Government So Ashamed of Workfare it Blocks Information about it.

The Guardian reports,

The Department of Work and Pensions is refusing to publish the names of charities and businesses where tens of thousands of unemployed people are being made to work without pay for four weeks at a time.

Hats off to Boycott Workfare, whose tireless campaigning is noted by the state,

Previous targeted campaigns had resulted in the withdrawal of providers from MWA and WE [work experience],” the leaked document reveals. “The DWP considered that, of all the workfare programmes being described externally as ‘workfare schemes’, the MWA programme was the most likely to be influenced by pressure from campaign groups and negative publicity, given that MWA programmes were generally provided by charitable organisations … and the placements were mandatory,” lawyers said.

Oh dear, and why do people object?

The government’s own research also showed that the scheme does not help the unemployed to get a job once they’ve finished the four weeks of work. It also had no effect on getting people off benefits in the long term.

Following a change in the rules a fortnight ago, unemployed people who refuse to take the unpaid placements can have their jobseeker’s allowance stripped from them for up to three years. The appeal, filed on 27 September, also reveals that those involved in MWA “tend to be charitable organisations”. Previously the DWP has given assurances that only organisations who provide ‘social benefit’ could take part in MWA. Campaigners say it is of paramount public interest to know how many profit-making businesses are involved in using labour from forced work schemes.

Using a freedom of information request, the Guardian was able to discover that unpaid jobseekers were being used by businesses to clean private homes.

 The government argues that those nasty campaigners would stop all this good work once they got hold of the names of the Charity Bizniz and private profiteers involved,

“Put simply, disclosure [of names] would have been likely to have led to the collapse of the MWA scheme, with incalculable losses to the taxpayer and many thousands of persons in long-term unemployment who are supported by the scheme,” the appeal states.

That really sticks in my craw.

How is it about  people who are “supported by the scheme”.

What is this ‘support’?

Many of us, know people who’ve been sentenced by the courts for minor offences. They are often made to do ‘Community Payback’. No doubt some of us have done this.

Mandatory Work Activity (MWA)  is not “support”.

It is the same punishment. 

I can even cite people who’ve had a conviction and made to do a certain number of hours   in the same Charity biznizes using people on MWA.

So people on the dole are being prosecuted as criminals. 

No wonder the Government is ashamed of its policies.