Work Programme

The Work Programme is a UK government welfare-to-work programme introduced in Great Britain in June 2011. It was the flagship welfare-to-work scheme of the 2010-2015 UK coalition government. Under the Work Programme the task of getting the long-term unemployed into work is outsourced to a range of public sector, private sector and third sector organisations. The scheme replaced a range of schemes which existed under previous New Labour governments including Employment Zones, New Deal, Flexible New Deal and the now abolished Future Jobs Fund scheme which aimed to tackle youth unemployment. Despite being the flagship welfare-to-work scheme of the Conservative-led coalition government, and then the incumbent Conservative government from May 2015, the DWP announced in November 2015 that it was replacing the Work Programme and Work Choice with a new Work and Health Programme for the longer-term unemployed and those with health conditions. The DWP also announced that it would not be renewing Mandatory Work Activity and Help to Work which included Community Work Placements.

DWP staff were notified that, as of February 2017, new referrals to The Work Programme are discontinued.

Individuals could be mandated to take part in the Work Programme if they were in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance or Employment Support Allowance:

Below is a list of providers under the Work Programme for each area of Britain. Note that these "primes" could sub-contract some cases to other providers.

Some criticisms of the Work Programme reflect a more explicitly political objection to what these critics view as workfare. John Downie of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Services argues that workfare is effectively a "handout to business" whereby taxpayers are subsidising the wage bill of the private sector. Downie also argues that the Work Programme exploited unemployed people desperately seeking work, and that it further provided a disincentive for employers to create jobs. The anti-workfare group Boycott Workfare makes similar arguments stating that workfare replaces jobs and undermines wages.

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