The incorrectly named The Conservation Volunteers and Groundwork UK are two of the biggest workfare exploiters in the UK despite their fake ethical credentials.
Both are involved the the Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) scheme – 4 weeks full time workfare used as punishment by Jobcentres for those deemed not trying hard enough to find work.
120 hours unpaid work is similar to a mid-level Community Payback sentence – the kind of punishment which might be handed out by the courts for burglary, or even a violent assault. Yet The Conservation Volunteers and Groundwork are happy to team up with Jobcentres to impose this punishment on people just for being unemployed!
Those who refuse, or are unable to work for Groundwork or TCV can now have benefits stopped for up to three years. As the name suggests, there is nothing voluntary about Mandatory Work Activity at all – in fact under current rules you can’t volunteer for the scheme.
When Universal Credit is rolled out nationally it won’t just be unemployed people who may face being sentenced to the scheme, but single parents and part time workers. Sick or disabled people on Employment Support Allowance can now also be forced to work unpaid on the Work Programme.
TCV have said they will not force sick or disabled people to work in the fields for no money, yet many disabled people are on mainstream unemployment benefits and therefore eligible to be sent on MWA. DWP figures state that over 12,000 disabled people have been forced into Mandatory Work Activity.
Astonishingly these so-called charities not only bully people into outdoor physical work under threat of destitution, but are contracted to run the Mandatory Work Activity scheme. This means that along with hundreds of free workers they are paid by the tax payer for arranging workfare placements.
As part of the Week of Action Against Workfare contact them today and let them know what you think of their shabby exploitation.
Groundwork are on twitter @Groundworkuk and facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groundworkuk
TCV are on twitter @TCVTweets and facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TheConservationVolunteers
And don’t forget TCV’s celebrity patrons, including @BillOddie
For more details of these charities involvement with workfare and further contact information visit: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=2752
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the void 
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I have just contacted The Conservation Volunteers to complain about their unethical collusion with DWP punishment regimes. Others may want to do likewise:
http://www.tcv.org.uk/contact
Name and shame benefit scroungers says minister
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2168628/Benefits-cheats-photos-displayed-street-punishment-says-DWP-official.html
What an utter bastard. Here’s an email address for him:
terry.moran1@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Terry Moran has been off sick for more than a year.
The Mail article, though a very good example of what the DWP civil servants are like, is an old article.
Senior staff have been leaving in droves over the past year.
The acting chief operating officer is (well, she was when I last looked) a Hilary Reynolds. Same email.
Is his name a typo: moron
Groundwork are working on our estate at the mo,the Housing association(who refuse to re-classify rooms re bedroom tax,and seem intent on driving out single people on benefits )just gave £80 grand to them to “green the estate”,80 fucking grand,on bird boxes on cutdown telegraph poles,some big tree trunks dotted around to sit on(but you will not be allowed to have a can of beer whilst meeting with your friends,go home put the TV on and shut the fuck up you dole scum) they planted
plants,shrubs,they even went against what the residents of the estate had asked for and the housing ass agreed to do.
there are folk on the estate,getting hit hard by the room tax,getting benefits sanctioned ,cut,stopped and relying on handouts,going without and CITY SOUTH MANCHESTER spend 80 grand,their motto btw is “What matters to you,matters to us”.yeah,right course it does.
Groundwork last seen laughing all the way to there offshore bank.
They did a green area next to our new (ish) multistorey carpark. It has a bench and some plants. It is surrounded by a high fence and locked gate. Only some people have keys to get in. ‘Public’ green spaces indeed!
FOI request ” is work program punishment?”
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/is_the_work_programme_a_punishme
🙂 https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/is_the_work_programme_a_punishme#comment-40966
I’m disabled but I wouldn’t be able to do any work, full stop and if the try to force by taking benefits away then I’ll top myself full stop.
Until last year TCV were BTCV – British Trust For Conservation Volunteers. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s I used to volunteer for them…I mean really volunteer. Used to enjoy it.
Then BTCV moved into the poverty pimp business, and closed down all the local BTCV volunteer branches, to concentrate on the easy money.
Under New Deal, BTCV were one of the pimps in this town, and the conservation element, and needless to say the voluntary aspect, went right out of the window. I dont think any of the drones running it by that stage would even know which way up a tree goes. (With the advent of WP, said drones have relocated en mass to it’s sucessor, Igneus. Same old faces, no wonder nothing ever changes).
BTCV was a good idea in its time, but it sold out genuine volunteers like me in pursuit of the big money.
Personally I’d rather do this than any of the courses on CV writing and confidence building, skill conditionally training (what ever that is?) etc.
But if it’s just a sham — a cash cow. I have no motivation me to help line pockets; told what to do by clueless bully people— worse than a slave because it sounds like a wasteful activity.
Agreed – even without the voluntary option its a far better choice then the usual rubbish.
From experience, there’s also a good chance that the people running the actual course on the ground will be much more lenient and understanding about greivences.
Its the ones who never leave the office you have to watch out for.
Thanks for the link Landless Peasant, I have just contacted them myself, we must fight Organisations like these, they are the real scroungers!
It always amuses me those Google ad matches especially when it throws up weird or surreal links
” Slave Labour
http://www.digstar.com/Slave+Labour
Looking For Slave Labour? Find Slave Labour Now!”
My Work Programme Provider is ‘The Conservation Volunteers’, as they run the contract on behalf of Ingeus. I am now worried that after I finish the Work Programme in October I will probably be sent back to them for four weeks. I only hope they have insurance as I have been told I am naturally quite clumsy!
There must be loads of plants planted in Manchester also bird boxes a car boot paradise!
Don’t get angry … Get even!
I Recieved this response to my email from TCV.
Please follow the link below for our official statement on the DWP announcement:
Click to access tcv-dwp-statement.pdf
Kind regards
The Conservation Volunteers
Under the “About Us” tab, the B&W picture on the left looks like a concentration camp.
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How much is the government paying all these companies and charities using Workfare, from taxpayers’ money?
My local Tory council have plopped a few old lumps of wood on the green outside with a few flowers and shrubs in the middle. Actually, a bunch of local town volunteers turned up and erected it.
I’m so pleased with the woody shrubby work of art that I almost don’t mind having to hand half of my DLA over to pay bedroom tax.
I wanted to make an impotent threat to the afore mentioned flower bed but that’ll probably get me a visit from a crack anti terror squad of Camerons finest Stasi goons.
They probably thought it was a proper chuckle giving us local .supported housing bods a few lumps of wood and mud.
Oh, and soon the woodwork on all the dwellings gets re-painted. Joy.
Reblogged this on thepositivevoice.
“How much is the government paying all these companies and charities using Workfare, from taxpayers’ money?”
probably an amount a lottery winner would pocket …….or a scrounging thieving fraudulent M.P., banker,hedgefund boss etc etc