By Will Horwitz
New Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reform announcements today (and his simultaneous Guardian charm offensive) get a mixed reaction from colleagues around Community Links who, amongst other things, run the most successful New Deal project – supporting long-term unemployed back into work – in London and the South East.
On the one hand, we’ve been calling for wholesale reform of the benefits system for many years, so it’s good to see him demanding it too. His recognition of the problem of work incentives in the benefit system – whereby people can end up worse off and less secure on taking a low-paid job – is welcome.
The benefits system needs to be designed so people can take stepping stones into well paid and secure work, rather than leaving them high and dry as soon as a temporary and low-paid job appears. Equally, it must be ready to pick them up again quickly if the job ends, both to prevent the cycle of debt that often begins in that few weeks between the last pay cheque and the first benefit cheque, and to give people the reassurance that taking the job in the first place won’t jeopardise their situation further down the line. Whether he can get these large and expensive reforms through the Treasury remains to be seen.
However, his continuing adherence to the idea of sanctions for ‘those who won’t work’ is worrying. We know that even the long-term unemployed want to work, but some face many and complex barriers – lack of training or education, lack of support at the Jobcentre, health or family problems. For some, it takes several cycles through our six month programme before they’re in a position to accept a job. Cutting their benefits after the first cycle will plunge them further into poverty and further from the job market, costing more, and stigmatising where government should be supporting.
Finally, the Work Programme model – whereby charities like ours (and private contractors) take on more of a role in supporting people into work – has good aspects, not least the ‘black box approach’ that would let us design bespoke programmes for individual jobseekers. Yet the signs are that, by making the contracts so big that only large multinational companies can apply, they will lose the unique contribution a charity like ours can make to supporting the long-term unemployed. The system will need to be carefully designed, and properly funded, to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Overall, much of the rhetoric – punishments and stigmatisation aside – sounds promising, but the detail is still not there. At the launch this morning Duncan Smith said he wanted to work with charities like ours to hammer out the detail over the next few months. If this is a genuine offer then we are very willing to help him shape the system so that it best serves the needs of the two thousand jobseekers we see every year, the tens of thousands in Newham, and the millions nationwide.
Thanks Moussa, the rights for claimants point is an excellent one. Making Jobcentres properly accountable to claimants – in the same way government wants to make schools accountable to parents, and hospitals accountable to patients – would be a powerful reform to sit alongside changes to the design of the system. I wonder if personal budgets (like those in social care) might be a way to do this?
Also, as JRF point out in this excellent blog, IDS’ proposals take no account of the types of jobs available, and tackling this is going to be atleast as important as changing the system.
A very good analysis. If – and as you imply, it’s a big if – Iain Duncan Smith manages to get the proposals on work incentives past the Treasury, then I think this will go down as the most positive piece of welfare reform in a generation. But I, too, worry about the rhetoric on sanctions – and I think you sum up well the dangers that come from that. The fact workfare hasn’t been ruled out is discomfiting too, especially when there are ideas like the Community Allowance out there, and when the Future Jobs Fund is being cut back.
As you say, it’s a case of waiting for the detail. How exactly contracts for service providers are structured really is absolutely critical to how they affect people on benefits. And I’d like to see a strong set of rights for claimants to go alongside the guarantees that providers are sure to get in their contracts.
So… When they stop giving me money to job seek… How do the government exactly expect me to get back into work with no money? I mean i live with my parents, but theyre hard up and don’t have any expendable money. I pay for the internet, for travel to interviews and calls i make to employers.
If my funding gets cut, how will i apply to jobs online with no internet? How will i send or give people my CV with no money for printing at a library? How will i travel to interviews?
Torie bastards are going to ruin this country, ive been unemployed for almost 6 months, i’ve applied for over 100 jobs since ive been unemployed, ive had a interview for 2 and others chosen over me.
How is the job seekers agreement trapping me? I’m going to be trapped if i don’t have job seekers funds, my town isn’t particularly big and theres only so many companys i can ask for vacancys in a week till i can go around asking them again the next week.
And what will happen once i am kicked out of my parents house for being unemployed too long? I’ll have no house, no benefits to live.. I will either be forced into a life of crime or i’ll be joining the torch and pitchfork rally outside parliament.