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Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal DemocratsRepresenting Aberavon, Bridgend, Gower, Neath, Ogmore, Port Talbot, and Swansea |
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New Deal not such a big deal, says Aberavon Liberal Democrat activist
August 1, 2007 8:27 PM
Frank Little, Liberal Democrat candidate in this year's Welsh general election, said that he was saddened, but not surprised by the revelation that a quarter of all participants on Labour's flagship welfare-to-work programme have been through the scheme more than once.
Official figures recently obtained by the LibDem parliamentary team show that nearly 800,000 of the New Deal's 2,931,130 participants have started the scheme more than once, with each participant costing the taxpayer up to £1,289.
Over 170,000 people have started the scheme three times.
The New Deal was Labour's flagship scheme to reduce long-term unemployment, especially amongst young people. Every person returning to the scheme represents a failure of the scheme to find long term employment for that participant.
Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Danny Alexander MP said:
"For too many people the New Deal is no deal at all.
"The sheer number of people repeatedly entering this merry-go-round system is clear evidence that the New Deal is not fit for purpose.
"This bureaucratic and overly centralised system has been failing the unemployed for ten years, consistently delivering the wrong help to the wrong people at the wrong time.
"Ultimately those who pay the price are the hundreds of thousands people desperate to get back to work, but unable to do so because of the failures of the New Deal.
"Evidence from across the world has shown that the private and voluntary sectors succeed where the state fails in getting people back into work.
"It is high time we scrapped the New Deal, replaced Jobcentre Plus and gave voluntary and private organisations the long term funding to get the job done."
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