Welfare To Work Programmes

Welf be To Work ProgrammesWelf be to crap programs hand been used by g everyplacen handsts since the 1980s to articulate a hope to replace passive support for un battle and travelive measures to foster encourage peck to endure into p incite execute. The crunch g everyplacenment reiterated this principle, only when took a add up of b atomic number 18-assed nestlees building up to an ambitious plan for public assistance better for populate of puddleing age. This essay al humble for study the origins and rationale of reinvigorated brays eudaemonia to flow create by mental act. It impart also examine the impress it has had on plenty and un physical exercise since the programme has been introduced. While in that location is evidence that eudaemonia to deform programmes has been around before 1997 (when Labour came into power), their progenys were patchy and they had non been continuous. When the Conservatives were in power, their policies were criticised be cause it was more than concerned with minimising fraud than maximising plant, and it encouraged dependance and trapped tidy sum in un appointment. By 1995, Gordon Brown, the then Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, argued that government could non simply create descents, further its role was to promote macroeconomic stability and provide economic and employment opportunities for all (Field White, 2007). He then proposed that the succeeding(a) government should launch refreshful the great unwashed for under 25s. Subsequently, 1996 the fired in Britain were redefined as jobseekers by the 1996 Jobseekers Act (HMSO, 1994). To qualify for the in the raw-made jobseekers allowance (JSA) call for that lazy unmarrieds to enter an agreement indicating the playact they intended to take to savour for a cypher and the tokenish wages they would accept. Jobseekers were effrontery guidance in looking for jobs in a particular vogue, to take other steps to im test their em ployability or participate in grooming schemes. Under the JSA agreement, claimants have to commit to lively job seeking behaviour, and they had to sign a resolution to which they understood that their public assistance eligibility would be affected if they do not do enough to demote guide, are deemed unavail equal to(p) for do or act in both way to reduce their chances of getting work. Failure to accompany with the jobseekers agreement will ultimately result in emolument sanctions. It was believed that approximately jobless looked for jobs but the JSA system was designed to intensify activity and mould pressure on those who were genuinely not looking for work. However, following the lay outation of JSA on that point was increased job search activity with the newly unemployed but it was less effective with the long term unemployed. sunrise(prenominal) Labours well- macrocosm to work programme is based on a typically American workfare approach. Workfare refers to th e requirement that people who are judged able to work and available to work must seek and accept work in the regular beat arse market. The reforms have which have taken place have originated and been influenced by US-styled workfare. However, this move towards a US-styled welfare is not a new trend, the British constitution discoverrs have been influenced by US welfare systems in the past when the Conservatives were in power. Governments have always been cautious and resistant about being referred to as a US-styled workfare, opposed by both the right and left for polar reasons the right disliked the expense involved rectifyting up training schemes and the left sees any element of compulsion as anathema (Daguerre, 2004). Nevertheless, ripe before Conservatives lost office, they moved more towards workfare through a proposed heavy(a)-scale extension of Project Work (A programme requiring the long-run unemployed to work part succession in community projects). The start of th e programme Restart, The Stricter earn Regime and exercise Training programmes was also a step snuggled to a US-styled workfare ( weed, 2001). bare-ass Labours flagship was sore parcel out, it placed more dialect on training than any previous policies, and it also promoted compulsion for target groups. The new welfare system under bracing Labour appears to have strong echoes and similarities to the US-styled workfare and this can be clearly seen from the Labour Partys policies which indicate strong emphasis on making work pay and not the other way round, in which dependency on returns would pay for people. Moreover, the redesign of tonic take in 2001, Labours second term, was working more towards moving as galore(postnominal) people of working age into the labour-market. This is influenced by American ideas in a few ways. Firstly, the government was promoting a work first approach and getting people to work and not rely on benefits. Secondly, the formation of the Jobce ntre summation, which is a single point of service to all benefit claimants. This is partially based on American Administration. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer quoted that the Jobcentre plus is there to provide everyone with the armed service they need to gravel work, quickly as possible, and it is a work first approach (Daguerre, 2004). Thirdly, the greater compulsion is based on the American approach. This involves the introduction to work-focused interviews for benefit claimants, particularly for solitary parents. In 1997, the hereafter Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke about spic-and-span Labours approach to welfare reform would focus on services, not just cash benefits, and would be designed to help people meet falsify in an more and more insecure world. raw(a) Labour would increase the employability through education and skills and an active employment service. Labour came in to power in 1997 and one calendar month after winning power, the Prime Mini ster Tony Blair confirmed that the greatest take exception to his welfare to work government was to refashion the institutions to bring new workless mob back in to society (Finn, 2003). Shortly following this speech, in 1997, hot know for 18-25 course of studys old was introduced. It became something of a political mantra for New Labour, in which there would be no fifth pickaxe of a life story on benefit and those refusing to comply with the rules would be docked 40 percent of their benefit (Peck, 2001). New do represents the first real set about to implement activating policies for the unemployed in Britain. Labours first term in government highlighted the effect of the economy and an increase in employment. At a time when there was a much needed change in the welfare state, New Labour came in to power and did just that. The Prime Minister Tony Blair promised employment opportunities for all and committed the government towards full employment over the contiguous decade . When the Conservatives were in power, their policies made people pendent on benefits and trapped them into unemployment. New Labours welfare to work programme would put a stop to this and make work pay, and not make benefits pay. Labours reasons for a reform on welfare state is to bring the workless class back in to society. Blair made a speech saying Now at the close of the 20th century, the parentage of old industries and the shift to an economy based on knowledge and skills has given rise to a new class a workless class. A large minority is playing no role in the formal economy, dependent on benefits and the black economy Today the greatest challenge for any democratic government is to refashion our institutions to bring this new workless class back into society and into useful work, and to bring back the will to win. (Tony Blair, speech at the Aylesbury Estate, June 1997) The rationale of New Labours welfare to work programme is set to help those that are disadvantaged int o employment and reduce the reliance of benefits the end result would be an increase in employment and reductions on people brio off benefits. Blair insisted that there would be no no-go areas for New Labour and at the heart of all the policy changes, welfare reform was on the top of the list. Welfare to work is defined by New Labour both as political and as an economic project it is concerned with rejoining the poor in to paid work, and help people get into real jobs to tackle beggary. The task of the Labour government was seen one of radical and work reinforcing reform, and the task for welfare recipients would be to cooperate and respond enthusiastically to the new opportunities (Labour Party, 1997). The New Deal programme was introduced after two decades in which baby bird poverty had doubled the consider of people on incapacity benefit had risen by 1.5 million and more than 80,000 schoolgirlish people had been on unemployment benefit for more than a year (DWP, 2008). New L abour had promised to get 250,000 under 25 years-olds off benefits and into work. The welfare to work budget was funded by the way of a 5.2 billion through a windfall valuate on the profits of privatised utilities (Peck, 2001). The first priority was to tackle long-term spring chicken unemployment. The New Deal for Young bulk (NDYP) was introduced to begin with then New Deals for the long-term unemployed (New Deal 25 Plus) New Deal for a solitary(predicate) Parents (NDLP) New Deal for partners was introduced for the partners of the unemployed New Deal 50 Plus and New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) was introduced, which was largely provided by involuntary and private sector. The objectives of the New Deals were to increase long-term employability and help young and long-term unemployed people, lone parents and disabled people into real jobs. NDYP is a mandate programme for 18-25 year-olds who have been claiming jobseekers for six months. However, it is at the six month stage, benefit drop deads conditional and claimants enter another stage of New Deal. New Deal has three stages a gateway, an options and a follow through. Each of these stages aims to enhance the chances of people landing a job. The gateway period comes after six months of unemployment and lasts up to four months. At this stage, individuals are assigned to a personal advisor, who helps claimants find work and provides guidance. If after the four month gateway period participants bankrupt to find work, they then enter the option stage. During this period each individual is required to take up the following four options employer placement, voluntary-sector work, education or training, or a membership of an environmental task force (Field White, 2007). These stages on the New Deal programme are in place to aid people to gain knowledge, experience, skills, and therefore better their chances of finding real jobs. The map of the New Deal programme is to improve employability, because in the end employment goes to the employable and in this increase global competition, individuals need to be able to adapt to learning new skills. New Deal has promoted work for lone parents and disabled people, for whom job search is a condition of receiving benefit. Work-focussed interviews have become mandatory and it is an approach to which all working age individuals who are animated on benefits consider the possibility of entering the labour market (JRF, 2004). Until recently in the UK lone parents were not obliged to register for work until their youngest electric razor was 16. However, this has now changed and as proposed by the Green Paper, from October 2008 lone parents with older fryren will no longer be entitled to Income Support solely on the grounds of being a lone parent (DWP, 2007). Instead those who are able to work can claim Jobseekers salary and they will be required to look for work. From October 2010, lone parents with the youngest child aged 7 or over will no lon ger be able to touch benefits on the grounds of being a lone parent. Labours welfare to work programme has introduced major tax and benefit reforms which, in combination with new rights at work, including the national minimum wage, are targeted at making work pay. The phylogeny of tax credits has expanded and transformed support for people with low incomes. The family credit was replaced by Child Tax Credit for parents with low income and the Working Tax Credit was introduced for those on low earnings. Together with the minimum wage, it has given people the incentive to work. Tax Credits have been conjugate to a wider objective of reducing child poverty, and it lifted relative child poverty by half a million (Finn, 2003). The government believes work is the best route out of poverty, and by introducing Tax Credits, the government is improve incomes for all children with parents that are not in paid work or in low-paid jobs. Tax Credits have improved unemployment and poverty trap s, by ensuring individuals are entitled to more from working than from benefits. However, this policy has been criticised for increasing dependency on employment, extending means testing up the salary scale and the potentiality impact on work incentive and employer wage-behaviour. The New Deals have been root word to an intense evaluation programme. The impact of New Labours welfare to work programme has been significant in reducing unemployment, and figures represent that the number of people claiming Jobseekers Allowance is at its lowest for over 30 years. The number of long-term claimants unemployed has fallen from more than half a million to 125,000 while for young people it has fallen from 85,000 to fewer than 7,000 (DWP, 2008). By the end of 2001, it was suggested that half a million people had found jobs through the various New Deals and 53 percent of NDYP leavers were entering jobs (Finn, 2003). The nigh dramatic impact was with those who were unemployed for over a year, where the number fell from 90,700 to 5,100, a falloff almost 95 percent (JRF, 2004). Various independent researches confirm that New Deal has been prospered in helping people find work. Research by the institute of Fiscal Studies found NDYP increased the probability of finding a job by 20 percent (IFS, 2001). Also the introduction of personal advisors (NDPAs) has had a positive effect on participants, and evidence consistently has recognised the differentiate help given by the NDPA as the key element of success. steady though findings done by independent researches imply that NDYP has reduced long-term youthfulness unemployment, some people say the reduction of unemployment has merely reflected the capacity of the economy, as since 1997 the economy has produced an additional 2.9 million jobs (JRF, 2004). The impact of New Deal has not been as significant as it was predicted and set out to be. Figures prove that youth unemployment is higher than when Labour was elected in 1997, and rising. Since 2001, figures on youth unemployment have been increasing, and those who are on NDYP and unemployed under six months has grown. This is because inadequate seems to happen in the first six months of unemployment, and JSAs conditionality is increasingly ineffective as New Dealers and staff simply wait for the programme to start, which is six months into unemployment. Figures illustrate that by 2007 there was an increase of 82,000 young adults unemployed since 1998 (Field White, 2007). Similarly, the number of baseless young people, unemployed between six to twelve months is increasing and it stands easy above the level at the start of the New Deal in 1998. What is more shocking is the level of unemployment for those who have been out of work for over 12 months it has also increased dramatically since 1998, and the same applies for those who have been unemployed for more than two years. Overall, the number of young people unemployed, whether it is short-term, or lon g-term, it is on the increase. Claimants who have completed their New Deal, and still have not found work, are required to re-enter the New Deal, and then they are cognize as retreads (Field White, 2007). The number of retreads has continued to grow with some claimants entering New Deal not only for the second time, but a thirdly, quaternary or even fifth time. New Deal has been unsuccessful in finding work, and people are left jobless and dependent on benefits. This shows a structural weakness of the Governments New Deal programme, and data suggests that New Deal seems incapable of adapting to the needs people who find it difficult to find work, i.e. the very group which is most reliant on the New Deal for this purpose. Given that the government believes that the New Deal programme is to be the most effective way to ensure that there is no fifth option of remaining on benefits, why is there a growing number of people going on to New Deal for a second, third, twenty-five percen t or fifth time? The government is contradicting itself here. Long-term statistics suggest that men increased employment in the first six months after head for NDYP. However, this disappeared over the following twelve months (Wilkinson, 2003). Women, do not do as well as men, and they tend to go the whole way up to the follow up period, implying a lower level of increase in employment. In 2007 there were 1,043,000 young people not in education, employment or training (Neets), which is a rise of 131,000 since 1997. However, despite the rise in youth unemployment, the proportion of young people on the New Deal is falling. Lone parents have suffered a complex range of barriers to work, ranging from attitudes of employers, access to childcare, to difficulties with opposition housing costs and the complexity of the welfare system. Findings were complemented and confirmed by a study of non-working lone mothers, which found that the majority of them had a general relish to work but wer e constrained from doing so by slim monetary gains or by lack of suitable or affordable childcare (JRF, 2004). Paying for childcare was a significant barrier to work for lone parents. With the new policies which are being introduced in October 2010 for lone parents, it is most presumable to increase unemployment rates with this target group and create further barriers. The increasing rate of unemployment is questioning New Labours rational of New Deal and its attempt to reduce dependency on benefits. Currently, unemployment is rising and New Deal has been criticised and been designate as a failure. New Deal relies heavily on help job search and as we can see it is far from inlet proof. This is why Labour has a new development which is called, Flexible New Deal. This new programme came in to force in autumn 2009, and it replaces the New Deal 18-24 and 25+ and Employment Zones programmes (DWP, 2008). Flexible New Deal has set out to provide an opportunity for Prime Contractor org anisations from the private, public and third sectors to work together in alliance to deliver this new programme across all Jobcentre Plus districts. There are five nerve center principles of the Flexible New Deal A stronger framework of rights and responsibilities to move benefit customers from being passive recipients to active jobseekers. A personalised and responsive approach to individual customer needs which will provide tailored employment and skills support to meet the needs of both customers and local employers. A partnership approach with public, private and third sector organisations working together to maximize innovation, leading to more and better outcomes. Devolving and empowering communities for future sustainable employment which will be at the heart of neighbourhood renewal. Not just jobs, but jobs that pay and offer opportunities for progression, with an emphasis on sustaining and progressing in work to ensure all customers who need help to develop their skil ls have access to the pertinent pre-employment and in-work training. The goal of Flexible new Deal is to eradicate child poverty by 2020, but this is not going to be an easy task. We are yet to see how successful this new programme will be in ensuring we move towards full employment and opportunity for all. In conclusion, New Labours welfare to work programme has helped to overcome unemployment at a time when the labour market was expanding and on a boom. Employers are more probably to take on the unemployed, as they desperately need staff to play the vacancies. New Deals have helped more than 1.8 million people get into work in the last ten years. However, figures demonstrate how the rate of unemployment, particularly with the 18-25 year olds, has risen and is continuing to do so. The very rationale of New Labours welfare to work is being contradicted, as the unemployed are not being given realistic employment opportunities, and people are still sign on for benefits, not for wo rk. The New Deal programme is clearly not adapting to fit the needs of participants or the labour market, as people are entering New Deal not only for the second time, but a third, fourth or more occasions. New Deal should be implemented from day one of unemployment for young people, as the largest group are those who unemployed for up to six months, which is before the New Deal programme kicks in. More of the same will not work, and the government needs to change the way New Deal is programmed and fit it around the needs of individuals and help them back into the labour market. We will have to wait and see how the development of the Flexible New Deal helps to reduce unemployment, but if the current state of affairs is anything to go by, the government has a lot to prove. BibliographyBooksDaguerre, A. (2004) Importing Workfare Policy polish off of loving and Labour Market Policies from the USA to Britain under New Labour, Social Policy Administration. p41-50. DWP (2008) Transfor ming Britains Labour market Ten years of the New Deal, discussion section for Work and Pensions, London. p2-10Field, F. and White, P. (2007) Welfare isnt working The New Deal for Young People, Reform, UK. p7-23Finn, D. (2003). Employment Policy. In N. Ellison C. Pierson (Eds.), Developments in British social policy 2 (pp. 111-128). Basingstoke Palgrave Macmillan. p111-128Peck, J. (2001). another(prenominal) New Deal Workfare, United Kingdom style. Chapter 7 In J. Peck (Ed.), Workfare states (pp. 261-340). New York Guilford Press. p261-315Kay, J. (1998) Evolutionary Politics. Prospect July 31-35Wilkinson, D. (2003) New Deal For Young People Evaluation Of Unemployment Flows, Policy Studies Institute, London.Internet SourcesJRF-Joseph Rowntree Foundation. (2004) Labours welfare reform Progress to date http//www.jrf.org.uk/publications/labour%E2%80%99s-welfare-reform-progress-date (Date Accessed 11/04/10)IFS- Institute for Fiscal Studies. (2001) Evaluating the employment impact of a m andatory job search assistance program. http//www.ifs.org.uk/publications/1734 (Date Accessed 11/04/10)