20 July 2007
Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week outlined plans to force benefit claimants into work – axing some payments and requiring people to take potentially unsuitable jobs outside of their locality.
Publishing a radical welfare reform green paper on July 18, Brown and Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain presented a blueprint for a mobile, highly-skilled workforce to achieve the prime minister's long-term target of an 80% employment rate and improved productivity. Hain said the green paper would 're-ignite the jobs crusade' across Britain.
But with millions of Britons stuck on long-term benefits, often living in poverty, Hain also proposed a controversial set of conditions to be attached to future benefit claims – and the creation of a multi-billion pound welfare-to-work market.
Currently, lone parents are paid Income Support until their youngest child is 16. But Hain's green paper, In work, better off: next steps to full employment, suggests that single parents should be switched to Jobseeker's Allowance and asked to seek work once their youngest child is 12 from 2008 and seven from 2010.
Hain said that complemented plans to introduce 'wraparound' state childcare from 2010.
But children's and lone parent charities were incensed. Kate Green, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, questioned whether the government had sufficient funds available to finance wraparound childcare.
'Forcing lone parents to face benefit sanctions when their children are still at primary school is outrageous. Taking money away from families that are already poor will worsen poverty for many children,' Green added.
Further controversies feature in the provision of proposed employment programmes for the long-term unemployed.
Brown and Hain intend to widen-out job search requirements for benefit recipients after three months. Instead of allowing claimants to dictate their preferred occupation and locality, the expanded conditions will include larger travel-to-work areas, numerous potential occupations and wider wage ranges.
After claiming for six months, extra skills training will be offered. But after a year on benefits, Brown wants claimants to be referred to 'specialist return to work advisers' – from the state, private or voluntary sectors – with the ultimate power to force people to 'undertake a period of full-time work experience'
Kate Stanley, head of social policy at the IPPR think-tank, told Public Finance> that personalised jobseeker services were necessary. 'But every time the government imposes new conditions for jobseekers, then we could edge away from what's required to get many of the long-term unemployed into work. Personalised services must mean just that,' she said.
CBI director general Richard Lambert said: 'Allowing the status quo to continue is not an option. There are plenty of jobs suitable for lone parents and those on incapacity benefits, many of whom want to seize the opportunities out there.' Lambert added.
As part of the plan, 30 large employers, will provide job opportunities – such as interviews for posts - for 250,000 benefit recipients.
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