DWP Block Report To Cover Up Work Programme Shambles

[ttosca]

The DWP are refusing to release an evaluation of the floundering £6 billion pound Work Programme despite the report having recently featured on Channel 4 news.

The evaluation is believed to be critical of the Work Programme and in particular benefit sanctions, warning that they found: “no conclusive evidence that sanctions were changing job search behaviour or increasing job entry rates.”

A Freedom of Information request asking to see the report has today been refused by the DWP on the grounds that they plan to publish it at an unspecified later date (PDF). The evaluation was scheduled to be released in the Summer of last year.

This is not the first time the DWP have treated Freedom of Information (FOI) rules with contempt in a shoddy effort to conceal what’s really going on, and wrong, with the department. A ruling by the Information Commissioner;s Office (ICO) ordering the release of the names of charities benefiting from free labour under the Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) scheme has been completely ignored. A second ICO ruling (PDF) ordering the DWP to confirm whether a charity was involved in workfare was issued last month, and has so far been snubbed. The DWP were found in breach of the FOI again (PDF) at the end of last month when they were slammed in a ruling for not taking the reasonable steps required to clarify another request relating to Mandatory Work Activity.

The DWP have claimed that if the public were allowed to know who is using workfare then the scheme might collapse. They pretend this would stop people benefiting from the ‘disciplines’ that workfare offers and may even harm the economy. After all, if people knew that household names such as The Salvation Army, the YMCA, Groundwork and The Conservation Volunteers were all forcing people to work without pay then they might decide these charities were a bunch of wankers and never give them a penny again.

There is no such excuse for refusing to release an evaluation into the Work Programme however – a report produced with our money. The only person likely to look like a wanker if people see this document is Iain Duncan Smith himself who is still pretending how wonderful the Work Programme is. The Work Programme statistics already show the scheme is a disaster and steadily getting worse. No doubt the DWP hope they can hide just how much of a wanker Iain Duncan Smith actually is until after the next election. But it’s too late. Everybody knows.

johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/dwp-block-report-to-cover-up-work-programme/

ttosca…..whatever they and Osbourne's private sector initiatives to boost jobs are doing it seems to be ‘working’ e.g. under Labour the 16-24-years old unemployment was ever TRENDING higher, over 550,000 in 2004 during the 'boom', rising to around 1 million in 2010 when they handed the problem to the coalition.

“UK unemployment falls to five-year low of 2.2m”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27046681

“At just over 30 million, the number of people in work remained at its highest level in a generation.”

“The jobless figure for 16 to 24-year-olds fell by 38,000 in the three months to February to 881,000, the lowest for five years.”

“There were 1.42 million people working part-time because they cannot find full-time work, a fall of 17,000 over the quarter, but 10,000 higher than a year ago.”

“And the number of people classed as self-employed rose by 146,000 to 4.5 million, the highest since records began in 1992.”

And here was the Labour ‘initiative’ to reduce unemployment, keep raising the National Insurance ; a ‘tax on jobs’ was all they had then, and have had nothing else to offer the jobless since.

“Labour's planned National Insurance increase will cost jobs, Alistair Darling admits”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/7539343/Labours-planned-National-Insurance-increase-will-cost-jobs-Alistair-Darling-admits.html

“Labour’s plans to increase national insurance next year will cost jobs, Alistair Darling has said.”

“In his evidence, Mr Darling defended his plans to increase national insurance, saying it was necessary to raise extra money to reduce Government borrowing, which will be £167 billion this year.”

Labour promised in 2010 less cuts of unreformed government public sector waste and more tax rises in the Ballsian UK economic 'growf' model and makes you wonder what else would have been taxed to be announced after the 2010 general election - you know, to 'help' the cost of living and job prospects of the electorate.

Labour blah blah blah blah

The economy is in the crapper.

============

1,000,000 people using food banks.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/food-banks-britain-handed-out-3417601

--

Real wages have been dropping consistently since 2010 - the longest period of falls since at least 1964, official figures show.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25977678

--

Rise in employment is almost entirely in part-time and insecure work, along with self-employed, who can't find work elsewhere:

www.theguardian.com/money/2014/apr/14/job-market-instability-self-employed-tuc

==============

People are utterly screwed. In any other country they would be rioting - in fact, that's exactly what they're doing.

The vile Tory scum are lucky they're not getting the Mussollini treatment for what they're doing people in this country.

A lot of charities are a bunch of wankers and when their staff volunteer and don't take pay, then I will give them more.

I used to give a lot to charity not anymore, they are leeches.

"Vile Tory Scum" ...nothing like incisive political debate eh?

As far as I'm concerned, they are absoltuely Vile Tory Scum.

Anyone group who treats the people like they do - like a bunch of sociopaths - deserves to be called 'scum'. They deserve to be locked up in jail, in fact.

Well they won't be locked up any time soon.

What can you realistically do OP?

ttosca….only a Labour apologist with his head up his own bottom since 1997, in denial of the economic and social affects of Labour net 2,5 million immigration policies, would call the Conservatives “vile” and “scum”.

Labour could issue an edict to take everyone in the Uk’s first born child, and your flawed, failed ideology, would still blame the Conservatives - how sad for (a rigged UK boundary) democracy is that.

ttosca….Economics/Employment Labour style; employ over 1 million tax funded Public Sector workers and lose 1 million tax paying manufacturing jobs to 2005 BEFORE the crash, including the SELF EMPLOYED; no wonder the trade unions are worried for the NewSelf Employed jobs, they’re expecting a Labour government back in 2015.

It takes a special type of economic incompetence to lose so many manufacturing jobs during a global boom, and half the Manufacturing output they inherited from the Conservatives by 2010 - yet your ideological stupidity mocks job creation when European unemployment is so much higher than ours i.e. the UK trending down at 6.9% with France over 11% unemployed record, the whole Eurozone average 12%.

1997 to 2005 ; 'Million factory jobs lost under Labour’

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.html

“Gordon Brown's reputation for economic management will suffer a blow today from official figures showing that 1 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since Labour won power in May 1997.”

“Business organisations blamed red tape, rising taxes, a strong pound and the burgeoning public sector for the wave of redundancies. They urged Mr Brown to use his Budget to slash costs facing industry and do more to boost skills.”

“The number of workforce jobs in manufacturing - employees, self-employed and owner managers - has declined from 4.52 million in spring 1997 to 3.53 million at the end of September last year. Figures from the Office for National Statistics today are expected to show the decline, to the end of December, has broken the 1 million mark.”

How come Europe with those unemployment figures and reduced unemployment/welfare benefits DO NOT HAVE INCREASED FOOD BANK USE, maybe because they didn’t bring in a net 2.5 million new citizens and condemn their own indigenous population to welfare dependency – better known as the UK’s economic and socially incompetent Labour’s legacy??????

As for the ‘cost of living crisis’ that has shown wages in a great recession that came about under Labour fall for the past 6-years, as inflation was rising from around 2004 under Labour

Real wages to rise for first time in six years, EY says
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27010326

Come on big economics man, answer the question on the link below on here, HOW WOULD LABOUR have increased everyones wages OVER inflation, when unemployment under them would have gone higher and so would interest rates and the national debt - so no room for tax cuts to take the lower paid out of tax by increasing the threshold??

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2044969--Cost-of-Living-a-cunning-plan

This was Labours key policy, how comes it seems that no one in the Labour Party, their apparatchiks, or their apologists like you ACTUALLY KNOWS THE ANSWER?

its about the injustice of us not actually being in this together whilst they drink champers with my taxes and decide country policy on how they can best line the pockets of their party doners.

Paul Ruddock was the boss of the Lansdowne Partners hedge fund until late 2013 and he remains a major shareholder in the company. He has made over £600,000 in donations to the Tory party.

Lansdowne Partnerships is a major shareholder (29%) in Circle Health, a private health company that was awarded the £1.2 billion contract to run the Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire.

Crispin Oday has donated over £222,000 to the Tory party - He is the boss of Oday Asset Management which holds a 21% stake in Circle Health.

Martyn Arbib has donated over £478,000 to the Tory party - He is the founder of Invesco Perpetual which holds a 22% stake in Circle Health.

Michael Platt has donated £75,000 to the Tory party - He is the founder of Blue Crest Capital which holds a 7% stake in Circle Health.

NHS backdoor privatisation

John Nash and his wife have donated almost £300,000 to the Conservative party since David Cameron became Tory leader.

As director of both Sovereign Capital and their subsidiary ESG, Nash benefited from the award of two £multi-million government contracts.

In May 2011 ESG was awarded a £69 million government contract to administer Iain Duncan Smith's Work Programme in Warwickshire and Staffordshire.

ESG also won another £4 million contract to in the West Midlands into doing mandatory unpaid labour schemes, for which the firm gains £800 for every person on workfare schemes.

Like Philip Harris, Nash is another beneficiary of Michael Gove's school privatisation-by-stealth schemes, with his pseudo-charity Future Academies taking over a number of state schools in the Westminster area.

In 2013 David Cameron gave Nash a seat in the House of Lords and immediately made him a government minister with responsibility for overseeing the development of the new national curriculum.

Philip Harris is the founder of Carpetright and has an estimated fortune of £285 million. He has donated nearly half an million pounds to the Tories.

Harris has been handed the property deeds of millions of pounds worth of state schools, for free. Harris Academies

Once these state schools are converted into academies, they are still taxpayer funded, but this funding is now topsliced by Harris directors who award themselves ridiculously inflated salaries.

The director of the Harris Federation £317,000 plus pension contributions in 2012, with a further five individuals at the pseudo-charity earning in excess of £140,000.

Custardo....do we really have to go into this socialist hypocracy again as a deflection from Labour's economic and social incompetence?

Why did Labour/Brown make substantial cuts to the Capital Gains Tax, via a taper relief as low as 10% (and then later an 18% rate) so attractive for City folk like Private Equity companies who’s bosses “paid less tax than my tea lady”?

Why did companies like Capita and others who received government contracts lend money to the Labour Party?

“Who Runs Britain?” by Robert Peston
www.socialismtoday.org/122/peston.html

"As the Labour Party moved toward a more neo-liberal agenda in the 1990s, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown began to embrace the free market, ditching clause IV part four of Labour’s constitution."

The leadership courted the rich and famous for financial backing rather than relying solely on trade union money. Blair was adamant about outspending the Tories in the 1997 general election. Paul Blagbrough, former City executive, became Labour’s first finance director, working alongside music entrepreneur Michael Levy, whom Blair had known since the early 1990s. Levy was instrumental in securing hefty donations from wealthy individuals, some of whom were rewarded with knighthoods and peerages, obtaining £12 million in donations to fight the 1997 election (although £1 million had to be paid back over the Ecclestone affair). Levy was made a lord in 1997.

Some of the largest donations came from private equity. Sir Ronnie Cohen and Nigel Doughty, for example, have donated £2.8 million between them since 2001. Cohen co-founded Apax - a private equity firm behind the leveraged buy-outs of companies such as Waterstones and Virgin Radio. He is now chairman of Portland Capital hedge fund and an adviser to the government on ‘encouraging enterprise’ in deprived areas. Once a Liberal Party member, he moved over to Labour after meeting Blair in 1996.

Other contributions include £750,000 from former Goldman-Sachs partner, John Aisbitt, £500,000 from hedge fund executive, William Bollinger, and an estimated £17 million over the past decade from supermarket tycoon, David Sainsbury. Sainsbury became a lord in 1997 and was given a position in the cabinet. Paul Drayson, a healthcare entrepreneur, donated £1.1 million after being appointed to the House of Lords by Blair. Drayson had already courted controversy by donating £100,000 to the Labour Party before his company had won a £32 million government contract supplying a smallpox vaccine. In May 2005, he became a junior defence minister.

more

why is anti tory = socialist?

when does highlighting the greed of the very rich, tax dodging utter cunts = socialist

when does pointing out that these fuckers are screwing people over = socialist?

but labout aren't in power

the tories ARE IN POWER and doing it NOW

you can rake over what labout did until the cows come home - it doesn't make the tories right

the tories are attacking the poor with force, a force that is worse than thatcher, and that is saying something

Contd.

"But Labour was still short of money for the 2005 election and the donations had begun to dry up. So Blair tried to convince trade union leaders to stump up more cash by making some paltry concessions. This became known as the Warwick agreement. Levy again made approaches to business. Donations above £5,000 now had to be declared but a loan made on commercial terms did not. Many of the individuals Levy approached preferred to remain anonymous so it was through loans that Labour was able to raise substantial amounts of money."

"This was how the cash for honours scandal unfolded because it was alleged that some donors were promised seats in the House of Lords in return for these ‘loans’. Sir Gulum Noon had previously donated money and had been knighted in 2002. He lent £250,000 in 2005. Noon had been consulted by Blair in 1997 over the implementation of the European working time directive. Noon argued that the limit on working hours would damage his ready-made meals business."

"Chai Patel, healthcare entrepreneur and government adviser, lent £1.5 million. Rod Aldridge, founder of Capita, which has contracts worth millions with the public sector, lent £1 million – when the loan was revealed in 2006, he resigned as Capita’s chairman. He insisted that the loans had nothing to do with his company winning contracts. Property tycoon, Sir David Garrard, lent £2.3 million. He had been a staunch Conservative who, after attending one of Levy’s famous dinners, had been ‘won over’ to Labour."

"Noon, Patel, Garrard and stockbroker, Barry Townsley, were nominated for peerages. The Lords’ Appointments Commission said that Patel, Garrard and Townsley were unsuitable to become peers due to issues unrelated to the loans scandal. Noon withdrew his name from the list and, after a costly police investigation, no link between loans and nominations was proven."

Labour were the most corrupt, incompetent, and socially corrosive government in living memory, who's expenses scandal ridden administration will be forever known as 'The Rotten Parliament' - and people want this lot back to unwind everything the coalition has done/

Idiots.

John Nash and his wife have donated almost £300,000 to the Conservative party since David Cameron became Tory leader.

As director of both Sovereign Capital and their subsidiary ESG, Nash benefited from the award of two £multi-million government contracts.

In May 2011 ESG was awarded a £69 million government contract to administer Iain Duncan Smith's Work Programme in Warwickshire and Staffordshire.

ESG also won another £4 million contract to in the West Midlands into doing mandatory unpaid labour schemes, for which the firm gains £800 for every person on workfare schemes.

Like Philip Harris, Nash is another beneficiary of Michael Gove's school privatisation-by-stealth schemes, with his pseudo-charity Future Academies taking over a number of state schools in the Westminster area.

In 2013 David Cameron gave Nash a seat in the House of Lords and immediately made him a government minister with responsibility for overseeing the development of the new national curriculum.

then there is the thing about Camerons hairdresser ffs

we can tic tac toe all night long all it proves is that once you are a self serving individualist ( whether labour or tory) you are a money grabbing bunch of bastards

on this and other threads, you won't see me defending blair in any way shape or form.

Custardo...on the poor, then YOU TELL ME, ttoscas in denial, how did Labour's secret immigration policy allowing in 2.5 million new citizens help our poor, their prospects for jobs or a housing shortage already know by Labour in 2004??

The day any of you Labour apologists can justify that traitorous act to 'the people' by design, I'll apologise for the Conservative supporters sorting out that mess.

“Labour to substantially cut benefits bill if it wins power in 2015”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/21/labour-to-cut-benefits-bill-2015

"Labour will cut the benefits bill "quite substantially" and more effectively than the Tories if it wins power in 2015, the shadow work and pensions secretary said on Tuesday.

“Liam Byrne, a Labour frontbencher, said the coalition's welfare reforms were failing to cut costs enough, and called for cross-party talks to "save" some of the government's key schemes.”

“However, he signalled Labour wants to get universal credit and other major schemes back on track, rather than scrap them altogether.”

Labour planned that cuts to welfare/benefits all along, they just didn't want to tell the voters cuts had to be made prior to the 2010 general election - and you idiots fell for it.

umm, the tories haven't sorted out any mess, they have deepened the mess by waging war on the poor. if the tories wanted to invest in housing they could, instead they use a piss poor policy creating bullshit spare bedrooms to further right wing propaganda. With no actual investment in housing for the poor

job centres are 'secretly' pitched against each other in a race to see who can sanction the most people. there's a great whistleblower on facebook who takes pictures of memos and posts them

umm who made a shitload out of the post office deal as well....yeah that just happened

who is getting all the backdoor privatisation contracts for the NHS...tory friends and doners....yeah that's still happening

how you can support a party which persecutes the poor, sells off the national health and doesn't invest in housing is really honestly totally beyond me

carry on telling me how shit labour was though as though that is an actual defence of any kind

becuase its not, its really just posting how bad labour were - which i am not denyng either!

Custardo...you have nothing here but a blind failed ideology, you lot had the most success under Blair and now you disown him and his Labour administration, yet most of them are still in the current Miliband Labour - it is not "self serving" to fight against this mob getting back in power to finish the destruction job they started.

A bankrupt UK like Greece, where the poor had to go through bins, helps no one here, especially the poor - and Labour neither had answers to fix their mess in 2010 or the electoral bravery to tell you what they'd cut, so you have no yardstick to measure the coalitions policies, which is what Labour intended.

When Labour get back in power 2015, and markets stop funding our debt at low interest rates, I'll give it 2-years before they have to call in the IMF to bail us out, as they did in 1976. The problem is, as other bailed out counties found, is that FORCED, LARGER CUTS, are far more painful.

what ideology is that?

" you lot"

who lot?

what are you talking about?

the uk wasn't like greece

and btw the poor here do have to go through bins - they have been arrested for it - big headline remember

again i state - you can rehash what labour did, this is not a counter argument to the direct attack on the poor, the non investment in social housing and the privatisation of the NHS

you have no argument except "but...but....labour did x in 1976"

defend your parties policies, make a real argument