Are job schemes for the disabled fake?
Questions are being raised about the lack of success of government schemes to get disabled people back into work after it was revealed that only five per cent on Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) programmes have found permanent jobs. A new study reveals that only 1,400 disabled people worked for more than six months after getting help and just over 6,000 people were helped into any form of work – way short of the government target of 90,000. The government’s ‘New Deal’ programme to get disabled people off benefits and back into the workplace is now being dismissed as “a sham and a fake” by disability campaigners. And compulsory work-focused interviews at job centres are being criticised. Catherine A’Bear of the Shaw Trust said voluntary organisations were better placed to provide advice to disabled people. “Employment interviews and work placements can’t be provided by the same people who are responsible for monitoring people’s benefits,” she said. “Personal advisers at job centres
