Labour council attempts to cut out the middleman. Lobbyists for middleman v. unhappy.

That's what this story, which BobE spotted at the BBC, boils down to:

That's what this story, which BobE spotted at the BBC, boils down to:

A London council will offer jobs to people who are set to lose money as a result of the benefit changes.

Greenwich Council said hundreds will benefit from a £6m employment fund creating jobs like street cleaning, town centre management and recycling. The Labour-led council said it would be cheaper than supporting people if they lose their home but Tories said the money should go to the private sector.

Greenwich Council leader Chris Roberts said the two-year employment scheme was a result of these changes, adding that hundreds of families in the borough would benefit. On Monday, 31 people were due to be the first to start either full-time or part-time jobs...

But Conservative councillor Spencer Drury said private businesses could do with the support instead to allow them to provide better long-term employment. "We don't believe that getting people into public sector jobs is necessarily going to lead to private sector jobs," he said. "We're not sure this scheme can work effectively. We think you could end up working six months and then not get a job and you'll be back where you were at square one."

The whole thing is a scam of course, it is a question of which is the more efficient way of doing it...

The Tories in government like demonising the unemployed and they like giving money to their "private sector" mates. They can achieve both goals in one fell swoop by giving more money to welfare-to-work providers than they would have spent on unemployment benefit and they will accept any old back of a fag packet statistic from the self-same welfare-to-work providers to show that the scheme is a resounding success. Ultimately it's all non-jobs paid for by the taxpayer.

This particular Labour council has spotted a gap in the market. They will be losing some income (or incurring extra expenditure) if the central government cuts welfare payments (in particular Housing Benefit), but the council itself can masquerade as a welfare-to-work provider. So it can create its own non-jobs (street cleaning etc) and then pay people to do those non-jobs and then promptly dock the rent from the wages, thus reinstating the council's original shortfall out of a different pot of taxpayers' money.

The Tory councillors are deeply unhappy with this. They would rather follow Iain Duncan Smith's lead and pay that pot of taxpayers' finest over to "private sector" companies, who will no doubt set up proper accredited training schemes in "town centre management", book a few mugs on the courses, bank the signing on fee and bonus and then inform the course participants that they can "study from home" or something.