They have to voluntarily agree to it? - sheesh ....

You have to feel sorry for hard pressed hard working well intentioned ministers sometimes, especially those at the Department for Work and Pensions.

On Friday 31st May the DWP issued a Press Release under the heading Government announces details of post Work Programme support detailing new measures being introduced by the department for the handling of “people not in sustained work after completing their 2 years on the Work Programme.”    

Yes, difficult to believe as it may be the DWP has recognised that as the Work Programme approaches its second birthday there are people who have been on it for 2 years and will be coming off it still no nearer to finding work thanks to the expert assistance of their WP Prime provider and their sub-contract holders at the end of those 2 years than they were on their first day on the programme.   So “something must be done”.

Cue announcement of new “tough love” policy whereby  “Work Programme leavers will be targeted by a hit squad of specialist advisers as part of a tough approach to get them into a job.” And even more surprising those specialist advisers “will be based in individual Jobcentres.”

As part of the “tough love” process the Press Release explained “Every Work Programme returner will also be required to register with Universal Jobmatch to aid work search and job matching and to allow their adviser to check their work search activity online.”

Unfortunately for the DWP and its ministers that actually implied something that as things stand, the DWP can’t do – compel “clients” to “allow their adviser to check their work search activity online.”   Luckily, someone at the DWP remembered this over the weekend and on Monday 3^rd June the DWP issued an updated version of the 31^st May Press Release, Government announces details of post Work Programme support which was identical to the original in every respect bar one.   That all important sentence about Universal JobMatch now ran to a few more words –

"Every Work Programme returner will also be required to register with Universal Jobmatch to aid work search and job matching. This will allow their adviser to check their work search activity online should the claimant give permission."