The government’s Work Programme, launched in 2011 to help long-term unemployed people into work, has been widely condemned in the media. It has been portrayed alternately as greedy, cruel or incompetent, and sometimes all three.
Yet one of these providers, Ingeus, helped me. Many journalists, who have no experience of such places, have maligned this scheme as well as others. This infuriates me. How dare they dismiss as a failure the scheme which saved me and many others (Ingeus has helped 215,000 into work) from long-term unemployment, benefits and the dismalness that entails?
Following a nine-month period on Jobseeker’s Allowance I was referred to Ingeus in 2011. As well as claiming JSA I volunteered at an arts cafe in return for a meal at the end of each shift. I had worked as a waitress during long university summers, and had envisioned it being easy to get similar jobs after leaving full-time education.
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