A look back at "New Deal"
Government claims
The government makes various claims about New Deal, sometimes referring to "the New Deals". The differences relate to variations that apply to different age groups of unemployed people (young people, 25+, 50+) and other categories of benefit claimants (lone parents, disabled people, partners of some types of benefit claimants), but even the government acknowledges that a lot of the details are the same. The most significant difference is that some versions are voluntary while others (including all those for the unemployed) are compulsory, and that placement lengths also vary.
Let's take a look back at these claims. I've lifted various quotes from the web page, but to avoid confusion, I've converted references to "the New Deals" to New Deal. Actually, there's a lot of other stuff in there that I could respond to, but some of it is rather repetitive. I think I've picked out the key points, but you can take a look back at these claims for yourself if you wish.
New Deal was both a statement of our values and a key part of our economic strategy.
Look at the state of the economy now. Even I wouldn't try to blame it all on New Deal, but it certainly didn't help me to find work. Indeed, it hampered my attempts.
Bringing in New Deal was hard work. Many opposed it then - and still oppose it - believing that the answer to people being out of work is to neglect them.
Actually, my reason for opposing it is because it's the worst of all options. I would have had a better chance of finding work if I had been left to my own devices - neglected, if you like. The problem is that an effective package of help would cost an absolute fortune. Expensive as it turned out to be, New Deal was a cheap option and deserved to fail.
Over its 10 years, more than 1.8 million people have been helped into jobs by New Deal.
I don't know anybody who believes this figure. I wonder how it was arrived at.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Britain was blighted by mass unemployment. Twice unemployment exceeded three million.
The third time looked like coming in 2010, but partly due to increased part-time working, and also partly due to lots of unemployed people not being counted as such, that didn't happen. The outgoing government had taken various measures to keep the numbers artificially low, such as keeping students in education for an extra year, but we're not fooled.
Features of the old "New Deal"
The central role of the personal adviser
None of them have ever helped me in any way. They don't know what to say to an ex-computer programmer, Some of them don't accept that employers won't offer me low-grade jobs. Others recognise the problem but don't have any good answers to it.
An emphasis on the needs of the individual. Every individual is different. New Deal allows those out of work to take a new look at their own personal situation, and to take the skills and experience that they may have already and build on them to create better opportunities for work.
If this was the intention, it didn't work out that way.
Partnership between the public, private and voluntary sectors.
Definitely not a marriage made in heaven.
Personal advisers help to motivate and raise the expectations of the individual.
If anything, they did the opposite.
But in return for the help and support provided through New Deal, and the financial support provided through the benefit system, society has a legitimate expectation that participants will make their own best efforts to get and keep a job.
I could have made better efforts if I'd been left to my own devices - neglected by the so-called personal advisors who proved manifestly incapable of offering useful advice.
A key feature of New Deal has always been to work closely with employers, helping our customers get the jobs they want at the same time as helping employers get the workers they need.
In that case, why is employer hostility to unemployed people so entrenched? Maybe a few sympathetic employers took part in the scheme, but from what I've seen, most employers steered clear, leaving New Deal to the charities.
New Deal has been the most successful innovation in the history of the UK labour market. In the last decade, New Deal has helped more than 1.85 million people into work.
Again, that unbelievable and mythical 1.85 million figure.
Overall, employment is at record levels and the total number of people on key out-of-work benefits has fallen by a million since 1997.
Even if that were true at the time, a lot has changed since then.
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