Latest plans revealed to end welfare culture

6:18pm Wednesday 25th June 2008

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By Rob Merrick »

PRIVATE firms will run job centres in a fresh government attempt to end the North-East's "welfare culture" and get benefit claimants back to work.

And drug users will be stripped of their benefit if they refuse to go on treatment courses, in a crackdown to be unveiled next month.

The moves were announced as the region's 'City Strategy' - a local authority-led scheme to get long-term benefit claimants back to work - was awarded about £350,000 to continue until 2011.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell dangled the prospect of the City Strategy team gaining control of multi-million pound mental health and drug treatment budgets if it could prove it was a success.

Local councils in Easington, County Durham, and across Tyne and Wear, joined forces with Jobcentre Plus offices, the Learning and Skills Council, employers and voluntary groups to offer training, physiotherapy courses and help in preparing for job interviews.

It was set up because the region is an incapacity benefit (IB) blackspot. There are more than 140,000 claimants - including one in five working-age people in Easington.

Mr Purnell offered hope to the likes of Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Sedgefield, who all hope to join the City Strategy scheme later on, by saying: "I want to see more initiatives like this."

And he praised the 'City Futures' scheme, an arm's length company bringing together local drugs charities and community organisations to provide a "seamless" service.

However, a promise - first made three years ago - to allow the councils to keep some of the savings from cutting benefit bills as a "reward" is still being blocked by the Treasury.

In any case, the extra City Strategy cash was overshadowed by Mr Purnell unveiling part of another welfare reform green paper, to be published next month.

Its big idea is to give benefit claimants a choice between going to either a public, private or voluntary-run job centre in their area.

Speaking to The Northern Echo, Mr Purnell said the shake-up was not "privatisation", nor an attack on publicly-run Jobcentre offices - insisting they provided a "world-class service".

But he added: "Claimants should have the choice over how to get back to work, not whether they should go back to work.

"We want a work culture, not a welfare culture and we can only achieve this by reforming the system so that it demands personal responsibility."

The shake-up is certain to be controversial with many Labour MPs, who fear private companies are unaccountable. Abroad, they have been condemned for "unethical" behaviour.

Big American and Australian companies are pitching to run welfare-to-work schemes, as well as domestic firms including A4e and Reed-in-Partnership.