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Union responds to welfare reform green paper

21 July 2008

Responding to the publication of today's Welfare Green Paper, Mark Serwotka, general secretary of PCS said:

“These proposals are regressive and draconian, going further than even Thatcher dared in the 1980’s.

"Picking up litter to receive benefits will stigmatise people and do nothing to get people back into long term sustainable employment.

“The corner stone of the welfare state is full employment yet in this period of economic uncertainty with unemployment on the rise, there are doubts that there will be the right jobs available in which to place people or the capacity in Jobcentre Plus to deal with an upsurge in claimants.

"The abolition of Incapacity Benefit will hit people with disabilities and there are question marks over whether the government will be forcing people to work for less than the minimum wage.

"The government should be working with people to get them back into employment rather penalising and threatening them.

“The proposals will also entrench the role of the private sector in the delivery of welfare reform.

"The public sector has consistently out performed the private sector in getting people back into work and we fear that the profits for the few will increasingly be the driving factor in the delivery of welfare, rather than the needs of the many.

"Indeed the Welfare Green Paper praises the work of Jobcentres yet the government are prepared to turn increasingly to an untried and untested model of welfare delivery.

“Rather than slashing tens of thousands of jobs in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and pursuing a dogmatic privatisation agenda, the government should be looking at putting the resources into its own dedicated workforce who have the skills and expertise in dealing with the long term unemployed.”
 

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