Chris Grayling – Lie Watch

Chris Grayling is set to give a speech today celebrating the disastrous Work Programme, despite the flagship initiative fast becoming a somewhat tragic laughing stock.

The latest performance figures suggest that the scheme is actually performing far worse than if the Government had simply done nothing at all.  As ever Chris Grayling will ignore the facts and lie through his teeth that all is well with the multi-billion pound farce.

Grayling will even have the audacity to claim that the scheme is over performing in some areas, with a bold statement that for those easiest to place in employment the figure is “well above 26% in much of the country”.

Of course there is no way to check the truth of this statement as the Government are refusing to release performance figures on the Work Programme.  The recent figures announced by the private Welfare to Work industry claimed that only 22% of people were finding work through the Work Programme and raised concerns that many of these jobs were temporary.

This suggests that Grayling is once again being less than honest if he says today, as reported he will, that it is “clear from feedback from the front line that a substantial majority are staying in work once they get there”.

Even if the 26% figure is true, which it isn’t, it would represent a disaster given that officials have claimed that 28% of all groups, not just the easiest to help, would be expected to find work without any ‘help’ from the Work Programme at all.

That only last year bold claims were being made that 36% of people would find long term employment due to the Work Programme (in itself a less than impressive figure) seems to have conveniently slipped Chris Grayling’s mind.

Grayling appears to be so out of touch that he doesn’t know that actually people find work everyday without the help of profit making sharks like A4e.  Unlike his toff chums in the cabinet, most of us do not rely on our parents or the old school tie to find work, but fill out job applications, send out CVs and attend interviews without any so called support from Welfare to Work companies at all.

The vaguely defined ‘easiest to help’ may in fact represent the people who got jobs themselves before even really starting on the Work Programme .  At the recent Public Accounts Committee hearing into the fraud infested Welfare to Work industry, MP Margaret Hodge related stories of people being bribed to fill out paperwork so that Work Programme providers could claim fat job outcome fees for those who had only just started on the programme.

That this is common practice in the industry was clearly shown by the internal memo that A4e managed to leak on their own website.  This instructed staff on how to claim up to £13,000 from the government in cases where someone found a job before being fully inducted onto the Work Programme.

According to the Mail, even some of the poverty pimps so eager to profit from unemployment, are considering pulling out of the Work Programme.  Spinning ever more wildly Grayling will claim this is a huge success that shows that  competition in the Welfare to Work industry is working.  Grayling will say that “competition means that if you’re not coming up with the results, someone else will”.  Except no-one else is.  With many major charities having already abandoned the scheme, and the Welfare to Work sector considering pulling out, then the question arises exactly who will Grayling hand Work Programme contracts to next – Gok fucking Wan?

Ever the opportunists, Labour have used today to point out that despite the wonderful Work Programme, the cost of Job Seekers Allowance is set to cost around a billion a year more than the Government had accounted for.  This represents an increase in spending of around 20%, whilst the cost of Housing Benefits are also set to soar by over £4 billion above projections.

Grayling’s most blatant lie of the day is dismissing claims that this is down to rising unemployment as ‘nonsense’ and pretending the higher figures represent the recent small rise in meagre benefit payments.  In April benefits and pensions rose by 5.1% in line with inflation, a figure which doesn’t appear to account for a 20% rise in expenditure.  In any event, you would have hoped that the Government might have accounted for inflation in their spending plans.  In contrast to Job Seekers Allowance, Housing Benefit has actually been subject to brutal cuts, yet still the cost is rising.

Yet again a speech from Chris Grayling brings yet another avalanche of spin, distortion and outright lies. The compulsive liar at the heart of Cameron’s Government is out of control, but there seems no mood for Number 10 to intervene.  Osborne has threatened to cut yet a further £10 billion from the welfare budget.  Five billion of this could be easily found by scrapping the farcical Work Programme and bringing Chris Grayling’s delusions to a swift conclusion.  That George Osborne would rather force people from their homes and drive children into poverty, rather than confront the lying bastard Grayling and the fraud ridden Welfare to Work sector, tells us everything we need to know about the contemptible toffs in this Government.

Workfare Isn’t Working So Grayling Plans More Workfare – This Time It’s For Charity

Chris Grayling is once again depending on charities to prop up his Government’s exploitative and fraud ridden workfare schemes with the announcement that tens of thousands more benefit claimants are to face unpaid labour.  Grayling is planning to hugely extend the Mandatory Work Activity scheme in a desperate attempt to claw back some credibility for his shambolic welfare to work policies.

Whilst sanctions have temporarily been removed from some workfare schemes, they are fundamental to the Mandatory Work Activity schemes.  Sources have claimed that this scheme is used when claimants refuse to ‘volunteer’ for one of the other, currently non-mandatory,  workfare schemes.

The Mandatory Work Scheme was introduced last year despite the warning of the Social Services Advisory Committee (SSAC) who claimed the scheme could be racist in practice, open to wide scale abuse and will leave no time for unemployed people to actually look for a job.  The SSAC, who are an independent body whose role is to advise Parliament on welfare,  issued a stark warning that the scheme should not go ahead.

Under the scheme claimants can be ordered to carry out 30 hours unpaid work for four weeks at a time.  Despite Grayling claiming the scheme is ‘popular’, the mandatory nature of the scheme reveals it’s true purpose.  It is effectively a punishment for those that Jobcentre staff have deemed aren’t trying hard enough to find work.  After completing four weeks workfare there is nothing in the rules to stop claimants being re-referred straight back onto the scheme for another month.  In fact there is nothing in the rules to stop this happening indefinitely.  Claimants can be referred from the first day of their claim and face vicious benefit sanctions should they refuse.  Should whoever they’ve been forced to work for dismiss them for any reason they will also face benefit sanctions.

120 hours is three times the minimum Community Service (now called Community Payback) sentence that can be handed out in the courts.  Those convicted of sexual assault, Actual Bodily Harm or burglary could face a less stiff sentence than those forced onto Mandatory Work Activity because they missed an appointment at the Jobcentre or simply because their Jobcentre Advisor has taken a dislike to them.    There are no checks and balances in the system to ensure that harassment of claimants is not occurring and no right of appeal.

The Government were expected to publish figures this week outlining whether the scheme has actually helped anyone into work.  It now appears they have changed their mind. Just like their refusal to publish performance figures for the Work Programme, the largest shambolic Welfare to Work scheme, it seems the DWP are once with-holding information because it might embarrass ministers and reveal the scheme to be yet another expensive disaster.

Welfare to work company A4e were recently stripped of their Mandatory Work Activity contract in the South East due to concerns about fraud in the organisation.  Allegations of fraud at other welfare to work companies are now beginning to emerge.  An upcoming court case brought by Cait Reilly, forced onto workfare under another scheme, may yet rule that workfare is illegal.

Despite all of this, Chris Grayling, the minister just about in charge of the DWP, is to announce a huge expansion of Mandatory Work this week.  It appears to be this Government’s policy that when they find themselves in a hole they should start to dig furiously.  Austerity has plunged the country into the most prolonged recession in living memory so the Government has pledged more austerity.  When voters in the recent local elections rejected this Government’s right wing policies, for which they have no electoral mandate, the Tory’s answer was to move even further to the right.  And as workfare is revealed to be a dismal failure that may even be increasing long term unemployment, the answer from Chris Grayling is more workfare.

Astonishingly Grayling will be depending on charities to provide placements for those bullied onto Mandatory Workfare.  Despite the likes of Tesco pulling out (sort of) from the Government’s workfare schemes, huge numbers of charities are only to happy to profit from forced labour on an industrial scale.  Claimants on Mandatory Work will be sent to charity shops and other community organisations , many of whom are no doubt household names, to serve their sentences.

The DWP are so concerned that the image of those benefiting from this scheme may be tarnished that they are now refusing to reveal details of where people on Mandatory Work are actually being sent.  Previous FOI requests, which named some of the organisations so quick to benefit from this and other exploitative workfare scheme, have now disappeared from the DWP’s website.

Charities have fallen over themselves to pick up lucrative workfare contracts under which benefit claimants can face crippling sanctions which have forced people into poverty and homelessness.  The response to criticism of their involvement in these brutal schemes has been little more than pathetic.  Disability charities have claimed it’s not their fault people get sanctioned, it’s the fault of the DWP.  This is despite the contractual arrangements which demand charities reports ‘compliance breaches’ to the DWP. A compliance breach may mean not turning up for workfare under the Mandatory Work Scheme, or missing a meeting or training session for those on the Work Programme.  These sanctions can even be applied to sick or disabled claimants, and in fact almost 10,000 sick or disabled claimants faced sanctions last year and the number is expected to soar.  Many of these sanctions have been directly due to the actions of the charities involved in the various schemes.

The hypocrisy from charities has been even more staggering.  Mental health charity MIND have said they will not use forced labour in their charity shops, but were quite happy to profit from a scheme in which participants could be sent to carry out forced labour in other people’s charity shops.  Substance misuse charity Addaction recently condemned benefit sanctions for those with drug or alcohol dependencies, yet are one of the largest Work Programme sub-contractors.  Addaction are contractually obliged to refer their own users for sanctions, despite their Chief Executive recently saying that benefit sanctions “can severely damage someone’s chances of beating an addiction and recovering”.

A piece recently published on Disabled People Against Cuts’ website contains inside information from a charity worker who calls his employer’s  involvement in these schemes ‘disgusting’. and reveals: “I remember one client with severe psychosis. He didn’t know what day of the week it was—but he was about to lose his benefits because he had missed his appointments.”

After the private sector rejected workfare as unethical, Chris Grayling needs charities and community organisations to force tens of thousands more claimants into unpaid work.  There should be no squeamishness about holding these charities to account for their actions.  Organisations that depend on a fluffy public image at their charity fun runs and galas should not be surprised if they face protests, pickets, boycotts and direct action.  Charities like Addaction, Mencap, Scope, The Salvation Army and many more are all conniving with this toff Government in a brutal and unprecedented attack on the very people they claim to support.  If they are to happy to profit from Tory attacks on the sick, disabled and the unemployed, then they should be prepared to face the consequences.

If you are currently on, or about to be sent on any of the Mandatory Work schemes please get in touch with one of the many organisations campaigning against them such as Boycott Workfare .  We urgently need to know exactly who is profiting from forced labour and the government is trying to keep it secret.

Even The Poverty Pimps Admit Work Programme Isn’t Working

In yet another humiliation for lying bastard Chris Grayling, even the Welfare to Work poverty pimps seem to think that the Work Programme is turning into a desperate and expensive failure.

The Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) represents workfare sharks like A4e who have won lucrative government contracts to run the Government’s flagship Work Programme aimed at ‘helping’ long term unemployed people into work.

Today they released a statement that seems to suggest that barely over one in five people who have been on the scheme have actually got a job out of it.  According to the ERSA just 22% of people bullied onto the scheme under threat of benefit sanctions have found work so far.  This shatters Chris Grayling’s deluded claims that 36% of people would find work on the Work Programme.  In fact it is quite likely the figure represents people who would have got work anyway without any help from the Welfare to Work industry.

In the 90s Job clubs and Employment Service Programme Centres, many of which were run by charities or small community organisations, were expected to place a minimum of 45% of people in employment or face being shut down.

It is testament to the pressure from private sector parasites like G4s and A4e that this figure has already been driven down so significantly.  But 22% represents a new low and reveals that no amount of motivational claptrap, workfare or sanction regimes will help the unemployed back into work when there are no fucking jobs.

Of even more concern is the ERSA’s claim that of that 22%, many of those jobs are likely to be short term.  It has long been a perfectly legal scam carried out by Welfare to Work companies to place people in short term jobs and pick up fat ‘job outcome’ fees from the tax payer.

Whilst the new Work Programme claims to only deliver payment by results, private contractors  get paid £400 every time someone walks through the door and is ‘attached’ to the programme.  Whilst the Government has said this will be phased out, it has been estimated that Work Programme could cost around £1 billion before anyone has ever actually found work.  So much for payment by results.  This is on top of the £56 million that was spent on demolishing the current welfare to work schemes due to Chris Grayling’s desperate bid to rush this untested, un-thought through farce into existence.  The DWP is handing out our cash like smarties to any bunch of dodgy fraudulent bastards who can bamboozle them with figures and flaky job outcome claims.

The situation for sick and disabled claimants would appear to be even more desperate.  No figures yet exist as to whether any of those referred to the Work Programme have actually got a job.  St Mungos, one of the largest homelessness charities in the UK,  recently pulled out of the scheme after announcing that they had not been able to place a single individual in work via the Work Programme.

For a long time Iain Duncan Smith and his lacky Chris Grayling have promised the Work Programme would be the solution to all of society’s ills.  It has been used as justification for both the Remploy factory closures and the brutal new regime for sickness and disability benefits which has seen hundreds of thousands of people stripped of vital financial support.  In figures that now seem laughable, bold claims about Work Programme helping over two million long term unemployed people find work have now been demolished by the very companies being paid to do just that.  After 18 months the ERSA say that only 66,000 people have found work so far.

At current performance levels it would take around 44 years for the Work Programme to even come close to Grayling’s predictions, and that’s providing that no-one else becomes long term unemployed in the meantime.  Unfortunately recent figures show that long term unemployment is rising fast.

As ever Grayling has attempted to bullshit his way out of trouble calling these dreadful figures a ‘good start’.  In the real world, someone who pissed away hundreds of millions of pounds of an organisation’s money with no clear benefits would be sacked without recourse.  If ever there were a clearer example of gross misconduct it is Grayling’s stewardship of the DWP. That would be one addition to the ranks of the unemployed that we could all welcome.

Soaring Long Term Unemployment Only Highlights Collapsing Work Programme

Today’s unemployment figures show that long term unemployment has hit record levels despite almost half a million people being referred onto the Work Programme.

The number of people unemployed for over 12 months rose to 887,000 in the three months to March 2012, up 27,000 from the three months to December 2011.   The number of people out of work over two years also rose by 5,000.

People who have been claiming benefit for 12 months are automatically referred onto the Work Programme, the Government’s flagship scheme aimed at reducing long term unemployment.  Despite unemployment falling slightly overall for the second month running, long term unemployment is still rocketing.

This more than demonstrates that the Work Programme is unfit for purpose.  If Work Programme providers can’t bring down long term unemployment, even when all other measures of unemployment are falling, then this only highlights the desperate failure of current strategy.

With charities queuing up to pull out of the £5 billion Government scheme, it is clear that the Work Programme is little more than a huge give away of tax payers money to private sector training companies who are clearly not achieving the glorious results promised by Chris Grayling and Iain Duncan Smith.

Work Programme uses the ‘black box’ approach, which is DWP slang that means Work Programme providers can do whatever they want, backed up with the threat of benefit sanctions, in an attempt to find people work.  Astonishingly this could include employing people within their own organisations, subsidised by ‘ Job Outcome’ cash funded by the tax payer.  So weighted is the scheme in favour of providers cooking the books that they can claim for jobs people got under their own steam before they have even started on the Work Programme.

Despite all this long term unemployment continues to soar.  This hasn’t stopped the Government paying out over £200 million in ‘attachment fees’ to private sector parasites running the scheme.  This badly thought out farce is proving to be the biggest benefit fraud in the UK’s history and yet still Chris Grayling and  Iain Duncan Smith pretend that all is wonderful on the Work Programme.

Due to the recent workfare protests, the only activity which cannot be forced upon claimants on the Work Programme is unpaid work.  This was a key part of the strategy of many of the Work Programme contractors and formed the basis of their initial bids for the contract.  With the teeth removed from Work Programme, private sector profiteers have the perfect excuse for their disastrous performance and can lay the blame entirely at the feet of the Government and Chris Grayling in particular.  The incompetence is staggering.

Today’s unemployment figures mask the true state of the crisis facing UK workers.  The number of people in full time work fell by 13,000, to the lowest figure since records began.  The fall in unemployment was due to the number of people gaining part time work, often earning little more than they would on the dole and in many cases still claiming Housing Benefit and other in-work benefits.

On top of this a record number of people are now recorded as self-employed.  This may reflect claimants being bullied off benefits and onto Working Tax Credit in an effort to massage unemployment figures.  Others may have been threatened with benefit sanctions if they don’t take flaky non-jobs, such as part time commission based telesales jobs which pay peanuts and are almost always short term. The slight number in the fall of people claiming benefits could reflect the increased use of benefit sanctions, forcing ever more people into dire poverty.

There is little good news in today’s figures no matter which way the Government spins it.  It is barely possible to exist on a full time minimum wage salary.  A rise in part time workers at the expense of full time staff only shows more people are being driven into in-work poverty and is no sign of an improving economy.

Farewell Emma, Farewell A4e – Come to the Goodbye Party!

New Legal Ruling Marks Major Blow for Welfare Reform

A landmark legal ruling has dealt yet another blow to Iain Duncan Smith’s brutal and shambolic attempts at reforming welfare.  The Court of Appeal ruled on Monday that new Housing Benefit rules illegally discriminate against disabled claimants.

The new rules meant that disabled people could no longer claim for a spare room for live in carers.  In the eyes of the court this meant that disabled people “would be left in a worse position than an able bodied person living alone”.

The case was brought by Ian Burnip and two other families, who were unable to find funded accommodation which met their needs for 24 hour care.  The Court accepted this breached Human Rights laws.  Solicitors representing the families say this ruling means that any Welfare Reform must now “ensure that appropriate provision is made for disabled people to ensure that discrimination does not occur”.

Further court cases challenging the vicious welfare reforms now appear inevitable.  Further details of this latest victory for disability rights campaigners can be found at: http://www.dpac.uk.net/2012/05/experts-say-landmark-judgement-will-stop-benefit-system-discriminating-against-disabled/

This ruling comes hot on the heels of the Government being slammed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for failing to carry out adequate equality impact assessments on welfare reform as required in law.

Every day brings a new disaster for Iain Duncan Smith and his bungling attempts at Welfare Reform.  Once again a policy which hasn’t been thought through is starting to unravel in implementation.

IDS is proving to be just as incompetent as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions as he was as Tory leader.  IDS turned the party into a laughing stock  as Tory leader at the beginning of the century before he was booted out to be replaced by the creepy Michael Howard.  Prior to this he was one of the ‘bastards’ who plotted to oust John Major and fostered the deep divisions in the Tory Party over Europe that led to them being cast into the political wilderness for almost 15 years.

It is a sign of the lack of talent in the Tory Party that a man with a proven track record of gross incompetence and divisive behaviour should not only remain in Government but be given a major department to destroy.  Welfare Reform is barely even getting started yet IDS and his pathetic underling Chris Grayling have resorted to ever more desperate spin and lies to cover up the shambles.

The ongoing farce shouldn’t distract from the devastation to people’s lives being inflicted by the botched attempts at reform.  Soaring homelessness, benefit sanctions, forced labour and suicides reveal the all too real human cost behind Iain Duncan Smith’s inadequacy.  But every victory brings us one step closer to the day that IDS and Chris Grayling and revealed as the lying, duplicitous, fraudulent little shits they are and are forced to join the ranks of the unemployed they get such a perverse kick out of persecuting.

Black Triangle Campaign  are calling on people to sign and support a letter exposing Iain Duncan Smith’s Lies in the Daily Telegraph.

Homelessness Charities Abandon Work Programme

In a humiliating snub for Employment Minister Chris Grayling, one of the UK’s largest homelessness charities has pulled out of the Government’s flagship Work Programme.

St Mungos have handed back all 3 of the contracts they were involved in, claiming the scheme does ‘not have sufficient emphasis on those furthest from the labour market’.  Astonishingly they say they have not been able to place a single person into work since the scheme began.  St Mungos join the ever growing number of charities who have abandoned the Work Programme which appears to be falling apart at the seems.

Homelessness charity Single Homeless Project (SHP) also recently pulled out after raising concerns about the brutal sanctions regime which they say will force vulnerable people to beg and steal to survive.  In yet another blow to the Government, homelessness charity Crisis also appear on the brink of pulling out with a senior executive saying they have only received three people referred onto the scheme so far and warning that St Mungos’ decision is likely to be the start of a trend.

With typical posh boy arrogance Chris Grayling has said that charities unable to make money from Work Programme are simply ‘not good enough’ at what they do.  This claim is undermined by the lack of referrals being sent to charities by the ‘prime contractors’, largely private sector parasites like A4e.  Whilst charities may be able to source some participants through their own user base, if the numbers aren’t coming through the doors then the scheme is clearly not viable.

St Mungos have many years experience supporting homeless people into employment and have successfully completed many contracts with Jobcentre Plus.  Crisis recently merged with OSW, formerly known as Off The Streets And Into Work, possibly the largest and most experienced training and employment charity for homeless people. If these organisations are unable to place homeless people into work then the idea that cost cutting private sector poverty pimps like Serce and A4e will be successful is possibly Chris Grayling’s biggest delusion yet.

It is clear, that for homeless people at least, the Work Programme hasn’t worked.  With the big disability charities reporting similar difficulties with the scheme, it is likely that more major charities will pull out.

Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling are pretending everything’s fine and dandy on the Work Programme, but in reality it’s been catastrophe after catastrophe.  One of the main contractors, A4e, is currently under police investigation for fraud.  The recent workfare row means sanctions have temporarily been dropped from any attempt to force people into unpaid labour on the scheme.  This was a key strategy of many of the prime contractors, who will no doubt now be asking for yet more money.  And with A4e mired in investigations over dodgy dealings, Work Programme contractors can’t even get away with cooking the books anymore.

The Government is still refusing to say whether anyone has actually got a job after attending Work Programme, but the figures A4e managed to leak on their own website suggests the results so far are pitiful.

Iain Duncan Smith has bet his career on reforming welfare, but his plans amount to little more than fantasy.  His ludicrous obsession, that if only unemployed people were less lazy then uemployment would disappear, is not being borne out in reality.  The two million unemployed are slowly being joined by up to a million sick and disabled people forced into the labour market after benefits are ruthlessly stripped away by the new assessment regime.  Some of these people would have been sent to St Mungos on the Work Programme.  Where they will end up now is anyone’s guess.

It is to St Mungos shame that money, rather than the sanctions - which still apply to all activity on the Work Programme except workfare - is the reason they have pulled out of the scheme.  They should never have connived with the Government to inflict a regime on their users that mean chaotic or vulnerable people can be stripped of benefits if they miss a meeting or can’t attend a training session.  But the fact they are out is yet another crushing blow for Iain Duncan Smith’s attempts to reform welfare based on blind ignorance, prejudice and some stuff he read in the Daily Mail once.

Benefit Cuts Are Good For Your Health Claim Tories!

The latest Impact Assessment on disability benefit changes, which was sneaked out under cover of the elections, makes the bold claim that slashing disability benefits is good for the health of disabled people.

Around a fifth of disabled people are set to lose vital benefits when Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is replaced with the Personal Independence Payment as early as next year.  This is all just fine though according to the DWP.  The latest document, which is an update of the Impact Assessment published last year, states that:

“Income and health are related, with those on low incomes having higher rates of disease, ill health and mortality than those on high incomes. However, evidence is limited as to whether a change in income has an effect on health.”

When the first version of the Impact Assessment was published this claim was sourced to this study (PDF) which actually says that changes to income have at most a small impact on health, in the short term, based on some people in New Zealand.  It poses the question of whether lower income leads to poor health or whether poor health in fact leads to lower income.  Once again the DWP is distorting research to suit their own agenda.

This reference has disappeared from the latest version of the Impact Assessment.  In true DWP style, last year’s impact assessment appears to have been ‘disappeared’ with the latest update replacing it on the exact same web  address: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dla-reform-wr2011-ia.pdf

You can read last year’s version of the document via google.

The DWP recently rewrote a document on workfare in a crude attempt to cover up for Chris Grayling’s lies.  This time round it looks more like cock up than conspiracy.  The DWP don’t seem to be very good with computers.  Thank fuck they’re not about to be placed in charge of the most complex and largest Government IT database ever designed in human history.

The latest version of the impact assessment carries on with the theme of life-saving benefit cuts claiming:  “It is possible that the policy could have positive impacts on health if it leads to more disabled people moving into work.”

There is no evidence that cutting DLA,  available to people in and out of work alike, will mean more disabled people enter the workforce.  The opposite is almost certainly true.  In a recent survey 56% of disabled people in work said they would have to stop or reduce work if they lost DLA (PDF).

Once again the DWP are making ludicrous claims without any evidence to back them up.  This is increasingly typical of the bullshitting bastards in charge of the department, such as compulsive liar Chris Grayling and his delusional puppet master Iain Duncan Smith.

The Government can’t win the argument on Welfare Reform and are resorting to ever more deceptions, exaggerations and cover ups instead.  It is clearly just fucking bullshit that stripping a benefit aimed at helping working disabled people pay for the costs of their disability will help them find work.  Just as it is bullshit that any sick or disabled people are likely to find work through the collapsing Work Programme.  It is equally bullshit that young people are helped into work by workfare schemes, or that fraudulent training providers like A4e are doing anything more than ripping off the tax payer.  The DWP and the truth have long since departed.  Their flimsy attempts at justifying savage policies, already driving people to suicide, are little more than pathetic.

The Department of Work and Pensions is no longer fit for purpose, unless that purpose is solely the destruction of people’s lives in revenge for them being disabled or unemployed.  It is little wonder so many people suspect this to be the case.

Workfare Falls Over and Almost Dies … For Now

In a major victory for campaigners, the concessions made to the Government’s workfare schemes after the recent storm of protest are far greater than Employment Minister Chris Grayling first suggested.

A recent response to a Freedom of Information request reveals that any referral to workfare must now be entirely voluntary on not just the Work Experience scheme for young people, but also the Sector Based Work Academies scheme and the Government’s flagship Work Programme.

DWP staff are now being told “to take immediate steps to ensure that no
claimant of any age is sanctioned under the existing rules for failing to take
up, attend or leaving the Jobcentre Plus Work Experience scheme, the Work
Experience element of sector-based work academies and work experience
arranged by Work Programme providers:”

This is only ‘temporary’ guidance, which suggests it may change once the workfare row has died down.  More importantly, Mandatory Work Activity, the scheme under which claimants can be sentenced to a months unpaid work on the whims of Jobcentre staff, is not included in the new guidance.

The Guardian has already revealed that some young people who turn down a Work Experience placement have been forced onto Mandatory Work Activity.  Last year George Osborne seemed to suggest this is Government policy when he said that “Young people who don’t engage with this offer [of work experience] will be considered for mandatory work activity”.

Trying to get the truth out of either the DWP or lying bastard Chris Grayling is near impossible, but it is highly likely that people who refuse to go on one workfare scheme may simply be sent on another.

Even under these new guidelines, sanctions will still exist on the Work Programme, the largest and most expensive scheme which has been inflicted on almost 400,000 claimants so far.  This means any training, job search sessions, and all the other crap that private sector poverty pimps like A4e  dream up will still be mandated and failure to attend will lead to loss of benefits.

So whilst (according to the rules at least) people can not currently be sent on workfare, it is likely that some people will be forced to sit around in A4e’s garish offices fighting over out of date newspapers for up to 30 hours a week.  A recent account of life at A4e reveals this rip off company to be little more than a fucking embarrassment.

Jobcentre staff, under pressure from above, now have unprecedented powers to sanction claimants.  Despite this new guidance it is possible that claimants may still be sanctioned under Job Seekers Agreement rules, or even that this guidance will not fully filter through to front line workers.  Whilst the Work Experience was always technically voluntary, in practice many young people were told it was mandatory.  This is an area the PCS, the union which represents Jobcentre staff, could help with, simply by reiterating to their members what the rules actually are and asking them to be followed.  Too many Jobcentre staff seem to take relish in punishing benefit claimants, a reflection of the culture in the DWP and the wider benefit bashing campaigns in the media.  The PCS should be working to change this culture.

Sanctions can also still be applied to sick and disabled claimants referred onto the Work Programme in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG).  Shamefully it is largely the responsibility of charities involved in the Work Programme to refer their users to the DWP for sanctions.  Almost 10,000 sick and disabled people were subject to benefit sanctions last year.  Some of them will have been referred by the Work Programme charitable sub-contractors  such as MIND, Mencap and the Leonard Chesire Foundation.

It is also charities who will benefit from the remaining two workfare schemes – Mandatory Work Experience and the new Community Action Scheme, under which long term unemployed people can be sent on six months workfare.  Both these schemes stipulate that the work must be of benefit to the community, and  by and large most placements so far have been with charities.  Unfortunately, in a probable breach of Freedom of Information rules, the DWP are refusing to say who those charities are.

Tesco and other corporate scum rejected sanctions at their cosy meeting with Chris Grayling.   The charitable sector however has not been so forthcoming.

It is charities who are now propping up forced labour, and the DWP is helping them keep their dirty little workfare secrets safe.

Despite all of this, the new guidelines represent a major fucking embarrassment for Chris Grayling who has claimed many times that no-one has been mandated to workfare for private companies on the Work Programme.  A pending Freedom of Information request should tell us this week whether the DWP are prepared to admit the minister in charge is a lying piece of shit.

It appears that the Work Programme is in meltdown behind the scenes.  The private companies contracted to deliver the scheme are likely to react with fury to these new guidelines.  Mandatory workfare was at the heart of many of their Work Programme activities.  Sending someone off to stack shelves in Tesco for free was by far one of the cheapest ways to look like they were actually doing something for their billions.  They will no doubt be demanding more money and lower targets due to the changes.

Confusion is likely to reign both within the DWP and the Work Programme contractors.  Resistance to unpaid work in all it’s forms looks set to continue.  No-one can believe a word Chris Grayling says anymore, whilst the Secretary of State ultimately responsible, Iain Duncan Smith, seems to have disappeared from public life.

The Welfare Reform Bill has only just passed into law and already Welfare Reform is an omni-shambolic farce.  This Government couldn’t run an egg and spoon race.

New Unemployment Figures Only Highlight The Desperate Failure of Welfare Reform

Long term unemployment is at the highest levels seen since 1996 despite the multi-billion pound Work Progamme.  Today’s Labour Market Statistics reveal that the number of people unemployed for over 12 months increased by 26,000 to reach 883,000.  This is despite almost 400,000 people being sent on the Government’s flagship scheme aimed at tackling long term unemployment.

The Tories will make much of this month’s blip that shows unemployment has fallen slightly, but the reality is far from rosy.  As ever it is women bearing the brunt of this Government’s policies, with the number of women out of work up 8000 to the highest levels since 1986.  The Claimant Count, which records the number of people currently claiming Job Seekers Allowance, is also up by 3,600 – this means that whilst unemployment may have fallen slightly, the cost of unemployment has gone up.

It is the number of people out of work for over twelve months however which most starkly demonstrates the failure of current Welfare Policy.  Once someone has been signing on for a year they are referred to the Work Programme.  This means being sent to a private contractor such as fraud ridden A4e who then have the power to mandate the claimant to do pretty much whatever they choose to ‘help’ them find work.

‘Help’ can mean six months workfare.  The DWP claim they don’t know how many people have been sent on workfare under the Work Programme, and astonishingly the minister in charge, Chris Grayling, has lied about it even happening.

If unemployment has fallen, yet long term unemployment is still soaring, this is a damning indictment of the Work Programme, which is set to cost up to £5 billion pounds.  The Government are refusing to reveal details of how many people on the Work Programme have actually gained employment.  Today’s statistics give us some idea of why that is.

Grayling will give a speech today defending the workfare scheme aimed at young people, the notorious Work Experience.  Despite ongoing protests and both charities and private companies abandoning the scheme, Grayling will claim that of course young people should be forced to work for free.  Continuing his creepy obesession with a female Guardian columnist,  he will claim that the ‘Polly Toynbee left just don’t get it’*.  This is a man who compared a suburb of Manchester to a fictional television programme, thinks hotels should be able to ban gay people, has lied repeatedly to both the public and Parliament alike about workfare and thinks the SWP are hacking his email.

We really don’t need lectures on reality from an increasingly demented Oxbridge little fuckwit who appears to be furious that the public don’t share his delusions.

Grayling is to brandish new DWP research claiming that young people who have attended Work Experience schemes are 16% more likely to come off benefits than those who don’t.  That Grayling can claim this as a success is staggering.

Young people go on Work Experience, which can mean up to two months unpaid work, in the hope that they might actually get a job with the host organisation.  These figures reveal the truth is they are only slightly more likely to get a job than the people who did nothing at all.  Given that the DWP claim Work Experience is voluntary it is obvious that many of those who attend are more motivated to find work.  It is also clear that they are less likely to have criminal records, be homeless, have mental or physical health conditions,  or need literacy or numeracy support – meaning they are the young people who are the most likely to find work anyway.

That this group are only 16% more likely to find work after the Work Experience simply reveals that the whole shabby affair is a disaster.  All the flustered defences Grayling made, the emergency meetings with employers and charities, the threats to clamp down on protests, was all for a meagre 16% increase in the chance of finding work – a 16% increase that very probably already existed simply because of the nature of the people who volunteered for the scheme.

Just like the Work Programme, the Work Experience scheme has had little, if any, impact on reducing unemployment.  Whilst millionaires running flaky training companies are picking up billions of tax payer’s cash administering the schemes, the benefit to the unemployed appears to be virtually non-existent.

Grayling will carry on regardless, immune from any semblance of reality.  So intent are this Government on proving that forced labour is good for us they are reduced to pretending a study which shows the scheme is failing miserably actually demonstrates it is a huge success.  As some of us have suspected for a long time, Chris Grayling is a compulsive liar who has started to believe his own bullshit.  Perhaps he hasn’t even noticed that no-one believes a fucking word he says any more.

May Day has been announced as a day of action against workfare. 

*Disclaimer – many of the left ‘don’t get’ Polly Toynbee, but that’s another story.

Chris Grayling: The Compulsive Liar at the Heart of Government

There appears to be little agreement amongst psychiatrists as to whether compulsive or pathological lying is a genuine personality disorder, whether it is a symptom of another condition, or whether in fact, some people are just lying bastards.

One thing seems clear which is if it is left untreated it can develop into a delusional state in which the individual barely knows whether they are telling the truth themselves.  For some people lying becomes the default position, and this is compounded by the need to keep lying to maintain past deceptions.

This of course can be devastating for both the individual and the people around them.  Compulsive liars may often be little more than harmless eccentrics or pub bores, but many of them manage to lie themselves into  positions of responsibility.  This is the case with Employment Minister Chris Grayling who has resorted to ever more outrageous falsehoods, even risking his career recently by lying to the Parliamentary Committee on Work and Pensions.

Grayling’s deceptions began way back in 2007, when he was Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary.  His first big whopper was his claim that “billions of pounds are being lost to fraud” in the benefits system.  This was based on figures which showed that £2.5 billion was lost due to fraud and error in the system.  It turned out that the amount lost to fraud alone was less than a billion.  Grayling has never apologised for this distortion of the truth and has remained relentless in his  attempts to portray benefit claimants as criminals.  A press release issued by the DWP just last year led to lurid and fictional headlines claiming that 75% of people on sickness benefits were ‘skiving’.  Disability hate crime soared as a result.

Grayling’s decline seemed to accelerate in 2009.  Back then Grayling was Shadow Home Secretary, and tipped to be a big wheel in government should the Conservatives return to power.  After a single visit to the Moss Side area of  Manchester, Grayling claimed the area was in a state of urban war, comparing it to the fictional depiction of Baltimore in television’s The Wire.  Manchester has a population almost five times that of Baltimore, yet Baltimore has a murder rate around seven times higher than the Northern city.

Shortly after this the expenses row blew up and Grayling did not fare at all well.  At one point Grayling claimed for two mortgages, one on his large family home in Surrey, just a short commuter trip from London, and another on his posh flat in Pimlico.  Grayling also owns two buy to let properties within the M25.  In 2005 he carried out extensive renovations on his Pimlico flat and to pay for them claimed almost close to the maximum annual allowance for MPs.  This wasn’t quite enough however and a year later he was back claiming thousands more for work done the previous year.  Had he not spread the cost over two years he would have been unable to claim the full amount.  He explained away this discrepancy by pleading that his “decorator has been very ill and didn’t invoice me until now.”  

Only a year later Grayling was at it again.  This time he claimed that violent crime had soared under the Labour Government.  Grayling had deliberately chosen to ignore the change in the way crime had been recorded which led to a furious rebuke from the UK National Statistics Authority.  The chairman of the authority, Sir Michael Scholar, was forced to write to Grayling accusing  him of misleading the public and risking damage to public trust in official statistics.

His most famous gaffe came a month later.  Grayling was recorded saying he supported the right of B&B owners to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples.  This drew condemnation from across the political spectrum with calls for his resignation.  Cameron was incensed that the true face of Tory bigotry had been revealed to the public and Grayling all but disappeared from public life until after the current Government weren’t elected in 2010.

As ever Grayling attempted to squirm his way out of the scandal claiming: “I am sorry if what I said gave the wrong impression, I certainly didn’t intend to offend anyone… I voted for gay rights”

No-one accused him of giving the wrong impression, we all know what the Tories are really like.  Theyworkforyou.com reveals that in truth Grayling has voted moderately against gay rights, voting against the initial legislation to establish civil partnerships, against fertility treatment for gay couples and was absent from the vote on repealing the notorious Section 28.

It was upon his appointment to Employment Minister however that Grayling’s pathological deceptions really began to take hold. An early scandal emerged over the private companies given lucrative contracts to carry out the flagship ‘Work Programme’.  Deloitte Ingeous were listed as preferred bidders by Grayling and went on to win a contract worth almost a billion pounds.  Grayling had previously received a donation worth £27,978  from Deloitte.  Grayling for once remained tight lipped on the affair which Labour Minister John Robertson claimed could be a breach of the ministerial code.

When the workfare row broke out two months ago Grayling found himself repeatedly forced into the public eye and he began to fib and bluster like never before.  It is now impossible to know whether people are mandated to workfare for private companies on the Work Programme as Grayling says one thing yet his department claims quite another.  DWP officials have been reduced to rewriting documents and ‘disappearing’ freedom of information requests to cover up for Grayling’s dishonesty.  Grayling claimed that under the last Government people who undertook work experience lost their benefits when in fact (to their shame) it was Labour who introduced workfare.  Spurious claims about 20,000 young people finding work due to the Tory’s Work Experience scheme were never backed up.  He was humiliated on Channel 4 news when he pleaded to his interviewer to look into his eyes and see that he wasn’t lying.  This was in response to his claim that the Government’s Work Experience was completely voluntary despite Channel 4 news presenting a letter from the DWP which confirmed that this was far from the case.

As the row deepened Grayling’s fibs became ever more bizarre.  Whilst David Cameron boasted of all the new companies who were joining the Work Experience scheme, the DWP, under Grayling, began to refuse FOI requests asking exactly who these companies were.  Blaming the resistance to workfare on an SWP plot he revealed himself to be  increasingly paranoid, at one point even accusing the SWP of hacking his email account.

Last month he deliberately ignored the number of people who successfully appealed decisions which had declared them fit for work and stripped them of vital benefits.  The DWP published a press release which dishonestly claimed over a third of those assessed were Fit For Work, a number which omitted the growing number of appeals.

When Paul Farmer, the Chief Executive of mental health charity Mind quit an advisory panel on the Government’s Work Capability Assessment recently,   Grayling’s pathetic response was to pretend he was going to sack him anyway.  Farmer had said the assessment was unfit for purpose,  whilst Grayling alleged his position was untenable because Mind were suing the DWP.  According to Mind no such court case was on the cards.

And it was late last month that Grayling lied to a Parliamentary Committee when he declared there is no evidence of anyone on the Work Programme being sent on a mandatory work placement at a private company.  This was perhaps Grayling’s most bare-faced lie yet, as despite the DWP’s attempt at a cover up, evidence of this practice can be found in seconds.

None of the other members of the committee have yet commented on Graying’s lies, although they have been informed.  This may be down to the fact that the lazy bastards are on holiday again.

It is clear that Grayling is out of control.  The DWP is fast becoming a laughing stock whilst insiders say the system is in meltdown behind the scenes.  With a Minister in charge who seems to be making things up as he goes along, it is little wonder that the no-one in the department seems to know, or even care, what’s going on anymore.

When people lie compulsively a day of reckoning is never far away.  Deceptions can only be maintained for so long until eventually the whole charade comes crashing down around them.  Grayling has been very quiet the last couple of weeks.  His initial swagger is all but non-existent these days.  Some have claimed his career is hanging by a thread.

The rows over Atos and the WCA, along with workfare, are still generating headlines.  Universal Credit is a train crash waiting to happen.  It will no doubt be entertaining to watch Grayling attempting to wriggle and squirm his way out of trouble yet again.  You can hardly blame him.  He’s just doing what’s always come naturally, and he’s been well rewarded by Cameron in the past.

It is a weak leader who allows such a dishonest and malevolent influence in their ranks.  Grayling has been a continual embarrassment to the Tory Party and Cameron has still cheered him from the sidelines.  The Prime Minister looks unable even to control his own ministers.  If a lying, cheating, scheming, money-grabbing bastard like Grayling is the best the Tories can come up with to ram raid through welfare reform then it reveals a party desperately lacking in talent.  Still, with Grayling on board, at least you can’t accuse them of a lack of imagination.