COMMUNITY WORK PLACEMENTS SCHEME

That this House is appalled that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) appears to have no proper oversight or monitoring of the Community Work Placements scheme and is unable to provide the most basic information about it; points out that the programme is a mandatory one which forces unemployed people to take jobs, such as litter collecting, or lose their benefits; notes that the DWP has been unable to say how many people are on the scheme, what the breakdown by constituency is, or how many people have refused to participate and had their benefits cut; is shocked that six contracts to administer the scheme have been given to G4S, which was responsible for the security fiasco at the 2012 London Olympics; and demands that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions compiles forthwith a cost-benefit analysis and a human inventory of this costly and discriminatory scheme.