The nasty party continues to push the one area of society that has no means to push back, the poor.
Tories toughen their image with hard line on benefits | The Times
Tories toughen their image with hard line on benefits | The Times
The long-term unemployed will be required to do community service in return for benefits under a workfare scheme to be introduced next April.
About 200,000 claimants still not in work after more than two years on benefits will be placed in the new Help to Work scheme each year, George Osborne will announce today.
A third of these people will be made to do 30 hours of community service a week and have their payments docked if they fail to turn up for work. Examples will include making meals for older people, cleaning up litter and graffiti and working for local charities, the Chancellor will say.
Those placed on six-month Community Work Placements will also be required to spend 10 hours a week looking for work. If they are judged to have failed to turn up for their community service without a good reason or not to have tried hard enough to get a job they will lose four weeks’ benefits. A second offence will see their benefits withheld for three months.
Those with drug habits, mental health problems or other issues will be placed in a new Mandatory Intensive Regime. The MIR is expected to deal with about 66,000 of the long-term unemployed who will be required to attend regular sessions with Jobcentre staff to deal with their “underlying problems” The remaining claimants will be made to attend jobcentres each day, say government aides.
The new workfare scheme has been set up to cope with those coming off the Work Programme — the two-year scheme introduced in 2012 for those claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than three months. Figures released last week by the Department for Work and Pensions found that only 14 per cent of claimants sent on the Work Programme were in sustained jobs. Since June 2011, when it was first piloted, only 168,000 of the 1.3 million long-term unemployed on the scheme have found jobs.
Labour cites stubborn rates of long-term unemployment against government claims to have tackled joblessness. Ed Miliband will, however, be wary of attacking the workfare programme since he, too, is planning to make benefits more conditional.
The Help to Work scheme will be introduced in the Autumn Statement, with Mr Osborne announcing then how the annual £300 million cost will be met.
The coalition has yet to reveal how it intends to pay for the £650 million-a-year plan to provide free school meals for the youngest school pupils or the similar amount it will cost to provide a new marriage tax allowance from 2015.
Mr Osborne will contrast the Help to Work scheme as the latest innovation in the Government’s welfare reform programme, saying that previous Labour administrations abandoned the long-term unemployed. “No one will be ignored or left without help but no one will get something for nothing,” he will say. “Because a fair welfare system is fair to those who need it and fair to those who pay for it too.”
The Government’s welfare reforms are consistently identified as among their most popular polices.
A YouGov poll commissioned by the right-leaning Policy Exchange think-tank suggested that the public support the introduction for the long-term unemployed by a margin of five to one. More than half of those asked wanted to make people work for their benefits. In contrast, only 17 per cent wanted a jobs guarantee scheme, ensuring a job paid at the minimum wage for the long-term unemployed. Labour has backed such a scheme.
The poll, conducted earlier this month among 1,930 people, also found that only a quarter thought that claimants with mental disabilities who are capable of working should be excluded from any new workfare system. Only 22 per cent thought that people with physical disabilities capable of working should be excluded.
The scheme is sure to test relations with the Lib Dems. Sarah Teather, the former Child Poverty Minister, has already said that she will not be contesting the next election for Nick Clegg’s party, partly in anger at its acceptance of a cap on benefits.
Labour issued a cautious response to Mr Osborne’s policy, suggesting that it was uncosted and less ambitious than its own scheme to guarantee work for every young person out of work for more than 12 months and each adult unemployed for more than two years.
“With Labour’s plans we would work with employers to ensure there are jobs for young people and the long-term unemployed — which they would have to take up or lose benefits,” said Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
“Under the Tory scheme people would still be allowed to languish on the dole for years on end without having a proper job.”
About 200,000 claimants still not in work after more than two years on benefits will be placed in the new Help to Work scheme each year, George Osborne will announce today.
A third of these people will be made to do 30 hours of community service a week and have their payments docked if they fail to turn up for work. Examples will include making meals for older people, cleaning up litter and graffiti and working for local charities, the Chancellor will say.
Those placed on six-month Community Work Placements will also be required to spend 10 hours a week looking for work. If they are judged to have failed to turn up for their community service without a good reason or not to have tried hard enough to get a job they will lose four weeks’ benefits. A second offence will see their benefits withheld for three months.
Those with drug habits, mental health problems or other issues will be placed in a new Mandatory Intensive Regime. The MIR is expected to deal with about 66,000 of the long-term unemployed who will be required to attend regular sessions with Jobcentre staff to deal with their “underlying problems” The remaining claimants will be made to attend jobcentres each day, say government aides.
The new workfare scheme has been set up to cope with those coming off the Work Programme — the two-year scheme introduced in 2012 for those claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than three months. Figures released last week by the Department for Work and Pensions found that only 14 per cent of claimants sent on the Work Programme were in sustained jobs. Since June 2011, when it was first piloted, only 168,000 of the 1.3 million long-term unemployed on the scheme have found jobs.
Labour cites stubborn rates of long-term unemployment against government claims to have tackled joblessness. Ed Miliband will, however, be wary of attacking the workfare programme since he, too, is planning to make benefits more conditional.
The Help to Work scheme will be introduced in the Autumn Statement, with Mr Osborne announcing then how the annual £300 million cost will be met.
The coalition has yet to reveal how it intends to pay for the £650 million-a-year plan to provide free school meals for the youngest school pupils or the similar amount it will cost to provide a new marriage tax allowance from 2015.
Mr Osborne will contrast the Help to Work scheme as the latest innovation in the Government’s welfare reform programme, saying that previous Labour administrations abandoned the long-term unemployed. “No one will be ignored or left without help but no one will get something for nothing,” he will say. “Because a fair welfare system is fair to those who need it and fair to those who pay for it too.”
The Government’s welfare reforms are consistently identified as among their most popular polices.
A YouGov poll commissioned by the right-leaning Policy Exchange think-tank suggested that the public support the introduction for the long-term unemployed by a margin of five to one. More than half of those asked wanted to make people work for their benefits. In contrast, only 17 per cent wanted a jobs guarantee scheme, ensuring a job paid at the minimum wage for the long-term unemployed. Labour has backed such a scheme.
The poll, conducted earlier this month among 1,930 people, also found that only a quarter thought that claimants with mental disabilities who are capable of working should be excluded from any new workfare system. Only 22 per cent thought that people with physical disabilities capable of working should be excluded.
The scheme is sure to test relations with the Lib Dems. Sarah Teather, the former Child Poverty Minister, has already said that she will not be contesting the next election for Nick Clegg’s party, partly in anger at its acceptance of a cap on benefits.
Labour issued a cautious response to Mr Osborne’s policy, suggesting that it was uncosted and less ambitious than its own scheme to guarantee work for every young person out of work for more than 12 months and each adult unemployed for more than two years.
“With Labour’s plans we would work with employers to ensure there are jobs for young people and the long-term unemployed — which they would have to take up or lose benefits,” said Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
“Under the Tory scheme people would still be allowed to languish on the dole for years on end without having a proper job.”
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