Community Action Programme (Workfare).

Government Guidelines for Providers (Extracts and Comments).

From here.

“This scheme  is for “very long-term JSA claimants who  may reach the end of the Work Programme from 2013.”

Note: There are 750,000 long-term unemployed. This figure is not expected to go down by 2013.

The government’s approach, already in place, and adopted by Work Programme providers,  is summed up in the Guardian today,

“The subtext is that external economic factors can never be the cause of someone’s unemployment: the problem must somehow lie with the individual.”

Those long-term unemployed who have gone through thee Work Programme will now have to face up to this further effort to make them solve ‘their’ problems.

“10.  Participation is mandatory and a claimant’s benefits may be stopped if they fail to start or complete the programme. “   

Those who will have to participate  include,

3.  The majority of these claimants will have been unemployed for a substantial amount of time, and having received support through both Jobcentre Plus and contracted provision, should display similar characteristics to those we expect of claimants still out of work at the of the WP.
 
4.  The claimant group set out above will include a range of claimants with circumstances that need be taken into account in designing CAP  support. These will include:
•  claimants with caring responsibilities, including lone parents
•  disabled claimants or those with health conditions
•  claimants who are over 50 years old
•  claimants serving a community sentence which could involve
Community Payback
•  socially excluded claimants, including ex-offenders, offenders,homeless claimants, and claimants with a drug or alcoholdependency problem.

What is the nature of the work?

9.  CAP work experience placements must deliver a contribution to the local community and must not displace what would otherwise be paid jobs.
 

 Those who are succesful to run the scheme will have to deliver,

“provider-led jobsearch support for a minimum of 30 hours each week where a participant is not in a work experience placement •  delivering up to 10 hours of compulsory provider-led jobsearch ( Note: more pointless sitting in front of Computers)  each week for each participant
•  raising compliance doubts with JCP Decision Makers, and notifying us when participants subsequently re-engage
•  reporting specified participant changes of circumstance to JCP
•  producing an exit report, when a participant completes CAP, within ten working days of a participant leaving CAP
 
Duration of the CAP
 
12.  Each work experience placement will last for up to 26 weeks, however a single work experience placement of 26 weeks may not be possible in every case.  If necessary, CAP can be made up of several shorter work experience placements, but you will need to ensure the participant completes a minimum of 21 weeks on a work experience placement or combination of work experience placements and employment (off benefits) to achieve a 100%  completion fee.  

Defining principles.
 
A2.2   The community benefit of a CAP placement should:
 
•  be of benefit to the community and the individual 
•  directly create, or significantly contribute to the creation of, tangible  and lasting benefit to the community, or particular groups or individuals within the community;
•  be clearly demonstrated in the placement activity, and not be an    “add on”; and •  where the placement does not directly benefit the community, there must be clear demonstrable evidence that the placement provider business objectives are to deliver community benefits.

What ‘community’ is, and what ‘benefits’ are is open to question. 

Who will decide what is, or is not, of ‘benefit’ to a ‘community’? 
 

Who Will Deliver Workfare?

A2.4  Examples of organisation types that deliver direct/indirect benefit to thecommunity for the purposes of this section include; 
 
•  Local Authorities and Councils 
•  Government Departments and Agencies
•  Charities and third sector organisations
• Social Enterprises
• Environmental Agencies

Unsuitable activities: or, there are limits you know.

A2.8  Participants must not be expected to engage in activities which could   put them at risk, or are against their personal beliefs. It would be difficult to produce an exhaustive list of unsuitable activities.

 
Please note this list is not exhaustive. 
 
•  where there are doubts as to compliance with the relevant Health   and Safety legislation 
•  where it may involve the claimant breaking the law e.g. street    sales without a licence from the local authority where one is required
•  involvement in religion or party politics. 
 You should take account of a claimant’s personal belief. All participants on CAP should be treated fairly regardless of their religion or beliefs. They should not be asked to undertake any activity which goes against their beliefs, for instance, working within certain types of industry (e.g. particular sectors of the food industry). You should also make allowances wherever possible to accommodate religious holidays and practices.  

My political and ethical belief is that workfare is wrong.

So?

Exploitation.

Ensuring participants are not exploited by placement providers
 
A2.10  You are responsible for ensuring that participants are not exploited. 
 
A2.11  Some placement providers may be tempted to get involved in the delivery of provision as a way of getting cheap labour or getting someone in to help during a busy period. This is not acceptable. Placements must be additional to existing or expected vacancies and should not replace what would otherwise be paid jobs.

Comment.

The last area is the trickiest one.

Clearly working with Councils and Charities will replace what could be paid jobs.

These organisations, and businesses, are already suspected of being deft hands at ‘re-defining’ jobs so that a placement on the Work programme (work experience) is not considered a ‘replacement’ for paid employment.

We can expect that they will find ways of making it appear that Community Action Programme people will take positions that could get a salary. But they will now, thanks to generous government payments, get somebody to do this for nothing.

Cuts in local government, from libraries, spending on the environment, to social services,  mean plenty of things are no going to get done.

The Community Action Programme will fill the gaps, without ‘replacing’ anybody – nobody is going to be doing the work at the moment.

In any case working for way below the minimum wage  is by definition exploitation.

Cait Reilly: Singled Out For Attack by Ian Duncan Smith.

In the Sunday Times today (22.1.12) Ian Duncan Smith Work and Pensions Secretary says of Cait Reilly,

“What a snooty-so-and-so. She seemed to say she shouldn’t stack shelves because she’s intelligent . The way she sneered -as if she was too good for it,” he says,. “She’s wasting our time and money going to court. It’s ridiculous. What about the human rights of the taxpayer. It’s a human right for the taxpayer to know you’re doing something productive instead of wafting around looking for the job you want while someone else pays for it.”

We can be sure Cait Reilly will receive a fair hearing with that kind of comment from a Minister flying around.

Not to mention his novel definition of human rights.

Wikipedia says “His wealth is estimated at £1 million much of which has been earned by working as a high end after dinner speaker”.

Ian Duncan Smith has never done an honest day’s work in his life.

Support this Campaign (see Box Bottom Right for link).

The Cait Reilly case has brought workfare (unpaid work for benefits)  to people’s attention.

Some seem to think this is a new policy.

Red Pepper reports,

Karina was mandated to work in Primark under New Labour’s Flexible New Deal. She had been sent to a private ‘welfare to work’ provider whose regime included putting claimants to work without pay in businesses, charity shops and public sector workplaces. Although regulations meant that she could only be obliged to work for up to 12 weeks without pay, she worked for 24 weeks, fearing she would have her benefits stopped if she did not agree. She had signed up to and paid for a college course that would help her find work but she had to give it up to do the placement: ‘They told me they would stop my JSA, so I stopped my English course.’

This sytem  began with the New Deal in 1998.

This is what the programme offered, (Wikipedia),

The NDYP begins with an initial consultation session, referred to as Gateway, that focuses on improving job search and interview skills. This training is provided by an external organisation such as a4e, CSV or YMCATraining. If the search for employment is still unsuccessful after the Gateway sessions, to continue to receive unemployment benefits, one of four options must be chosen:

• A subsidised job placement. The subsidy is £60 per week, and lasts 6 months; a £750 training allowance is also available to participants. Clients are paid a wage from the employer.

• Full-time education and training, for up to 12 months.

• Work in the voluntary sector, the client is paid JSA plus a £15 training allowance. This is called Community Task Force.

• Work with the Environmental Task Force.(DWP website; Peck, “Workfare” 304; Glyn 53)

Participation in one of the four options is mandatory to receive benefits, refusal to participate will lead to the benefit being stopped and will be referred to a Decision Maker who will decide whether a recipient should receive a sanction should they decide to reclaim.”

Gateway normally meant some CV writing (highly useful) job application and interview techniques (also useful).

It could also included less useful ‘courses’ including those based on the kind of self-help manuals that made Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus school of thought.

Despite appearing to offer a number of ‘options’ most people were put, without any choice, on the 3rd (I know nobody who did the first, which meant they got paid). Placements were rapidly extended beyond the ‘voluntary sector’ and the ‘Community Task Force’. They included working in local government, and private companies.

Why did people participate?

‘Work experience’ might be useful (for your CV for example). There was always the possibility of paid work. But more important perhaps was that getting an extra £15 and doing something was preferable to sitting in a room being hectored and told, 5 days a week, to do “job search”.

These Placements lasted from 13 weeks to 26 weeks.

I know personally cases of people of working in Ipswich warehouse-mega-stores shelving and carrying stuff around. One told me that his boss bought him a couple of drinks at Christmas – as well he might.

Charities and the ‘voluntary sector’ might seem a good idea. The Labour Government began farming out welfare services to them. The unemployed were used instead of paid employees – when they were not working alongside people sentenced to do Community Service.  Or, in Ipswich, working alongside prisoners on day release from Hollesley Bay.

Without the rights of salaried employees the unemployed were open to a wide range of abuses. Charites (often with highly paid executives) and the Third Sector are not always good employers.

I know of a number of significant cases where people felt ill-treated.

In nearly all cases when the Placement ended there was no job.

The attitude is thank you very much and now for the next placement-person.

The Flexible New Deal was introduced in October 2009.  James Purnell Work and Pensions Secretary was behind the change, though he had to resign that years when his expenses claims were found out.  

The Flexible New Deal reduced the time of Placements to 6 weeks. It got rid of the ‘sitting in front of a computer doing job search’ (though not the ‘courses’). It abolished the £15 bonus.

But the slide towards using the unemployed as free labour became more explicit.

They also used ‘volunteers’ from the Dole in place of genuine volunteers.

The Work Programme was introduced last summer. On this site Worky has explored its details.

Cait Reilly appears to have got into one of its programmes, a 2 week placement.

There is already the Mandatory Work Activity to punish people – which we have discussed here.

The plan now to make everyone who is unemployed for over 2 years participate in the Community Action Programme.

This is full-time unpaid workfare.

When it’s introduced it will be used to fill the gaps in public services - caused by the Liberal-Conservative Coalition cuts.

That is “picking up litter”  tidying up parks, and no doubt carrying all kinds of tasks not getting done because of government cuts.

It will be US style workfare.

There is conclusive evidence against workfare – here.

But, as reactions to Cait Reilly show, there are people in this country who simply want to order the out-of-work around, and make them sweat.

Something that Lord Freud, a former banker and wheeler-dealer, the man who advised the Labour Government on the Flexible New Deal and now, the Coalition on the Work Programme, has only ever done in a Sauna.

Cait Reilly [David Sillitoe/Guardian]

Cait Reilly was told she otherwise would lose her Jobseeker’s Allowance

A university graduate was told she had to stop volunteering at a local museum for four weeks and do unpaid work in a Poundland store in order to continue receiving Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Cait Reilly, who graduated from Birmingham University in 2010, was regularly volunteering part-time at the Pen Museum & Learning Centre in Birmingham because she hoped to pursue a career in museums.

But last autumn she was told by her local Jobcentre Plus that she had been placed on a “sector-based work academy”, a four-week programme made up of two weeks’ employability training and two weeks’ unpaid work at Poundland.

Reilly has this week launched proceedings to seek a judicial review of the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011, which include a power to compel JSA claimants to carry out work.

Her solicitor, Jim Duffy of Public Interest Lawyers, said Reilly had been volunteering at the museum since May. He said she was placed on the work academy programme by her local Jobcentre Plus and agreed to do it after being told about the scheme in “vague and inaccurate terms”.

Duffy said when Reilly found out more about the programme, she told staff at the Jobcentre Plus that she did not want to take part, but was told that it was mandatory. She did the Poundland placement in November.

Brian Jones, another volunteer at the Pen Museum, a registered charity, said Reilly was not able to give much notice that she would have to stop her work for a month. “She is a valued volunteer here, so to lose her in that period was very difficult for us,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “Working in retail is perfectly good experience for a career in a museum. There are very similar transferable skills involved.”

Here.

Comment.

The Daily Mail seems to think that working for your dole in Poundland is a good idea.

Someone calling herself Dominique Jackson writes, “We should be grateful that Poundland has signed up to the scheme to provide work placements, training and a guaranteed interview for kids trying to improve their employability.” (Here)

I suppose anyone under 25, who gets a reduced JSA, is a “kid”.

To be treated as such.

The idea that Poundland have found a nice little earner – getting workers for free – seems to have escaped her attention.

Or that it is indeed a human right to be able to choose your job.

As in, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Article 23

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice  of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (Here)

Naturally for those who want to see the unemployed forced to clean the streets (and why not with Toothbrushes – there was a Pilot Scheme in Vienna in the late 1930s) this right does not exist.

On the Background to Workfare and details of how Private Companies, Local Government, the Third Sector and Charities are going to exploit this Harpy Marx is highly recommended – here.

Under this picture of the Gallagher family “Ipswich Unemployment Action Spokesman” Andrew Coates is quoted in a Sunday Times article (8.1.12) titled, “End of the Something for Nothing Culture“.

With by the by-line Jon Ungoed-Thomas there is a page about the Work Programme, “Mandatory Work Activity” and the coming “Community Action Programme.”

What is the central problem about unemployment?

On a  brief venture to a Birmingham dole queue a reporter eventually  found someone saying what they wanted to hear, “why should I work for nothing when I can get money for nothing?”

That was not the only ‘investigation’ they undertook.

On Friday there was a brief trip to Ipswich.

Not the Sunday Times but a journalist for Anglia Press Agency visited the town. He also telephoned me and interviewed  me – by phone.

During our conversation I told him of Boycott Workfare and the case of Cait Reilly in Birmingham who was made to work unpaid in Poundland. These duly figure in the report.

The main plank of End of the Something for Nothing is the Work Programme.

Work Placements are there.

The investigators did not find time to trace the history of this – from the New Deal to the Flexible New Deal.

The Liberal-Conservative Coalition says its Work Programme is different.

They might have asked about the drift – which we predicted – from genuine ‘work experience’ to filling in jobs in places like Poundland.

As part of the Work Programme people who are  under suspicion (or in fact those who refuse to obey instructions from Work Programme Advisers) , can find themselves on Mandatory Work Activity. That is unpaid work for four weeks.

We learn of the chief Minster for Welfare  Ian Duncan Smith’s pre-election visit to a Job Centre. He heard of how tough measures had support.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling is cited saying that ‘work for welfare’ will be introduced. The article fails to mention the time, but it is said to apply for anyone unemployed for over two years.

“Claimants can expect to be involved in working in parks, helping in community centres, and picking up litter”.

I am cited as saying

“People sent out on the community action programme have said they are being made to feel like criminals – working alongside the people ordered to carry out community work by magistrates for breaking the law. It seems increasingly the government  wants to punish people who are not working.”

This is a fair summary – although I said programmes like the Community Action Programme.

I also described Placements and Courses I had been on and how doing this had failed to get me work.

A serious article would have investigated why this has happened, not just in one case, but in tens of thousands (and there is a Parliamentary Committee report last year which – ignored by Ian Duncan Smith and Grayling – did just this)

In an Editorial, The Year to Tackle Welfare Reform The Sunday Times, concentrates on Mandatory Work Activity. Its says the DWP ”appears” to have selected some of those it suspected of playing the system”. In reality people can only be sent on this because they fall in this category.

The Editorial  mentions “the problem of welfare and the claimant culture”.

It then says, “But the government must ensure that jobs exist”.

Its solution?

Get the economy moving, and “securing Britain’s borders”. There is, it notes, legal immigration and illegal immigration. In fact the sole concrete way the Sunday Times foresees creating a better job market is to crack down on illegal immigrants.

We have some questions for the Sunday Times.

No doubt it would give Grayling pleasure to see the assorted Gallaghers, Coateses and no doubt other ne’er-do-wells, picking up litter in the streets for the sum of just over sixty quid a week.

But to do so will cost more money than our Dole payment.

Assorted Gallaghars and Coateses will need some pretty tight supervision to make sure they keep the pavements spotless and the parks immaculate, not to mention the fact that Community Centres may not relish the prospect of our help.

Elsewhere in the paper Nicholas Hellen reports on Entrepreneurs make millions helping Jobless.

So we can get a  fair idea of who will organise this ‘Community Payback’ for the out-of-work.

But hold on.

Aren’t these tasks already carried out by paid employees?

The National Union of Litter Pickers, Rag Collectors, Community Workers, and Leaf Sweepers, may not like the idea of their members’ jobs being replaced by unpaid Benefit Claimants.

Those recently made redundant by public sector cuts may not enjoy the prospect of seeing their old employment transferred to the Community Action Programme.

Ian Duncan Smith attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He spent six years in the Scots Guards.  Chris Grayling attended the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe. He then went on to Cambridge University. He has worked for the BBC and has been a ‘Management Consultant’.

Admirable qualifications no doubt for understanding unemployment.