Back to index of Nerve 20 - Summer 2012

Work Programme, Nightmare or Dream?

By Darren Guy
Photo by Matt O’Toole

‘The Work Program represents a step change for Welfare to Work in this country, creating a structure that treats people as individuals and allows providers greater freedom to tailor the right support to the individual needs of each claimant’. (DWP)

A comparative review of workfare programs in the United States, Canada and Australia carried out by Richard Crisp and Del Roy Fletcher published in 2008 concluded that workfare was least effective for individuals with ‘multiple barriers’ (i.e Mental health, disabilities, alcohol or drugs problems etc). These individuals, they found, find it difficult to comply with obligations workfare imposes on them, such as rigid intensive interviews and job searches and unpaid work. Crisp and Fletcher argued that, applying a one fits all approach to people with complex barriers, 'impounds the conditions of these individuals, rather than helps them', and that 'support', they suggest, 'would be far more beneficial rather than punishment' (i.e. removing their benefits). Furthermore the report is highly critical of workfare in general, It found that workfare when imposed on individuals without 'multiple barriers', actually hindered their chances of getting jobs.

Crisp and Fletcher also found that workfare drastically reduced the numbers claiming benefits in both US and Canada and that they could find no evidence to show what had happened to the people who had either been struck of or had stopped claiming benefits.

So to reiterate the research found that workfare in the USA, Canada and Australia

1. failed to get people into work,
2. it succeeded in getting people off benefits.

You would be forgiven for concluding that that this research was carried out by some left wing think-tank but you would be wrong it was commissioned by the DWP the same government organization that has been pumping more than £3billion worth of contracts into the hands of the following private companies.

• A4E (presently under investigation for falsely claiming funds for getting people into work, when they done nothing of the sort)
• ATOS (Dealing with people on ESA or disability benefits)
• G4S (formerly Group 4) infamously awarded the contract for promising to send a ‘field operative’ within 2 hours if claimants are non cooperative, and responsible for providing security in prisons.
• Ingeus: Owned by fat cat city financiers Deloitte. They have promised six month forced work placements as part of their Work Program regime,
• SERCO, who run prisons here and in the USA and have been caught out using unpaid staff to replace their own staff.
• And REED IN PARTNERSHIP, reported previously in Nerve. For riding rough shot over artists and musicians and forcing them into compulsory job clubs and low paid work. These companies when not delivering the work program themselves have a whole raft of smaller employment agencies. All are generally paid on outputs. In some cases to the tune of £4000 for every person they get ‘into work’ or off benefits or as much as £13000 for every sick or disabled person they get ‘into work’.

So you may wonder why when the DWP own findings discovered the work programs older brother workfare failed to get people into work was it still pushed through. Well maybe the work program is not really about gettign people into work but its hugely succssful in gettign people off benefits.

I spoke to a number of people both on the work program and work program advisers about their own experiences.

Erica

Erica has a degree in Psychology, and has aspergars, although already doing voluntary work, she was put onto the work program. Erica loves kids and said she wanted support from A4E to become a classroom assistant, feeling her degree would come in useful in the classroom. Erica was told, ‘there was nothing going, and instead they put me in a charity shop putting labels on clothes’.

Rachel

Rachel had 3 A levels and worked for 5 years in the benefit agency, she resigned because of stress, and after a stint on the sick, she volunteered to come off and told the job centre ‘I would take any paid job, even cleaning or working in a café, just something that doesn’t take up much of my brain’. They put her on the work program, were she is forced to attend group and 1-2-1 sessions. Rachel says ‘the work program has really broke my confidence’. ‘I felt like it didn’t matter who I was or what I’d done or wanted to do or what qualifications I had, I wasn’t treated as a person’, when I spoke to her Rachel said, ‘They are now threatening to stop my benefits, unless I work for free in poundland’ Rachel said she was really depressed and was thinking of just stopping her claim and disappearing.

Jane

Jane had a masters degree, she had been applying for jobs but was still sent to A4E ‘I told my adviser, what I wanted to do, I had been applying for jobs, and didn’t need help’, but they still forced her to attend A4E offices ‘they put me in a room with loads of other people and we weren’t treated as individuals, with our own skills, our own histories, they didn’t seem interested. I had never felt so humiliated. I had more qualifications and skills than my PA (personal adviser) I felt sorry for the other people there, no one wanted to be there, it was humiliating I went home that first night and cried, I felt they treated me like I was no-one’.

Mary and Jenny

Mary and Jenny (not their real names) have worked for a number of agencies as employment advisors, and presently work for Indgeous but had previously worked for A4E, both said ‘there was a real distinction between the two. I told them what people on the work program had said to me and Jenny said ‘It is true A4E don’t care about people, maybe individuals there do, but the culture of the organization, means they don’t treat people as individuals, but as targets, but I believe Ingeus do care and do treat people as individuals’. Mary agreed.

Carol

Carol received a ‘threatening letter’ telling her if she didn’t attend an interview her benefits would be stopped. She said her advisor was a nice person but ‘they did nothing to improve my chances of getting work. They looked at my CV and told me it didn't need any improvement. They refused to pay the postage for me to send out my CV 'on spec' and also refused to give me the fares out of their discretionary fund to go to job fairs. It took them 12 weeks to set up a practice interview session for me, so I could improve my interview technique. Before then I had got a job through my own efforts, after 14 months unemployed. But they will still expect to get paid public money for 'finding' me a job."

Dan

Dan is a business adviser, who works independently and has delivered business advice to clients on the work program. ‘I had three people sent to me over the past 2 months, who had recently had heart attacks and were now being pressurized to come off benefits, two were going back on the cabs, which they believed were the causes of their heart attacks (i.e working over 80 hours a week, just to make enough money to pay the bills). Another guy was going back to carpet fitting, despite him having serious problems with his knees, which forced him out of work in the first place. These work program agencies are sending people to us, believing we will play the game. The vast majority of people sent don’t have viable business ideas, nor the skills or finance to get a business going, in fact they would fall flat on their face straight away if they set up a business. But the agencies don’t care about this, we are getting pressure to get these people off benefits and set them up in business. When in reality they need some genuine support, rather than getting them all stressed up. Luckily we have support from our organisation and we refuse to play the game.

Another PA for Ingeus who preferred to remain anonymous said ‘Its like we are all playing this fantasy game, the government, agencies, staff and clients. We are pretending there are jobs, clients are pretending they are looking for jobs, but there are hardly any jobs, in fact we have the weekly pressures of trying to reach targets, or we wont have jobs either, if I didn’t have a mortgage and car to pay off I’d jack it in’. Many people, we spoke to attending the work program believe fundamentally they are being punished firstly for the failures of the economy and secondly because they are on benefits.

Maybe other people have more positive experiences, but during my time researching this article I didn’t find any.

It is clear the work program is not working in fact its critics say it is falling apart at a drastic rate, with some of the biggest companies supporting it being forced to pull out due to public pressure. As the DWP own funded research shows, the work program is not a genuine strategy to improve the chances of the millions of unemployed.

What unemployed people need is genuine work opportunities. Not a rehash of all the failed slave labour scenes of the 80s and 90s. were so called training agencies make fortunes out of people trying to get their foot on the ladder.

There are millions of jobs that could be created in one of the richest countries in the work. To caring for the elderly to keeping the streets clean, to improving the health service.

What people struggling to get by on benefits need, is genuine support that looks at their skills, respects them as individuals offers them genuine training or jobs, not this mass funded to bit scam, to that punishes people for the economic crises, whilst offer free labour to huge private corporations.

The 2008 report was produced under a Labour government, and although it has it flaws it did talk about offering tailored made support for people wanting to get into work and for ‘softer’ and more flexible models that offer greater support to those with the most barriers to work. At this present time this would include a greater reliance on subsidized jobs that pay wages rather than benefits to participants. Not the scam that is going on now.

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Sorry Comments Closed

Comment left by T Childs on 5th September, 2012 at 15:49
This is the price we pay when people stop caring about other people, and everything is down to the profit motive. It's all fine and dandy for people to want others to work, but some of us don't have good jobs and money behind us, like most politicians do. There is a simple solution to all of our problems; cut the wages of the people at the top by at least 30 - 40% and with the money saved use to create jobs for people at the lower end and bump up their wages; problem solved!

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