Scope: We can confirm that Scope pulled out of the Work Programme - TopicsExpress

Scope: We can confirm that Scope pulled out of the Work Programme last year and we are not involved in any form of mandatory work placements, including mandatory Work Experience. Scope offers volunteering opportunities through the Jobcentre Plus, but these are all non-mandatory. No one is forced to work in our shops. Hmm, I hate to sound cynical, but Im really not convinced by that at all. It is extremely ambiguous. As you may or may not know, so-called Work Experience is not *technically* ever mandatory, but it certainly involves compulsion - more or less. These schemes are all riven with interpretive tripwires designed to trip the unwary claimant, and the workfare variant aimed at youth, in particular is notorious for that. This sounds a lot like the evil twins of PR at work: ambiguity and technical pedantry. Since there is no such thing as mandatory work experience, and never has been, Scope can say that, and not *technically* be lying...but it is a very long way from anything like honestly presenting actual facts. Scope says they advertise in Job Centres...The whole way Work Experience operates, is for the Job Centre and/or third-party workfare provider to determine whether a claimant is engaging with their suggestion of volunteering...at a Scope charity scope for example. There is no way for Scope to actually withdraw from all forms of what is broadly called workfare, except by ceasing to advertise in Job Centres, since the volunteers are really anything but, and do not get the option to decline. An offer you cant refuse, is no offer at all, and that is embedded in all variants of workfare, and indeed the punitive benefits system. The supposed non-mandatory nature of different versions of workfare - including so-called Work Experience, is supposed to be apparent through lots of positive thinking self-help mantras, and fake smiles and first names, to coat in saccharine the bitter pill of *compulsion* this remains. Allowing claimants to choose which charity they are sent to *as a condition of still being able to sign on*, and *not face sanction* is like allowing those condemned to death to choose the form of their own execution. Workfare uses a certain form of ambiguity in a similar way to get-rich-quick scams: the person suckered by paying for insider business advice, complains that theyre actually poorer than they were before, and the entrepreneur can just say they didnt follow the advice properly...alternatively, for the New Agier sort of advice, its lack of delivering results can be explained as the suckered persons negativity holding holding them back. The DWP is well into positive thinking garbage, as is the lucrative workfare industry, because it goes very well with trying to veil the real nature of what both do. Scope has no need at all for supposed volunteers who are anything but, so a statement confirming the organisation has withdrawn from Work Experience too, i.e. it no longer advertises volunteer; vacancies in Job Centres, would be very welcome - thanks.