The battleground

Issues of welfare and low pay are set to become the battleground in the 2015 election.  Opening shots have been fired this week, and, as always, factual reports quickly get countered by ideological nonsense.

The stories about zero hours contracts started a little while ago.  The numbers of people estimated to be trapped on these contracts rapidly rose, while noises from government about what they were prepared to do about it petered out.  Then came a report that a relatively sensible Tory strategist has said that his party won't make any headway in poorer areas of the country unless it is prepared to raise the minimum wage and work towards the living wage.  A detailed story in the Independent shows how nervous the Tories are about this.  Naturally their paymasters don't want to pay higher wages; they would much prefer to be subsidised by the taxpayer (which is all of us).  While Labour and the Lib Dems have more or less committed to this, the Conservatives remain ideologically bound to the concept of an untrammelled free market in wages.  Today the BBC news website published some interesting figures from the Resolution Foundation, showing that 20% of all workers earn less than the living wage.

But any attempt to have a sensible discussion on such issues is derailed by far-right pressure groups like the odious Taxpayers' Alliance, which often puts out press releases like a brattish child demanding attention.  As the BBC site headlined it, "Force claimants to work for benefits, government urged".  It displays the TPA's usual ignorance of the current system, but it got the publicity they wanted, not least from the Express.  In a typically hate-filled and untruthful report, the paper repeats the TPA's made-up figures of a saving of £3.5bn a year.  It accompanies this with a photograph, apparently authentically taken outside a jobcentre of the most unprepossessing youths they could find.  The Express also has a piece, complete with maps, to show where the highest numbers of households without work are.  Again, with criminal disregard for truth, all of these households (which include disabled people and their carers, for example) are labelled "work-shy".  And the areas where most people are out of work are called unproductive, as if they could be thrown away.

So, while we need a genuine debate on welfare and wages, we need to base it on truth.  And that will probably be impossible.

Finally, I couldn't resist this from an American website.  Iain Duncan Smith is giving a lecture later this month to a right-wing organisation on "21st Century Welfare Reform".  "He explains how transforming the country's welfare system goes hand in hand with transforming people's life chances - continuing a historic mission that Conservatives from William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftesbury and Abraham Lincoln have always had to help people improve the quality of their lives."  What?????  I don't know much about Lincoln but I know a great deal about Wilberforce and Shafesbury.  IDS, you are no Wilberforce and you are no Shaftesbury.

Intensive and uncompromising

You're coming to the end of your two years on the Work Programme.  What now?  After all that "tailored support" (don't laugh) you still can't get a job.  Perhaps now they'll get off your back for a while.  But no.  According to a government press release, "Work Programme leavers will be targeted by a hit squad of specialist advisers as part of a tough approach to get them into a job."
You see, it's your fault.  You've had all that help but you remain stubbornly unemployed, so clearly what you need is an "intensive and uncompromising regime ....... with rigorous monitoring to ensure they are doing everything they can to find work".  This will be delivered by the Jobcentres.  People will be put onto training schemes, Mandatory Work Activity placements or "intensive work preparation" as soon as they come off the WP.  An extra £30m is going on this, for extra training and specialist help such as counselling for drug or alcohol dependency.  Another requirement: "Every Work Programme returner will also be required to register with Universal Jobmatch to aid work search and job matching and to allow their adviser to check their work search activity online."  There has, apparently, been a pilot scheme (where?) which proved, said officials, that "claimants targeted by an intensive approach were much less likely to stay on benefit."  (Telegraph)  No figures, you notice, but we would have no reason to believe them if there were.
This is a tacit acknowledgement that the WP is a waste of money.  Two years in which all this stuff was supposed to be happening and obviously wasn't - so throw a bit more money at it, cutting out the WP providers.  But the attitude is ingrained in this government that people are out of work by choice, and if you just keep cranking up the pressure they'll get a job.  Or, at least, they will disappear from the lists of benefits claimants.  
Labour has said that WP leavers would be forced to accept a paid job, but we wait for them to fill in the details.  It surely has to be better than this government's clueless plan.

One bit of good news: the BBC reports that in 2012-2013, 708 employers have been fined for paying less than minimum wage, and affected workers have got an average of £300 in back pay.  One of the guilty employers is described as a "national retailer", but is not named.  Why not?

Update:  Today, Saturday, the odious Express tells the story in its own disgusting way.  "Hit squads to force workshy back into jobs" is the headline.  It goes on: "At the heart of the Government’s reforms is frustration at a generation of lifelong layabouts, immortalised by fictional Frank Gallagher from TVs Shameless", and there's a photo to illustrate these workshy people.  As we've said before, it suits the government to have its actions portrayed in this lying way, and no recourse for the long-term unemployed who are being traduced.

Minimum service, minimum wage and a Labour proposal

Some of you will be familiar with this, but the minimum service delivery promises by the various Work Programme providers have been published on the government's whizzy new website.  I'm particularly interested in A4e's promises, of course.  I'm intrigued to see that they include "A fully personalised service: including (minimum) monthly 1:1 contact with a named advisor and a tailored journey that address their broader needs."  Maximus, Working Links, Prospects, NCG, Serco, Best and G4S say they will see people fortnightly, CDG  monthly.  The others don't specify.  It's amazing that the DWP thought a brief interview once a month was enough, and how that squares with the idea of "a tailored journey".

Labour, as we know, has been struggling to come up with coherent alternatives to the Tory measures, but there is a plan published in the Observer.  It would restore the link between contributions and benefits by paying newly out of work people up to 70% of their previous salaries for up to 6 months (with a cap of £200 a week).  The downside is that the extra would be repayable when the person returned to work.  I'm not sure how that would work if you got a minimum wage job and needed tax credits.  What do you think?

And talking of the minimum wage, there are estimates that anything between 100,000 and half a million workers are receiving less than minimum wage, according to the Independent.  They list a whole raft of scams by which this is done, including deducting money for clothing or benefits in kind; not paying for travel time between sites (something which is common for care workers); and paying piece rates rather than an hourly rate.  The article asks why so few prosecutions have occurred for this - just 8 in the 13 years of the MW's existence - and says that Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, is now taking the issue seriously.  Let's hope so.  But what happens when someone who is unemployed takes one of these jobs before discovering the truth, that it doesn't meet MW?  Can they leave it without being punished?