Saturday 3 October 2009

Good news from the Tories

The Conservatives' plans for a "Work Programme" will hearten all welfare-to-work contractors. "Tories would force jobless to work" reports an article in the Times, describing a plan to "tackle the dependency culture". "The welfare plan is the brainchild of Lord Freud, the former Labour adviser who defected to the Tories earlier this year. It would abolish the Labour government’s New Deal programme designed to get the long-term unemployed into work. It would also effectively mean the end of Jobcentre Plus, where bureaucrats design training programmes for the unemployed." Presumably Lord Freud thinks private companies can design better programmes than "bureaucrats" - and I did speculate recently that JCP would be next for privatisation. As the article says, this plan is based on the American model.
People like Lord Freud are evangelical about the role of private profit in getting the jobless into work. Good news for A4e and all the other contractors.

7 comments:

  1. if you read about it, its almost exactly the same as they one they do now. just sooner..

    it wont work, allthis will do is to give more money into private companies hands, who then make people sit in a room, doing the same as last time and time before.. I have to ask myself,how many of these politicians will end up working for a4e..and their ilk

    ReplyDelete
  2. If they follow the American model, it won't be the same as now. It's payment by results, and only by results. There's a good piece on Indymedia at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/10/439162.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. The incoming Conservative government will have their work cut out sorting out the mess left by that shower of a New Labour government.
    Don't worry, A4e and others of their ilk will still get contracts but the gold rush days are well and truly over in a period of austerity

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is a quote from the TimesOnline article "According to the Tories there are at least 2m claimants who have never worked and 3m who have never worked during the 12 years of Labour government".

    Does anyoine know where they get their numbers from?

    ReplyDelete
  5. well they fudge the figures, those sent on "re-training" courses like a4e, are not classed as unemployed they are "training". they dont class this group. or that group., those not on the job centre books, who dont claim, and so on..

    from the office of national statistics jerry.. but you have to read through the text..

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nearly 10m working-age people in Britain are not in paid employment. This includes the 1.8m unemployed, plus another 7.9m who are deemed to be 'economically inactive'

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7753037.stm

    this was from 3 December 2008

    People who do at least one hours' paid work per week, those on government-supported training schemes and people who do unpaid work for their family's business are all counted as employed.

    did you see that, "those on government-supported training schemes " like a4e, and the ilk..

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks Mercurior for taking the trouble of answering my question.

    ReplyDelete

Keep it clean, please. No abusive comments will be approved, so don't indulge in insults. If you wish to contact me, post a comment beginning with "not for publication".