Update - the government's statement

Here's the new government's statement on Welfare from the BBC website:

• The parties agree to end all existing welfare to work programmes and to create a single welfare to work programme to help all unemployed people get back into work.
• We agree that Jobseeker's Allowance claimants facing the most significant barriers to work should be referred to the aforementioned newly created welfare to work programme immediately, not after 12 months as is currently the case. We agree that Jobseeker's Allowance claimants aged under 25 should be referred to the programme after a maximum of six months.
• The parties agree to realign contracts with welfare to work service providers to reflect more closely the results they achieve in getting people back into work.
• We agree that the funding mechanism used by government to finance welfare to work programmes should be reformed to reflect the fact that initial investment delivers later savings in lower benefit expenditure.
• We agree that receipt of benefits for those able to work should be conditional on the willingness to work.

This is the Work Programme; the third of the points will be of most concern to the providers, making payment dependant on results, but it also, in the fourth point, links payment to the savings the government makes in benefit payments. This could get messy. The final point is not exactly new.

One good thing (and I'm sure that plenty of bad things will emerge from this) is that the experiments of the last government, at the expense of the unemployed, are tidied up. We can only await developments.