Flagship back-to-work scheme ‘is worse than doing nothing’

Figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions yesterday showed that 880,000 people had started the Work Programme since it was launched last year, but only 31,000 stayed in a job for six months.

In Yorkshire, the £450m scheme has helped just over 3,000 people into jobs which have lasted for six months or longer – out of almost 100,000 long-term unemployed who have taken part.

In some parts of the region the success rate was significantly lower even than the national average.

In Hull, which has some of the worst unemployment records in the country, less than 2.5 per cent of unemployed people found long-term jobs.

Labour said the programme had “failed” on its own terms, pointing to Government targets set last year that it would achieve a 5.5 per cent success rate by this stage.

As Ministers battled to defend the scheme, unions and campaign groups said it “beggared belief” that the coalition was trying to spin the figures as good news.

Nonetheless, Employment Minister Mark Hoban said the programme was showing “promising signs” against a tougher economic backdrop than had been expected when it was launched in June last year.

“The figures show that 40 per cent of the 31,000 (positive) outcomes published today came in June and July – the last two months for which data is available – clearly showing that performance is already improving,” he said.

The Work Programme was launched to great fanfare by the Coalition last year as it battles to get soaring long-term unemployment under control.

Private firms bid for contracts to help people find so-called sustainable jobs, providing tailored support with CVs and interview techniques to help them find work which does not simply disappear after a few weeks.

Mr Hoban said the performance of some of these firms has varied, and that improvement notices had been sent to a number of organisations involved in the programme, asking them to come up with plans to improve their performance.

But he said 56 per cent of people who joined the scheme have come off benefits, with one in five of the earliest participants spending at least six months off benefits.

And he insisted results will continue to improve as the programme has time to bed in.

But Labour leader Ed Miliband said the scheme was turning out to be a “miserable failure”, adding: “It is just not working. What we’ve seen from the Government is a failure to reform welfare.”

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne claimed the programme had proved to be worth than doing nothing at all.

“Today’s figures reveal the Work Programme is comprehensively failing,” he said. “We were promised a welfare revolution and what we’ve got has been exposed as worse than doing nothing.

“On the DWP’s own benchmarks, just 2.3 per cent have found a ‘job outcome’. That is under half the rate the DWP said could be achieved by doing nothing. Meanwhile long-term unemployment has soared by over 200,000.”

Mr Hoban insisted it was “ridiculous” to suggest the Work Programme wasn’t helping people into work.

But Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: “The Government may try to spin this as good news, but George Osborne’s disastrous handling of the economy, combined with the failing Work Programme is seeing long-term unemployment rising to levels not seen since the 1990s.”