Will benefits changes get people back into work?
Friday, 28th May 2010
Radical reforms to the UK benefits system have been revealed by the new Coalition Government.
New Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the welfare system "trapped" poor people in poverty.
To combat this he will introduce a welfare-to-work programme, with benefits dependent on a willingness to work.
The former Conservative Party leader has spent several years in opposition preparing a blueprint for the future of the welfare state.
He will now see through the new Welfare Reform Bill - announced in this week's Queen's Speech.
Duncan Smith told welfare experts it was "absurd" some people faced huge penalties for moving from benefits to work.
And he pointed out that 1.4 million people had been on out-of-work benefits for at least nine years.
He said: "This picture is set against a backdrop of 13 years of continuously increasing expenditure, which has outstripped inflation.
"Worse than the growing expense though, is the fact that the money is not even making the impact we want it to.
"A system that was originally designed to support the poorest in society is now trapping them in the very condition it was supposed to alleviate."
Duncan Smith said it was a "tragedy" people on incapacity benefit for more than two years were more likely to retire or die than get a job.
"We must be here to help people improve their lives, not just park them on long-term benefits. Aspiration, it seems, is in danger of becoming the preserve of the wealthy."
He said a Work Programme would be established allowing older workers onto a welfare-to-work programme immediately rather than the current 12-month wait.
Benefit claimants who refuse to accept jobs will be penalised and everyone on incapacity benefit reassessed.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development hailed the plan as "visionary" but warned it would be tested by lack of jobs and poor quality work.
CIPD Chief Economic Adviser Dr John Philpott said: "The biggest challenge facing Mr Duncan Smith as he begins the task of delivering on his vision comes not from within the welfare system that he is in charge of but the nature of the wider economic, jobs and workplace conditions which determine the amount and quality of work on offer to the jobless.
"The UK is currently in the early stages of a jobs-light economic recovery; a recovery moreover that will be stymied by necessary deficit reduction measures which will also limit the cash available to the DWP as it attempts to tackle the multiple social disadvantage - which Mr Duncan Smith's department in figures published today reckons affects 5.3 million people - that underlies welfare dependency."
Written by Mike Jones Recruitment Today
