Dear St John Ambulance, It was a real surprise and - TopicsExpress

Dear St John Ambulance, It was a real surprise and disappointment, to discover your involvement in workfare, specifically, the version known as the so-called Work Programme. Im referring to your listing in the DWP document Work Programme Supply Chains, as a partner organisation of workfare profiteers, A4e, on page 25 under CPA9 South East - Thames Valley and Hampshire and Isle of Wight, Voluntary Sector T2. No one is calling into question the excellent and life-saving work you do, but it is odd, as a *voluntary* organisation, to be involved with something that really is anything but. Workfare is an umbrella term, used to refer to any scheme with an element of compulsion, and the so-called Work Programme certainly has that. More or less. Were a claimant to decline the offer of volunteering, the workfare broker, and Job Centre are left to decide whether or not that counts as engaging, and if the claimant is not felt to be doing as much, they can and very likely will be sanctioned by the Job Centre, for refusing the help that is offered. Once again, an offer you cant refuse, is no offer at all. So far, *28* big name companies and charities have ended their involvement with this tawdry sham, which allows the DWP to cook the ONS statistical books, by no longer counting those forced to be involved in unemployment figures. So it can *appear* as if the numbers for unemployment have fallen, when they havent at all, and are indeed far higher than is ever officially claimed: a modest estimate being something like 2.8 million. Please end your involvement in this cynical nonsense, that does nothing at all for anyone, besides the DWP, and the lucrative workfare industry; in this case, the ludicrous A4e - thank you.