I'm getting a lot of reading done, however I can't really think of this as a good thing.
In May this year, I found myself back among the ranks of the unemployed.
A few months later and I was transferred onto the so-called Workfare scheme. In case you don't know about it, this is the privately run scheme that exists, ostensibly, to get people back to work.
Let me get things straight, it exists to get people off benefits, and if you think these are one and the same, you may be in for a shock.
The main tool used to reduce the number of people on this scheme is called "sanctioning" which doesn't sound so bad. Until you know what it entails. Sanctioning means that you loose your benefits for a specific period of time (both housing and unemployment benefits). Essentially, you have no means of support for however long they decide is appropriate. Need to pay rent or buy food? Hard luck. So, you either jump as high as the government sanctioned private company says, or become homeless. And what do they say you have to do? Full time work (usually at a compliant charity, that way you can't complain that you are taking up a real job). I have heard rumours that the charities are paid for every placement they provide, tho I have no proof of this. I wouldn't be at all surprised.
Boiling it right down, we are looking at state funded slavery, only missing the physical torture.
Also of interest is the fact that this scheme costs the taxpayers considerably more than simply paying benefits. The scheme has to pay for travel (I was sent from Cambridge to Kings Lynn four days per week for a month for my placement until the place was shut down due to health and safety concerns that had been brushed under the carpet for months).
So, when David Cameron complains about the cost of benefits to the UK economy, keep in mind, he is actively jacking up those costs.
And the reading? As I am still on placement but they haven't actually found me anywhere to go, I have to sit in an airless office all day doing "jobsearch" which even the employees here admit will only take up a couple of hours a day, so the rest of the time I read.
