How times have changed.
When "the dole" was introduced most recipients would have been happy to have provided some labour in return for the money they received as it would have helped maintain their dignity in as much as they would be earning the money not the recipients of "charity".
Previously society did provide for some of the unfortunate but expected them to be grateful and beholden.
Contraception was not widely available and abstinence was generally the only way to limit family size so restraint was expected and people were supposed to live within their means and not have children they personally couldn't support. They were considered foolish/happy-go-lucky (rather than a couple still very much in love) if they had a large family with insufficient income to support them although there was obviously sympathy for the wives/mothers who would not necessarily have chosen to have as many children as they ended up with.
Fast forward to today and we seem to think that we have a right to the unemployment benefit money without question and the right to as many children as we can fund by whatever means, more benefits and a bigger council property if we produce a large family. Anyone who is working poor but increases the financial stresses on their family beyond say a couple of children does need to do a bit of reserach and reflection on the matter instead of permanently bemoaning the level of the minimum wage and the fact that they can't afford a week in Spain or whatever. Its the blame culture though isn't it, some folk think that they are not the author of their own misfortune, its the government/society/their parents/whoever.
IMHO the situation has swung too far in favour of the recipients and is abused by some people, such that the truly ill and other deserving individuals have to live on very low incomes because the social fund is extremely stretched by there being so many people claiming benefits instead of working when there are jobs available but they are considered beneath us.
If the initiative is targeted at the young NEETs who have no family responsibilies preventing them from working or at one parent out of 2 in a non-working household (leaving the other to cover childcare) then I for one am cautiously in favour of an initial scheme to try and instil the work ethic into a swathe of the population who just don't have it because it has somehow been lost from their family over the generations.
If we can substantially reduce the number of people claiming unemployment when they could be working instead, we could potentially cut the taxation bill imposed on employers and substitute a roughly revenue neutral increase to the minimum wage without squeals of financial pain from employers.
Having read over my post it all sounds terribly right wing I know and I'm surprised how basic common sense can come across as right wing views but things ain't working well at the moment are they, perhaps it's time for a radical shake up in the unemployment benefit(JSA) world to put right some of this country's problems.
Think about it, if the hoodies hanging around the shopping centre had to report for duty at some form of work, Mon-Fri, 9-5, there would be a lot less time for them to get into trouble and hopefully crime rates would drop. Perhaps more people would get help with addiction problems if this was out in the open as preventing them from functioning as an employable individual. You couldn't be moonlighting cash in hand on a building site if you had to be somewhere else during the average working day. Less availability of black market labour could drive wages up in some work places.
Any labour provided to employers under such a scheme would need to be paid for a discounted rate but not massively so, only by enough to compensate for hassle and training but GB nationals could be given priority over others if the the government wanted to reduce moaning over immigration statistics.
Lots of possibilities but we really need to re-educate a strata of the UK population about taking pride in working and ensuring that it pays fairly in comparison to receiving benefits.