Single parents: get a job, you idle fops

[Gilps]

Lovely

 

Single parents 'must find work'

 

Single parents could have to look for work once their child turns 12 if they want benefits, a welfare report says.

 

The government-commissioned report said cutting the age from 16 to 12 was needed as part of a major overhaul of welfare services.

 

At the report's launch Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both backed its call to extend the role of the voluntary and private sectors in helping people.

 

Mr Blair said "we need an even greater effort" from people to get into work.

 

He said the changes were necessary to ensure that the future welfare state was affordable, particularly in providing the basic state pension.

 

"If we want to be able to afford that welfare state then we've got to get even more people off benefit and into work which is why we've got an aspiration to raise the employment rate to some 80% of the workforce.

 

"That will be very tough to do, but if you look at the decades ahead if we're not able to do that we're going to face enormous pressure in affording our welfare state."

 

Chancellor Gordon Brown said the report was the start of welfare reform "which I will champion".

 

The report, written by former city banker David Freud, was unveiled on Monday.

 

Mr Freud was called in to reduce the number of people of working age on benefits for which they do not have to be actively seeking work.

 

He said it was possible that in future lone parents could have to seek work when their children were younger than 12.

 

His report recommended that JobCentre Plus should cater for the mass market of people seeking work, while people who were "harder to help" would be given individually tailored support through private or volunteer groups.

 

Such private provision would be part of a "multi-billion pound market", he added.

 

"More important than the financial figures though is the potential to transform hundreds of thousands of people's lives releasing them from deprivation and hopelessness.

 

"And that in turn would lead to big improvements in the social fabric of our country."

 

His report said that organisations running the schemes should be given cash incentives for keeping people off benefits.

 

Officials representing tens of thousands of JobCentre Plus workers said they feared compulsory redundancies amongst staff who currently deal with welfare-to-work programmes.

 

Mr Hutton told BBC One's Sunday AM he was prepared to cut the benefits of people who did not seek help or accept advice about finding work.

 

"The status quo, I think, is not defensible.

 

"We should be prepared to have an open mind about reform, but it will not be based on the principle that the first thing you do is cut people's benefits.

 

"You should never do that - that's the last resort."

 

Mr Hutton also did not rule out suggestions that money could also be made available to help the long-term unemployed buy a suit or get a haircut in preparation for their job hunt.

 

"For a lot of people it is about confidence building and sometimes, if you want to present yourself well at an interview, you've got to look the part," he said.

 

Chris Pond, director of the group One Parent Families, told the BBC he thought forcing single parents into work was a bad idea.

 

"It would be a real mistake to start cajoling lone parents, even those with older children, into jobs when it's just not right for them," he said.

 

"Most lone parents with older children are already working. About 70% already have a job. Those who are not working very often have good reasons for not doing so."

 

Kate Green, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said policies should not just be about getting people jobs, but getting them the right sort of jobs.

 

"Around half of children who are poor are in families where there is at least one adult in paid work, so I think it's very important to make sure that, if we're talking about more parents going out to work, that really it is the kind of work that can enable them properly to provide for their kids."

[Coyler]

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Edited March 5, 2007 by Coyler

[Des]

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