What I don’t get is the Work Programme cost the tax payer about £5 billion, I think, and, (as far gaining full-time employment is concerned), being on the WP is worse than ‘doing nothing’.

The government has been accused of artificially reducing the unemployment figures by 105,000 because they are counting unemployed people on these work placement schemes as employed.

From herehttp://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id

"Those participants whose activity comprises any form of work, work experience or work-related training are classified as in employment. This is regardless of whether the individual is paid or not."

There also an issue of people being under-employed i.e. people in work who are seeking longer hours but can't get them. This is also in part thought to be linked to the free labour these work placements provide.

Finally there is the issue of falling unemployment yet no growth in GDP. More people said to be in work but the country is not producing more and income tax receipts are down. This is also partly explained by people doing voluntary work on a work placement scheme being classed as employed yet they aren't producing anything nor paying tax or NI because their income is JSA and not a wage from an employer.

Smoke and mirrors, methinks.

The whole Atos/A4e/WorkFare/demonisation of disabled, unemployed, low-paid, anyone on any benefit etc etc is nothing other than playing with deckchairs on the Titanic; the iceberg in question being the fact that there are neither enough jobs around for the working-age population, nor enough jobs that pay a living wage so that the taxpayer does not continue, via in-work benefits, to have to subsidise companies.

Successive governments have both helped to create/facilitate the development of this situation – and not done enough to tackle this central iceberg, while also not telling the public that this is at the heart of the issue.

In a shellnut.

Waste of time and money? www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... thing.html Happening now. www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 2-0003.htm www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/1072 Watch this space? www.legislation.gov.uk/new/2013- ... 2013-02-14

Waste of time and money? www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... thing.html Happening now. www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 2-0003.htm www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/1072 Watch this space? www.legislation.gov.uk/new/2013- ... 2013-02-14

David Cameron also attempted to claim that thousands of new jobs had been created, when in fact they were simply jobs that existed in the public sector (higher education) being transferred to the private sector.

A friend of mine is on the work programme and goes every 2 weeks to her employment advisor at one of these private companies (I don't want to say which one because her advisor has been very helpful to her). The people are very nice and try to help, but it's frankly pathetic. They have computers that more often than not don't work and use programmes woefully out of date, half the time it's almost impossible for her to log onto her government gateway account there because the version of IE they use is so old. They appear to be understaffed, anytime a member of staff is off sick no-one takes up the workload. They've also put her through 3 courses now, one lasting 15 weeks called something like "functional skills" that is basic English and Maths. She has A-levels in both those subjects and on initial assessment for this course got 100% in both subjects yet is still required to attend the course for 15 weeks and then pass an exam (which is irrelevant as she has far higher qualifications in these subjects and could pass right now anyway) at the end of it. It would appear so that this company can then claim funding from the government for having put her (and plenty of others) through this unnecessary course. So that's plenty of time (and money) wasted on a course she didn't need (and from the looks of it most other people on the course didn't need either) and could do stood on her head from the beginning, that could have been spent trying to find her a job.

Now this advisor has helped her put a better CV together and given her help with writing better covering letters, but I don't think that's anything a better funded jobcentre couldn't do.

"Now this advisor has helped her put a better CV together and given her help with writing better covering letters, but I don't think that's anything a better funded jobcentre couldn't do."

Ah but you forget that the JCP is in the public sector and the Work Programme Provider is in the Private Sector and, as such, will be doing a better job.

Must be absolutely soul destroying for her.

TBF, all this is is a privatised (and therefore more costly, since it has to involve profit) of a problem that's been going on for years. Agencies have no idea how to deal with job seekers who actually have qualifications and experience, including the very experience of work (ie they're not 'workshy' etc).

A friend of mine was made redundant at 58. He'd never been unemployed; he had plenty of qualifications and had worked in a variety of fields. So there was no question that he was 'workshy' or even extremely limited in what he could/would do.

He had no joy at all. He got a few interviews, but no further than that. In essence, they'd consider him too old. He got sent on training courses that were perhaps not as irrelevant as those you mention, but not far off it.

For the last few years, he's been trying his hand at making artisanal food, even though he's now past the retirement age.

Similarly, I've been turned down for jobs in the last decade for, in effect, being too old. Having freelanced at one major media organisation for nine months (including being left to look after the outfit on my own over one Christmas) I was given an interview for a permanent post doing that job. Feedback informed me that I had done an excellent interview, but wasn't getting the job because I'd 'be bored within a short time'. I would, apparently, have been applying for 'middle management' posts at my age and given my experience.

Which is fine and dandy, except I have no interest in doing that (again). Why does anyone [ihave to[/i move into such positions at some given age? And on top of that, you try getting into an organisation, in such a position, from outside that organisation (I tried). So 'too old' to get on the bottom rung and 'too old' to not be on a higher rung.

The whole thing is absolutely bonkers.

I'd also say that they (the system, in effect) are equally happy if you formerly go self-employed, which I had to, in the end. They get to ship you off the books, even if the jobs you get are few and far between.

But to return to what I posted earlier: the core problem is that there are not enough jobs for everyone of working age. So employers can play silly büggers as above, and agencies can often only shuffle the deckchairs.

One is given to wonder how the goverment can count them as employed for the purpose of statistics but as unemployed when it comes to them being paid JSA rather than minimum wage during said "employment".

In light of some of the last few posts, for those who have stressed a particular issue with benefits, do they:

1) believe that there are enough jobs for all those of working age?

2) If not, isn't the issue of those people who have little interest in getting a job really just a red herring when there are plenty of people who want a job but cannot get one? Isn't this something that could only realistically be dealt with in an economy that has full employment?

And these are intended as serious questions – not sarccy ones.

I was unemployed for 8 months during the second Thatcher recession. After 6 months I was automatically moved to a scheme called (IIRC) Jobcentre Plus where I received just the sort of help you describe, along with access to an office that had facilities for printing, photocopying, telephone, etc. and all the newspaper jobs sections every day.

Now, as it happens I found a job not long after through another route; but it was really helpful and provided FOC by the state.

If the hundreds of thousands or more who really, really would like a half decent job could actually be found a half decent job, then it might be worth turning attention to the so-called workshy/scroungers, but what difference does it make what my attitude to working for a living is, if there are no jobs, nobody has any spare money to spend that might then conceivably lead to creation of more jobs, and all we hear is that there's decades more of the same cuts, tax hikes and "austerity measures" (though naturally none that affect government ministers, MPs, bankers, tax avoiders etc etc) to follow?