As unemployment levels rise, so education and training move into the policy spotlight. For the government, this is a very uncomfortable place to be right now. A number of large companies have withdrawn from the flagship Work Programme – under which jobseekers are invited to take up unpaid work placements of between two and eight weeks – amid clamours of ‘slave labour’, along with Marie Curie Cancer Care and Shelter. Worse, Thames Valley Police have arrested four staff from the Work Programme contractors A4e on charges of fraud, and the National Audit Office has
Does work experience actually work? suggested that the scheme was introduced too hastily, with targets that are probably ‘over-optimistic’. Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a new scheme to encourage employers to take on disengaged 16- and 17-year-olds. This is all, frankly, a bit of a mess. Iain Duncan Smith, defending his government’s stance, has dismissed his critics for showing ‘an unjustified sense of superiority and sporting an intellectual sneer’. They are, he says, simply wrong to describe the Work Programme as ‘workfare’, which he summarises as ‘an American term’ for programmes that force jobseekers to take work as a condition of their benefit claim. By contrast, Duncan Smith emphasises that the Work Programme – under which unemployed people continue to receive Job Seekers’ Allowance (JSA) plus expenses – is voluntary. Better by far, he argues, that the unemployed should find the ‘sense of purpose’ and opening of opportunities that come from work than that they should sit at home, fantasising about appearing on X-Factor. Above all, he claims, the Work Programme works. ‘The fact is’, he wrote in the Daily Mail, ‘that thirteen weeks after starting their placements, around 50 per cent of those taking part have either taken up permanent posts or have stopped claiming benefits’. Nick Clegg supported his expanded Youth Contract with similar arguments, pointing out that unemployment in early life can leave a permanent scar on people’s earnings later in life.
The storms of protest that greeted these schemes have had a number of consequences. In the short term, they have caused a number of organisations to worry about their image, and question their involvement. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on whether you think the schemes themselves do more harm than good. In the medium
The government’s work experience scheme for jobless people has been widely criticised, but does work experience actually work – and what more can be done to meet the needs of older unemployed people, asks JOHN FIELD term, they have provoked a debate about the nature and purpose of programmes designed to help the unemployed. I strongly welcome this debate, particularly if we appeal more to evidence and logic, and less to the language of hyperbole, dismissal and abuse that we can hear both from Mr Duncan Smith and from many of his critics. So instead of howling about ‘sneering intellectuals’ or ‘slave labour’, let us ask the question: does work experience actually work? First, let’s broaden this out a bit. Many
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