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“As a Committee we can at least agree that some significant reform of our social security system is needed. A system which has millions of children being raised on Income Support cannot be said to be wholly successful.”113
Why Workfare Works “The potentially negative consequences of being out of work extend well beyond the loss of financial rewards. They often include loss of a role, social contact, daily routine, feelings of participation, and selfesteem and self-worth.” Opportunity for All 5th Annual Report 2003: Department for Work and Pensions
The Government understands the importance of work, yet its welfare-to-work programme does not actually require its participants to work. By far the most popular New Deal Option - with over half choosing it at the end of last year - is full-time training, which is ineffective in helping people obtain work (see above). Training itself is no bad thing – so long as it is combined with a substantial degree of real employment (indeed all four New Deal options include an element of training). The problem occurs where training is fulltime. As the Adult Learning Inspectorate put it, “even the most disaffected young people were successful when the goals presented to them were tangible and relatively short-term (notably, a job), while many continued to find difficulty in sustaining a year-long college course.”114 The Policy Studies Institute report of 2001 found that “those in subsidised employment were more likely to get work-based training than those in Full-Time Education and Training, by a