The Work Programme, the government’s vast welfare-to-work scheme, was supposed to be an engine of good news. It has been cited on a number of occasions by David Cameron as the shining example of radical innovation in a notoriously difficult area of policy and a firm rebuttal to the Labour charge that the government is somehow complacent about unemployment.
Billions of pounds are being made available in contracts to private and voluntary sector organisations in exchange for their expertise in placing benefit claimants in work.
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