LABOUR’S disorganised Flexible New Deal scheme will end in the summer – but will it just be replaced by a scheme identical to the last one?

If the Government want to learn from past mistakes they really want to take a long hard look at the failures of the Flexible New Deal.

With more and more graduates finding it hard to find employment the one size fits all package does not work.

I am a graduate and I have just finished a degrading year-long employment scheme where you are placed on basic reading and writing courses, attend “alphabet days” (J is for Job), make silly skyscrapers from rolled up newspapers, glue together liquorice allsorts with icing sugar and are given advice on how to go self-employed using the measily £50 odd quid you get on the dole – all overseen by inexperienced trumped up sales advisors who are being paid handsomely to play nursemaid.

It’s a massive waste of time, not to mention an obscene waste of cash. The unemployed need real jobs, not be wasting their time playing childish games.

Being job ready is one thing but when I was directed onto a three month CV writing course that really took the biscuit.

Three-months for a two-page resume – now that must be a Guinness World Record.

Stephanie Finnegan, Eston.