of these councils about whether there was involvement in workfare… and Islington Council being one of them responded. To cut a long story short, Anna Roberts, Head of the Labour Group, Islington Council maintains:
Thank you for sending through the spreadsheet. I can confirm that Islington Council isn’t offering any work placements to work programme clients.
We are also not a work programme contractor, so will be asking the DWP to correct this mistake. The council did look into the programme when it was first announced, but the decision was made many months ago not to proceed.
Anna Roberts
Head of Labour Group Office
Interesting that they looked into it probably why the DWP included them. It is definitely worth contacting councils on the list to find out what they are actually up to, why is the council on a spreadsheet where the information was supplied by the DWP, do they use unpaid labour and if they don’t get them to pledge they won’t ever use unpaid labour, hopefully, it gets them to investigate. It is also worth asking councils who aren’t on the list if they are intending to use unpaid labour and if they oppose workfare get them to pledge they will never use it now and in the future.
[...] December 5, 2011 Photo from Harpy Marx (see below). People have asked ‘what can we do?’ Well here’s a campaign worth supporting: Boycott Workfare. Workfare – compulsory work for benefits – is being rolled-out across the country. We call on public sector bodies, voluntary organisations and businesses being offered these placements as well as union branches to join others in signing a pledge to boycott the scheme. Harpy Marx reports on her efforts to stop Councils using Workfare – here. [...]
Great work. DWP like to make these mistakes to drum up support. Surely the council should really be checking that the main national Government departments like DWP and HMRC are not giving out misleading information about them.
[...] If your council isn’t involved in “work placements” there’s a good chance they will be. It is imperative that we put political pressure on councils and councillors to refuse to take part and pledge that they won’t engage in compulsory work-for-benefits placements. And you may remember Islington Council a couple of months ago stated: [...]