Doctor, doctor

"Doctor doctor, please
Oh, the mess I'm in..."

There is obviously a problem with time ...
The Work Programme (aka Welfare to Work,Single Work Programme) is due to go "live" "sometime in June".
Interesting.....the contracts to deliver the "Programme" have been awarded to huge cash-rich private companies.
A lot of these companies have no experience in delivering this sort of programme, so they'll need to sub-contract to organisations with the appropriate experience.
This may or not be a problem, depending on whether you think it is a Good Idea for private companies to be granted contracts  to deliver a service  to clients who may be vulnerable and socially challenged solely on the basis of how much that company has in the bank.
However I have to ask a few questions:
Question One:
The "Work  Programme" is due to start in a few weeks, so where are the workers to deliver it?
Who is going to work with the workless clients?
I see Group 4 have won contracts to deliver the Work Programme.
Their previous expertise lies...elsewhere.
Do they propose to use their security guards to deliver the Work Programme? 
I was made redundant back in January, along with most of the specialised and skilled team that I was part of. I worked in employment support.
Since my redundancy I have been looking for work, naturally in a similar field.
No such posts are being advertised anywhere.
There isn't a day that I don't look, and there are no jobs in employment support being advertised.
Given that it takes quite a while to advertise posts, contact respondents, arrange interviews, conduct interviews, contact interviewees with results, induct successful candidates in their new posts.
I have to ask...how are they going to do all this in......a couple of weeks?
I applaud any constructive changes that will happen.
The system was a mess and nobody understood it. There were/are people who were simply being warehoused as long-term invalids who could work, and it would potentially improve their mental condition by doing so.
Question Two:
Where are all these new jobs for the Newly Well going to be found?
If I can't find one, and I don't have  a history of long-term sickness and I do have a history of helping people to get jobs, then what chance has someone with no recent checkable work history and a record of illness?
Question Two: What encouragement is there going to be for people who are currently on benefits to take a job on or near minimum wage? Since the slump salaries being offered for most jobs I'm looking at seem to have dropped  about 15%.
Why would someone who is getting their rent and council tax paid take a job that will make them worse off?
Currently there are a lot of firms, feeling the pinch, offering jobs with hours "as and when". Currently it would be madness to take such a job with totally unpredictable hours and risk losing welfare benefits.
Question Three:
If you're going to try and introduce more flexibility into the system can we expect an improvement in the delivery and speed of welfare claims?
I think it took about eight weeks after my redundancy to get any welfare payment. If I hadn't had a (small) redundancy payment I'd have been destitute.
 If someone makes a new claim after losing a job and gets no redundancy payment at all they might starve waiting for their claim to come through.
If such a delay happens when new welfare claims are made  then the temptation is going to be NOT to take a job and to stay on welfare. Better the devil you know....
Question Four:
The last time I saw my Job Centre Adviser he asked me whether I had thought about "relocating" to find a job.
What encouragement is there going to be for people to look for work in other areas?
I live in an area that has traditionally been an unemployment blackspot.
Since the slump...
I have no job.
My partner has no job.
However we have grown-up children who aren't dependent so we can move if we find a job somewhere else.
In order to locate such a job firstly we will need to attend an interview in another area.
Jobcentre Plus operates a Travel to Interview scheme, where your out-of-pocket expenses will be paid if you needed to travel out of your area to attend an interview.
Sensible. If you're encouraging people to get out of the unemployment trap you can't expect them to fund a three-hundred mile rail trip. They don't make giros that big.
However if you look on the JobCentre Plus website it says:

Travel to Interview Scheme and In Work Credit

Jobcentre Plus can help you to get to your job interview ..... Find out more, including how to apply.

Important update: Travel to Interview scheme is now closed

I rang my Adviser and he said "It's not closed, it's discretionary"
Well, so it should be. It's public money. But anyone looking for information on how to get to their out of area job interview from the Jobcentre Plus website is simply told it's "closed".Not available to you,chummy. Kaput.
So they aren't going to even attempt to look for a job elsewhere.
There should be an online database, run by Jobcentre Plus that matches client's CV's with jobs in all geographical areas and informs a client when a job pops up.
There are plenty of independent companies that do this already, but most of them do it badly.
Time for someone to do it properly.
History Lesson:
Are you troubled with economic and financial problems?
Are your people suffering hardship?
Is your country going to hell in a handbasket?
Are 20% of your young people workless and are many resigned to remaining so?
You're  a busy government and God understands how hard it is for you to get on top of things, that's why She invented history.
So that you could learn from it:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/new_deal.htm