On paper, Linda Smith‘s job with an Aberdeen company was straight-forward – she was meant to be helping the long-term unemployed – many of them disabled – to find jobs and move off benefits. The reality, she said, was a … Continue reading
The government’s flagship scheme to get the jobless back to work has a worse success rate than if it left people to get off the dole on their own, new figures showed today. In its first year just 2.3 … Continue reading
Private firms awarded multimillion-pound contracts to run the Work Programme have advised that there should be many more cases where claimants have their benefits stripped as punishment for failing to seek work. As part of its crackdown on welfare … Continue reading
Work Programme in crisis as private firms struggle to profit from squeezed welfare system It was David Freud, former journalist, investment banker, welfare adviser to Labour and now Tory minister, who wrote the 2007 report that made last week’s furore … Continue reading