to think that this is economically stupid. Tories to announce full and permanent WORKFARE.

[Darkesteyes]

next week according to the Mail.
So how is anybody going to afford to buy anything while working for benefits then.
Even less incentive for companies to take people in proper employment if the workfare workforce is going to increase.

twitter.com/SkyNews/status/383342225926524928/photo/1

But Mad, that is a whole heap different to working 30 hours a week for the same amount.

And can people stop equating reading with children as not skilled please - with all the phonics training, plus the many hours spent achieving classroom assistant qualifications, I'd say there is a damn sight more to it.

Would you like your children taught to read by someone with no qualifications and no idea about phonic strategies? I doubt it.

Traipsing on a cold wet day.

I wasted 42 minutes of my day on the phone to a dwp staff member today,

He was checking up on people he told to apply to the job I had advertised he told 50 people to apply they did.

Not one person had the required qualifications or experience. He knew he was making them do a pointless exercise

I read with children - I am untrained, I am a "volunteer parent helper" - it helps the teacher if parents can come in to listen to the kids read a couple of afternoons a week - and also to read aloud to groups so they get the idea of rhythms etc..

I don't have to be a TA to help with that - but it is unpaid....

Yes, that is all well and good and I did a few hours a week myself while I was training but it is no way the same as doing a 30 hour week.

Should my job be scrapped because you seem to think any person on workfare could do as well with no training?

ermm - I don't think you will find I am saying anyone could do a TAs job

but there are MANY untrained volunteers helping with reading in schools

MadeOfStarDust

But people do community service because they have broken the law. It's not illegal to be disabled or unemployed.

Apprentices are learning genuinely useful skills, and also studying for qualifications. Once again, not comparable with doing unskilled working for far less than minimum wage. If there was a similar scheme for people on benefits I'd be all for it!

And volunteering for 12 hours week in a role is not the same as working full time for Tescos (or similar). I volunteer, (thanks to someone on MN who told me that my skills might be useful. Expat?) what I do is useful and I do it on top of working. I would not do the same for a large business for practically no gain either financially or in terms of career advancement.

Made, workfare is 30 hours a week. Not a few hours spent meandering about in school, reading to a few groups.

Sorry, I was referring to the posts about listening to children read, and with the greatest of respect YouTheCat, whilst I don't agree that someone with no training could work in a school teaching children to read, would the govt agree?

It is up to the govt what they consider a suitable workfare placement, not the general public. Would they consider yours or anyone elses job fair game for workfare participants? No one knows until workfare participants begin queuing up to do these jobs.

Soul2000 Whether workfare participants could cope with traipsing round cold calling or not is neither here nor there tbh. If the govt decide workfare includes cold calling, traipsing round in all weathers is what the participants will do, because if they don't stick at it, they will probably lose every single penny they are getting and wont even be able to afford a daily ration of gruel.

As for your comment 'Answering telephones correctly is also a skill that will be far beyond many of these people.', who do you think these people actually are? Most unemployed people are perfectly capable of answering a telephone and being polite and courteous to the caller. What on earth makes you think this would be beyond many of them?

Actually, I'd be really awful at answering the phone or cold calling. I get horribly tongue-tied on the phone.

I can't really see 30 hour workfare places being offered in many schools tbh, as there are safe-guarding issues for a start and I don't think many heads would take workfare on.

Minimum wage is going up to £6.31 an hour next month.

"It is up to the govt what they consider a suitable workfare placement, not the general public. "

Err. No. We live in a democracy. We are allowed to disagree with government policy. That's why we have elections.

What next in the UK? I actually wonder if the Government will announce one day that everyone will work for the same wage, ie benefits, no matter what they do, how skilled or unskilled, qualified or not, and get housing benefit to rent a house commensurate with the size of their household.

Hmm. I think apprenticeships are another false comparison. I do actually think those wages are too low, just as, I also think under 25's should be able to claim HB.

But anyway, apprenticeships are supposed to be an alternative to university education (for which students now have to take out loans- sometimes loans that are too small to live on, because Student Finance looks at parental income alone). On an apprenticeship, you learn and are paid a small bit, instead of learning and paying. It is assumed, as with the housing benefit reforms, that you can live with your parents and that you don't have housing costs.

The govt doesn't appear to be listening to a large proportion of the general public AFAI can see at the moment.

TheBigJessie

Agree about under-25s and HB!

I was thinking of apprenticeships along the lines of going to university too. I do agree that the pay levels aren't great, but it probably is comparable to what a lot students are living on.

Obviously, if something similar existed for older people the income they received couldn't be as low because they'd have much higher costs. But I do think the idea of apprenticeships is sound. They worked incredibly well in the past, and we have two successive generations who missed out on them - many of whom are now amongst the low skilled in insecure work, and the long term unemployed - who would benefit enormously.

I don't understand why for lone parents, they didn't keep them on IS until the youngest is 8yo, but then make loads of training opportunities, courses, etc to up their job skills available to them from when the youngest is 5yo and in fulltime schooling. That gives them time to really get some decent training under their belt. And plenty of time to look on their own for work after even a year or two of training before they're put on JSA. And childcare not as much an issue as the child is in school.

As someone said upthread, it's cheaper to put them on IS (and most likely to offer the training as well) than all the JSA stuff. And

But in the real world a lot of "apprenticeships" consist of doing the work of say a waitress or chambermaid whilst "studying" for a "front of house certificate" or a "housekeepers certificate" - so effectively working as a waitress/chambermaid for under half the minimum wage and expected to be thankful for it because of the "training"....

I'm kind of neutral about apprenticeships for now, because I think it's a sound idea in theory, but I want to see whether the apprentices do actually go on to be employed by the original firm or another. (On the other hand, I feel a little wistful I missed out on them- but meh, the grass is always greener on the other side!

But in any case, the low wages for apprenticeships shouldn't be used to justify low wages when workers aren't getting qualifications out of it!

X-post

So made if apprenticeships are exploitative, two forms of exploitation will make a right?

MadeOfStarDust I can only speak from personal experience, but amongst my DS' friends who took an apprenticeship there is a plumber, an engineer and a soon to be electrician. My nephew has just started on an electrician's apprenticeship. To me, those sound like worthwhile jobs. Well paid too.

Made, you wouldn't be able to do a few hours at school and have that count towards a workfare placement though and you don't get to choose. I like apprenticeships in theory. They are for young people and you get training and experience which is a good thing.

Say you get placed at Poundland working 11 till 5 five days a week, how will that work out for someone with 2 or 3 kids in school? You'd be expected to find and pay for childcare (about £10/£15 per day per child at an after school club) out of your benefits if you didn't have some nice relative to help out.

HarryS... I agree - I just read the article the OP shows - the whole gist of the piece is... ..

"In a report published today, it says the Government should pilot workfare schemes for specific groups of jobseekers, including those who leave the Work Programme without finding a job after at least two years of support, either through lack of effort or experience.

It also suggests that the scheme should cover under-25s with little or no work experience and older jobseekers who have been out of work for at least six months"

Words such as "should" and "suggests" mean they are once again putting a toe in the water and will bring out a watered down piece of crap of a policy which will be totally ineffective anyhow...

Yes, I agree. It will be crap.

The current policy seems to be more about how many people they can sanction rather than how many they can help back into employment.

Maybe they should try creating some real jobs first?