Public and Commercial Services Union
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Union Publishes Critique Of Welfare Reform Plans
The union yesterday published a highly critical response to the Freud Report on welfare reform which proposed the privatisation of employment service for the long term unemployed. The publication comes on the same day as a parliamentary seminar on the topic organised by the union.
Warning of a dogmatic hostility to publicly provided services, the union maintains that the Freud Report offers little evidence of the ability of the private and voluntary sectors to outperform public sector agencies such as Jobcentre Plus in getting the long term unemployed back to work.
With the Freud report lauding the success of initiatives mostly run by Jobcentre Plus, including Action Teams, the New Deal and Pathways to Work, the union maintains that the report fails to explain why employment services to the most disadvantaged groups should be provided by private or charitable providers.
The union also warned that proposals for contractors to be paid by results could act as an incentive for providers to concentrate on more job ready clients, whilst ignoring those with more intractable problems.
The Freud proposals come at a time when PCS members are gearing up for a one day stoppage on 1 May in a dispute over, jobs, services, pay and privatisation.
Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: "The public sector consistently outperform the private sector when given a level playing field with the same flexibilities and funding. It is becoming increasingly clear that these proposals are about creating markets at any cost with little thought of the quality of services that the long term unemployed receive. Helping the long term unemployed has already suffered with the highly successful Action Team for jobs axed as part of the dash to cut jobs and costs. We are for better public services, which is why the government should be giving dedicated public servants the resources and flexibility rather than lining the pockets of shareholders and why PCS members will be walking out on 1st of May."
Read the report here: http://www.pcs.org.uk/shared_asp_files/GFSR.asp?NodeID=910950
