Civil servants union PCS yesterday condemned the latest attack on the unemployed by the Cameron-favoured right-wing Policy Exchange think-tank.
Following its latest study, the Policy Exchange called for job seekers to spend thirty-five hours a week looking for work or face losing benefits, and also for a return to a contributory welfare system.
A PCS spokesman told News Line: ‘It’s an absolute disgrace.
‘They should not be seeking to blame the unemployed for the economic crisis or their inability to find work.’
GMB union national industrial officer Sharon Holder said: ‘This is purely an ideological attack on ordinary people who would work if they could.
‘There are not the jobs out there that this government would have us believe.
‘The kind of jobs that are available, even at the level of cleaner, expect applicants to have an NVQ.’
The Policy Exchange claimed that ‘new polling shows voters support a radical new direction for the welfare state’.
Its report said that conditions on benefit claimants should be increased so that they have to spend more time each week looking for a job.
The study recommends that current work search requirements should be expanded ‘to make sure that claimants can stay in, or get into, the habits of a normal working lifestyle’.
The think-tank complained: ‘According to research from the Department for Work and Pensions, the average jobseeker currently spends just one hour a day looking for work.’
The Policy Exchange report ‘No rights without responsibility: rebalancing the welfare state’, also proposes ways to start ‘reintroducing the contributory principle into the benefit system’.
This would mean those who have paid in National Insurance contributions for longer would get treated more generously than those who have not.
The think-tank said: ‘At present, all claimants are able to turn down any job they do not want to do for at least the first three months of making a claim.
‘As a first step towards making national insurance contributions count again, the report suggests that only those who have paid into the system should enjoy this right.’
The report recommends that the government explores ‘moving towards personal welfare accounts, reflecting the value of people’s previous contributions’.
The study also argues that proper reform needs more than just a stress on ‘making work pay’ by allowing those on benefits to keep more money from part-time jobs.
‘Instead, greater emphasis on the responsibility to find a job whenever possible is also needed.’
The think-tank concluded: ‘To back these measures up, the report says there should be harsher sanctions, including the loss of cash benefits. . . ’
