Tag Archives: The Void

Communities campaigning against welfare changes [The Void]

UPDATE (March 1 2012): I’ve collected any feeds available from the blogs below into this bundle which you can follow on Google Reader. The feeds are also aggregated on the new Help Me Investigate Welfare Facebook page.

More from the excellent blog The Void: this time a hugely comprehensive list of various communities that have largely formed in response to changes to the welfare system. I’ll try to summarise them in a list here – if anyone wants to compile a Google bundle, I’m sure a lot of people would be grateful (I’ll try to do it myself at some point): Continue reading Communities campaigning against welfare changes [The Void]

Now DWP FOI response on “mandatory” placements disappearing too? – link

screengrab of Google search for document

Following Friday’s post about work experience guidance being altered, The Void blog reports on more curiosities from the Google cache: this time, an FOI response from December which listed private companies taking part in the work experience scheme:

“The document could previously be found at: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/foi-3238-2011.pdf. Unfortunately it’s no longer there.  But that’s okay because good old google cache has a copy of this as well.

The FOI response – which can also be found here – describes the programme as “providing mandatory work placements”.

An older FOI response which lists the names of voluntary organisations taking jobseekers on work experience is still up.

Again, if anyone wants to get a response from the DWP, let me know in the comments.

‘Mandatory’ instruction removed from DWP Workfare document?

UPDATE (29 Feb 2012): Channel 4’s FactCheck have followed this up with a response from the DWP:

“A spokesman told FactCheck: “The changes to the website were just part of a regular update. We regularly revise documents for clarity purposes.”

“When pushed on whether that meant that the instruction to mandate participants is no longer government policy, she wasn’t able to provide any more “clarity” other than to say: “I’m not saying the advice is wrong.”

“That’s a bit of a problem, because if the advice ISN’T wrong, but HAS been taken down, doesn’t that mean that Work Programme providers are now in danger of breaking the rules on the National Minimum Wage Regulations, as the government took great pains to flag up originally in the missing paragraph?

“Confusion reigns, and despite repeated phone calls and several days to think about it, DWP has declined to clarify the situation.

“The spokesman did tell us that the apparently damning FoI answer had been taken down because it contained an error (“one of the names of the companies was wrong”).

“And the timing of all this was pure coincidence, the spokesman insisted.

“So a document emphasising the “mandatory” nature of Work Programme work experience happened to disappear from the department’s website just as the controversy over whether other schemes were mandatory was raging in the headlines.

“Or in any event, that’s DWP’s story and they’re sticking to it.”

Original post below

cached copy of DWP document: you must mandate participants

Anton, a commenter on The Void blog, has pointed out that government documents on the work experience programme have been altered recently to remove the instruction “you must mandate participants to this activity”.

A Google cache of the documents still contains the phrase (on page 4), whereas the version currently on the DWP site (PDF) does not. (Just in case that cache disappears, here’s a copy)

It’s a bit late in the evening to get a response from the DWP on this, but if anyone wants to ring on Monday morning, let us know.

Also on Brighter Future.

UPDATE: Mary Hamilton looks into the documents’ metadata and tells us the original version was “created/modified 17/08/2011. Changed version created/modified 24/02/2012.”