@ Awake

Of course they are linked, your JSA comes from taxes, it's administrated by the government (DWP) who pay you your JSA. Simples!

The government are now blocking FOI requests, this is to protect the identities of businesses that are using the unemployed as a source of free labour.

And yet more revealations regarding Emma Harrison and A4E.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106569/Emma-Harrison-1-7m-renti...

Work experience for young people aged 16-24 has taken a kicking,the mandatory element and sanctions of this programme is in tatters firms like Tesco are distancing themselves from it.

I ask readers and commenters not forget disabled people 25-64 placed on The Work Programme especially the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) work-related activity group (Wrag)

Disabled face unlimited unpaid work or cuts/sanctions in benefit.

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is a benefit for people who have a limited capability for work because of a health condition or disability.

This:

The latest figures reveal there are just over 300,000 claimants in the Wrag group  a number which is expected to rise as coalition reforms continue  and 8,440 of them have already incurred sanctions in the period from September 2010 to August 2011 for offences such as missing interview with advisers without good cause .

1St Sanction 3 months.
2nd Sanction 6 months.
3rd Sanction 3 years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/16/disabled-unpaid-work-benef...

Contrast this to people on (Jsa) job seekers allowance.

There is an eight-week limit on non-disabled job seekers taking part in the governments work experience programme, and a six-month limit on unpaid work for a new pilot called the community action programme.

The “Work Experience Programme” is the thin end of the wedge. This is what Grayling and IDS constantly refer to when they talk of a voluntary element, but this is solely for 18-24 year olds, and there is a possibilty of withdrawal after a day without having to face sanctions. It is why the rhetoric has shifted towards young people, because there is a voluntary aspect to it, however small.

The “Work Programme” on the other hand, to which the vast majority of claimants are assigned, is completely mandatory in all aspects. Anyone involved in this scheme will face sanctions if the providers (a4e etc) raise a compliance doubt. These are ritually enforced by the DWP, and can be for the smallest of reasons.

Workfare is often used as a catch-all, but each scheme within the framework is different. They are easily confused, but should not be used interchangeably as has been the case. There are also other schemes, such as Mandatory Work Activity that also fall under the Workfare banner. However, because Grayling et al are usually asked about “Workfare” or “Unpaid Work Experience”, they have carte blanche to refer only to the Work Experience programme, to which a minority of claimants are involved.

Poeple might also find this interesting: http://calumslist.org/
It lists the deaths that have been attributed to the DWP reforms, so far.

Anb yet more questions for the DWP to answer over The Work Programme.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106954/Ministers-told-fraud-cla...

I notice that the campaign against this is not being led by the Labour Party. Where are they??! Thank goodness for the campaigners who are taking a stand and mobilising against this. Where is the Labour party? It is supposed to be an opposition.

Benn said

'I really think this is a lot of waffle from what is a far left group that is, despite the rhetoric form a few people on here, completely out of touch with general public opinion.'

Do you read the posts?, the SWP are marginal in all this, bandwagon jumpers, the concern has been there for years..

@ Jonno

I said this earlier, if A4E are under investigation they really need to investigate all the other Private Providers as well, because they all work the same way.

INVESTGATE ALL PRIVATE PROVIDERS THAT RUN THE WORK PROGRAMME - NOW!-DO IT NOW.

How much training is needed to do the kind of work on offer in these schemes 1 day's induction then pay the rate for the job please. MPs and Ministers do not work for no pay

@Sir Michael - I assume you know that ATOS is being paid a billion pounds to "decide" that ill people are fit to work. Not just a sick note, in fact a completely different system.

You will be found well, even if close to death. If you cannot get out of bed, but can watch TV, ATOS will decide that you have good concentration and mental capacity. If you are paralysed in both legs, or have had them amputated, ATOS will say that this is no object in getting to work.

This is why, in my mind, we are returning to Nazi Germany, or take your choice of some other oppressive regime.

You couldn't make it up .. well ok, so Chris Grayling did already.

Damn. What an imagination!

It hasn't taken long for the Tories to sink into delusion, has it?

'Trotskyists'? And Priti Patel's 'militant far-left' the other day? Unless they accept that some pretty moderate people object to the philosophies behind these schemes, they are going to sink further and further out of touch.

It beggars belief that a grown man could think that people asking to be paid for doing the same job as someone else should seem like some sort of extremist conspiracy. Proof positive that we have lunatics every bit as out of touch as the drooling idiots in the Tea Party here in the UK.

Objection to slavery is "far left" now?

If anything that is an indication how far right the coalition is. Asking people to work for corporations in profit, without anything more in the way of reward than substinance, is simple slavery. There are absolutely no moral, logical, or even economical arguments for making someone stack shelves for a company which made 3.8 billion in profits without that company giving them money for doing it.

The person who has been compelled isn't going to learn any new skills. They aren't going to have any extra money to spend on goods and services, giving the economy a boost. They aren't going to feel more empowered and confident, they are going to feel exploited and worthless.

Even worse, why would these companies hire new staff if they can get people to work for free? This at a time when the private sector is supposed to be picking up extra employees to cover the losses in the public sector caused by the government cuts.

This isn't just immoral and cruel, it is blatantly stupid.

I am all for forcing the unemployed to work if they feel they must. But it HAS to have a PROPER wage attached. Without that it isn't work, it's coerced labor.

MR Grayling, nobody objects to work experience. What they object to is being unable to look for the work they've trained for and taking jobs offf people who could be employed. Some of the university graduates doing this are looking for work in their own field of expertise so that they can pay off the debts which they incurred whilst getting that degree. What is needed is work experience tailored to the needs of the person concerned. Most firms won't take anybody on without that experience. There are people absolutely dependent on work at places like Tesco's, stacking shelves etc, and this scheme has impacted on them too.

@Sir Michael

"They aren't going to feel more empowered and confident, they are going to feel exploited and worthless."

I took this position when I was speaking to a friend of mine about this. This was someone who works at the Job Centre. They informed me that (in their experience) people do actually get something out of these schemes, particularly when they've been out of work for a long time or are just getting back into work following time off for a disability.

The issue I have with it is the "punishment" for withdrawing. Nobody should have their benefits docked for this. The scheme itself could be a good idea. If people aren't being coerced into giving it a go then it will live or die depending on whether people actually want to do it.

I would like Evan Davis to start using the word bullying. That is what most of the goverment is about.

And Grayling's claim about hacking is a fib. He is pretty fast and loose with the facts.

Perfectly put, Graeme. The Nanny State has been replaced with The Bully State.

Oh, and the whole idea is economically illiterate. At least they're consistent.

If a placement is availible at any firm and an unemployed person accepts it, they should be paid the national minimum wage, although it's looked upon as work experience, it's still work, in other words you will be doing a job that the guy next to you is getting a full wage for and while your there you will be contibuting to that firms profits.

This idea of The Work Programme was Ian Duncan Smith MP's brainchild yet Chris Grayling MP is getting all the stick for it. Mr Grayling you really need to slap IDS down and give him a good kicking for bringing this down on your head.

@Alex Baldwin - "I took this position when I was speaking to a friend of mine about this. This was someone who works at the Job Centre. They informed me that (in their experience) people do actually get something out of these schemes, particularly when they've been out of work for a long time or are just getting back into work following time off for a disability."

The atmosphere between claimaint and Jobcentre staff is more toxic than it ever has been, and the disparity of power between the two sides is immense. Among the sick and the jobless there is genuine fear about what might happen if they don't display absolutely giddy enthusiasm for whatever is done to them.

If they ask someone "was that work program any good?" they are likely to say "yes" lest they land themselves on another, or marked as being uncooperative or workshy, or have their cases reviewed to see if there is anything else to "help" them.

When the master asks the slave "do you enjoy being a slave?" what would any slave say? The whips have been replaced with starvation and severe hardship, but it is no less immoral and no less soul destroying to the people involved.

All the magor firms pulling of The Work Programme, A4E a private provider under investigation and chris grayling lying - time to pull the plug on The Work Programme and shut it down permanently.

Oh and while your at it, you'd better investigate all the other private providers such as INGEUS, BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT SERVICES TRAINING LTD (BEST) etc, because they all run The Work Programme exactly the same way as A4E does, I wonder how many more ghosts are in their closets, it would be a good idea to find out.

Mr Grayling MP is in very real danger of becoming a laughing stock by his unwillingness to admit that major firms (as we all now know as fact) are pulling out of his badly concieved Work Progamme.

It's interesting that Ian Duncan Smith MP is no-where to be seen on the news regarding this, HMMMM!

Did ANYONE watch newsnight last night??
is everyone asleep?? All panellists bar one and all those who spoke in the audience supported the program.
So the left will hand the tories an excuse as to why unemployment was rising, especially since the initial figures show the program to be effective...
At your own peril, but when fools such as sir M back something citing slavery, well...

"Did ANYONE watch newsnight last night??

is everyone asleep?? All panellists bar one and all those who spoke in the audience supported the program."

You're the one who needs to wake up....a panel of a government minister, a member of UKIP, a Telegraph columnist and the increasingly absurd Schama was hardly likely to criticize the measure.

As for the audience - isn't everyone in Tunbridge Wells always disgusted? Or is it disgusting? I can never remember!