Single Parents Will Be Made To Seek Jobs (UK)

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 7-19-2007 | Graeme Wilson

[blam]

Single parents will be made to seek jobs

By Graeme Wilson, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:59am BST 19/07/2007

Single parents will be forced to start looking for a job once their youngest child turns seven, with those who cannot find work being placed on United States-style workfare schemes.

Peter Hain claimed Labour had made progress in getting lone parents back to work

Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, announced yesterday that the age at which lone parents will be expected to start seeking work will be cut from 16 to 12 next year.

In 2010, it will be reduced even further to just seven - four years lower than the age recommended by the Government-commissioned Freud report on future of welfare earlier this year.

Single parents who fail to find a job after 12 months will be required to join "specialist return-to-work" schemes, which will include full-time work experience or community work, an approach which mirrors the workfare schemes used in America.

Unveiling the Government's latest Green Paper on welfare reform, Mr Hain said the plans were designed to lift thousands of children and young people out of poverty. The private and voluntary sector will also be given a bigger role in getting people off benefits.

Earlier, Gordon Brown had endorsed the plans, declaring: "There are huge opportunities - perhaps a quarter of a million opportunities in addition to what exists at the moment - for lone parents and others to get into work."

But the proposals immediately faced criticism from Labour backbenchers, who are uneasy about the Government's hardline welfare policies.

Yesterday's proposals also slipped out worrying figures which show that youth unemployment had got worse over the past 10 years. There are now just over 105,000 young people who are not in employment, education or training, compared to just 86,000 when Labour came to power in 1997.

In a statement to the Commons, Mr Hain claimed Labour had made progress in encouraging more lone parents to return to the workplace. There are currently 775,000 people claiming lone parent benefits, down from just under one million a decade ago. At the same time, the number of lone parents in work has grown by 300,000 to a little over one million.

But he said more needed to be done, including plans to reduce the threshold at which lone parents stop receiving Income Support and move onto Jobseekers' Allowance, which requires claimants to be actively looking for work.

Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, said: "The proposed jobs pledge cannot guarantee that there will be enough work to go round for all people facing this extra pressure to find a job."

Meanwhile, scores of Whitehall targets will be torn up under new plans that ministers claim will shatter the culture of top-down control of hospitals, schools and other public services.

The existing 110 public service agreements, which contain a plethora of performance measurements and targets, could be cut back to 30, according to Andy Burnham, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

The proposals, which will be agreed by a Cabinet committee today, would signal a significant break from the target culture which dominated Tony Blair's decade in power.

[Will_Zurmacht]

So lemme see...forced to work after kid turns seven.

So start at 18. Have one child out of wedlock every 7 years. Then Retire. Spend enitre life on dole without ever working, just living off the sweat of other Britons...

God Save....

[blam]

Found the loop-hole, huh?

[mikeybaby]

I wonder if this applies to the muzzies.
Hell, they’re likely to have 6 or 7 little future “throat-slitters” under the age of six in their compound, so it’s probably an irrelevant question.