The Government today released performance figures on the flagship Work Programme which reveal that the £5 billion pound scheme is failing miserably with less than 25% of claimants off benefits after 36 weeks on the programme.
The rate of people who would be expected to find jobs without any help at all is believed to be 28%. And today’s figures don’t even represent job outcomes. Claimants could be off benefits due to reaching pensionable age, starting full time education, having a child, moving in with a partner or having benefits sanctioned.
In the 90s the minimum job entry rate for similar types of provision aimed at helping long term unemployed people find work was 45%. Previously Chris Grayling has boasted that 36% of people would find work on the Work Programme.
Whilst the Government state that during their time on the scheme 48% of people had some break in their benefit claim, this is little more than meaningless. Around 100,000 people were sanctioned on the Work Programme last year, meaning benefits were stopped temporarily by the private sector poverty pimps running the scheme due to the claimant not completing mandated activity – such as workfare. Claims can also be temporarily stopped due to a period of sickness, a change of address or any other change in personal circumstances.
It seems highly likely that this 48%, many of whom were back on benefits by the end of the tracking period, were simply sanctioned.
Further statistics, which will include job entry rates, are to be published in the Autumn. It is already abundantly clear however that Work Programme isn’t working. Private sector like fraudsters like A4e are being paid hundreds of millions of pounds to do little more than bully, harass and sanction benefit claimant, something the DWP were already quite adept at doing for far less money.
The figures do not tell us which benefits those attending the programme were claiming. With sick and disabled people now forced onto the Work Programme under threat of sanctions (administered by so called charities), it is unclear whether anyone on sickness benefits has actually got a job through the scheme.
George Osborne has stated he wants to cut £10 billion further from the welfare system despite the savage cuts that in many cases are still to take effect. Half of that figure could be saved by scrapping the Work Programme which is serving little function other than lining the pockets of the poverty pimps running the scheme with tax payers cash.
The statistics can be viewed at: http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/adhoc_analysis/2012/wp_early_entrants.pdf
Join in the National Week of Action Against Workfare – tell the charities involved in workfare what you think: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=1298
