Liam's "rescue plans"

As well as discussing his recently published book on China, in an interview with the House Magazine Liam Byrne finds time to unveil some current labour thinking and his forward planning for 2015 :- Byrne After Reading

Byrne praises fellow Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who wrote recently of the need to admit that some people on the dole were ‘swinging the lead’ and some having children to maximise their benefits. 

“Simon Danczuk cut right through by giving a very honest and candid account not only of his own upbringing but what he sees in Rochdale. I represent the constituency in Britain, Hodge Hill up there [he points at a map on his wall], with the second highest unemployment in the country. All of our work in the constituency is in one way or another about getting people back to work.

“So what we see clearly is that there are a tiny minority who could be doing more and need to be confronted with some tough choices but there are far more people desperate for work, hungry for work and just shut out and let down by the system.”

And later, after a brief exposition of the present travails of Universal Credit and how Labour will sort those out :-

Byrne reveals he’s also looking at how to ‘rescue’ another flagship IDS project.

“We are doing work on the Work Programme 2.0 now. We have just sent quite a big document out to Labour local government over the last couple of weeks asking them for their views on how we radically localise DWP, based on a lot of research we have done in Canada and Germany over the last few months. In Canada and Germany and Australia you have got back-to-work programmes which are far more localised and we think that’s a good idea. We want to get inside how do we do that in Britain.”

But IDS believes in localism doesn’t he? “When he made his first speeches in Easterhouse, that’s precisely what he said. He then drew up one of the most Stalinist contracts that we’ve got in central government. People in local government are getting tired of it now. Let’s think about how we put schools, colleges, universities, councils and DWP on one team making a difference on the ground.”

Would that involve private sector too? “Definitely, definitely. We have great relationships with the welfare to work industry, who are also frustrated. A lot of them are thinking of not re-competing for the Work Programme because it has just not worked. The point is we are getting into a lot of those detailed planning discussions now. We are determined to be ready for government.”

"Just not worked" - that couldn't possibly be "hasn't seen them collar as much in sustainment payments for finding people 'long term work' because, er, they found hardly anyone 'sustained work'", could it?  

As we know from elsewhere Labour's "big idea" is the Compulsory Jobs Guarantee, whereby the taxpayer will 100% subsidise 25 hours work a week for 26 weeks for the "long term unemployed", who will have to take whatever position under this scheme they are offered, or lose entitlement to benefits.  And Liam appears to have confirmed that ERSA and its members will have a hand, and a stake, and we must assume a much better potential profit from being part of it.