The Work Programme

[David Johnson]

Looks like Chris Grayling got shuffled out of his job as Minister for Work and Pensions just in time. The same thing happened to Justine Greening who got moved from Transport just before the shit hit the fan over the West Coast mainline franchise debacle.

I guess shuffling them out of bother before the smelly stuff hits the fan makes it easier to avoid sacking them.

In the case of Grayling, he introduced the Work Programme which is mandatory for over 25 year olds who have been out of work for longer than a year and for under 25 year olds who have been out of work for about 9 months or so.

Grayling introduced the scheme as the "greatest payment by results scheme ever introduced anywhere in the world". THe likes of A4E, one of the Labour government's favourite corporate failures, are used to work with the long term unemployed and get them into work. They get paid on results.

The government's modelling suggested that if they did absolutely nothing to try and help the long term unemployed, about 5% of the group would find work for longer than 6 months. So the target the government set for the likes of A4E was that they should aim to find jobs for more than 6 months for at least 5.5% of the long term unemployed population. Pretty easy target you would have thought.

The 2011-2012 figures are out and only 3.5% of the group have found work for more than 6 months. So the results are considerably worse than the government's modelling for doing nothing.

Way to go CHris! Must be time to blame it on Jonny Foreigner in euroland and the Labour party. It's all their fault. Isn't it?

[number 6]

They are also putting sick people onto this scheme if they have been on ESA for longer than 12 months. The claimant advisors havent got a clue what to do with them but are just acting on govt orders.

[Jonone]

Johnny Foreigner got the bank job.

[David Johnson]

Yes, but he is not from Euroland, that bunch of losers who have not been running their economy as brilliantly as Dave and Boy George which means that they have let UK PLC down. The new banker is Canadian, a good foreigner.

[Jonone]

Moya Green is another 'good' foreigner fronting up the Post Office. Makes you wonder why people got so upset about Erikson and Capello. It's definitely the way forward.

[spider]

Oh yes Moya Green. She puts up the price of a stamp by 40% and all of a sudden Royal Mail is back in profit. She is a business genius. She deserves every penny of the half million a year they are paying her.

[Arginald Valleywater]

The work programme would work better if some of the lazy layabouts could heave their fat arses out of the front door before noon. Some of these people think the day starts after scumbag number one aka Jeremy Kyle's show finishes. We've been trying, and I mean trying to take on some never worked people as admin and customer service trainees. 20 interviews, 9 turned up, none hired. Useless to a capital t....basic literacy dire, appearance dire, washed and shaved, optional, on time.....nee chance.

[milton]

If you have not been watching the "Why Poverty" series on BBC4 I suggest you watch this, programme 4 of 8, on iplayer now and spot the parallels.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Recorded it, will peruse it this evening.

[David Johnson]

As usual you miss the point.

The government's own estimate was that if they did nothing to help the long term unemployed to get back to work, 5% of them per year would find work for longer than 6 months anyway.

The Work Programme has spent an estimated ?450 million so far to design an employment scheme which has put only 3.5% of the long term unemployed scheme participants in sustained work.

It takes a real genius to design a ?450 million government work programme which is less effective than doing nothing.

That is the point!