that I can agree with, she is getting benefit paid for by the state, Pounland pay nothing, to me, that's the real scandal.

Anyone who can work and is in receipt of benefits should, IMHO, be doing something to deserve them.

That's how it goes with badly written legislation and always should be.

Agreed, the best thing they can be doing is devoting 39 hours a week to finding employment to get them off benefits, not boosting the profits of retailers.

Employable is a very funny word.

I'd assume most would agree that volunteering in a museum requires more than working part time in a supermarket.

Lets have a look at one piece of experience you need to get a job at a supermarket: stacking shelves.

Well most people have stacked shelves in their lives when food shopping needs unpacking and putting into the cupboards, fridge and freezer. However working in a museum requires knowledge which normally comes from a university education which Cait Reilly has had.

more Damo nonsesne

I don't agree that [idevoting 39 hours a week to finding employment[/i is productive at all due to the lack of jobs that pay a living wage out there atm.

Lets look at the bigger picture. Ingeus (where I'm at) get paid millions to get the unemployed back into work and we all know [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/nov/27/data-work-programme-failureshow useless these companies are[/url!

Emma got a nice golden handshake mate, for making a sizable loss



[urlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9788801/A4es-Emma-Harrison-paid-1.5m-dividend-despite-pre-tax-loss.html[/url

Very unlikely she will be paying and pay related taxes if she is only working part time unless her hourly rate is huge!!

More drivel - so to stand on the door of a museum and show people where to go or working behind the counter of their shop needs a university education?

The point here is whether you think those on JSA are spending 39 hours a week looking for work. How can we possibly know?

Well a lot of bank managers just happen to get the same golden handshakes during the big losses and it's the same deal for these workfare companies. I had the misfortune of meeting a manager who works for Ingeus and he spent many years working for the financial sector before swapping jobs to exploit the unemployed.

Which is the major issue with taking the low paid out of tax all together, total disenfranchiseation of a whole section of society.



Sending them out to work for free isn't going to solve that.

If you put it that way then no you don't need a university education to do the tasks above. However customers visiting the museum will at least expect that the staff can engage in a intelligent conversation reguarding the content in the museum.

A couple of months ago I went to a local exhibition and one of the highlights was talking to the site manager who went through with me the history of sunny bank mills in Farsley. Yes whenever he went to university or not is irrelevant but these types of jobs can't just go to anybody unlike supermarket jobs. They is a difference.

Unfortunately, there are not a huge number of jobs around at present.

The only thing that my niece can get at present is part-time in an independent jewellery shop in Leeds – after becoming the first of our immediate family to get a degree.

In the case of this young woman, she has a geology degree and had organised work experience for herself, in a local museum. In other words, something that was relevant to her degree and her career hopes. That was stopped when she was told that she had to do WorkFare in Poundland. In other words, work experience had nothing to do with anything.

Her subsequent work for Morrisons illustrates two things: that she's employable and that she's not afraid to work.

at the risk of sparking an inter-personal (but not personal) argument, what is her degree in, and where from?

What a shame the Coalitions slave labour scheme has been scuppered

.

I wonder what will be the next Dickensian scheme they will try to implement.

Fine art from Leeds College of Art & Design, which has a very good track record on providing people for industries that require designers etc.

I couldn't give a fook if she'd never taken an exam in her life.
If the works there, the @rseholes should pay them the going rate.
End of!

Well that shows your ignorance of the jobs that are available in museums. Curators of various collections and so on are highly qualified people. There are other jobs in the educational departments of large museums that require specialist subject knowledge.

Sal Paradise - rlfans no. 1 philistine.

but they're not workshy freeloaders doing 16 hours a week at Morrisons, I am sure

Are suggesting working part time while volunteering elsewhere in order to further ones ambitions for a better career is work-shy and free-loading behaviour? Or is that kind of thing only acceptable for people from wealthy backgrounds funded by rich parents who can therefore afford to work for nothing as interns?

Social mobility? Obviously not allowed in Standee-land.

How is doing 16 hours at Morrisons workshy freeloading?



I understand that workers freeload on a number of things like staff toilets. Why bother using the toilets at home when you can use them at work? Might as well keep your own water bill down



Then of course there's the staff discounts you get for working in a supermarket. Some people work more hours for those discounts which is an outrage!

I'm not up to speed on this one, how does it work?

Do Poundland (etc) claim that they are taking on staff-for-free for positions that they otherwise would not fill? i.e., Extra staff just to give those staff work-experience?
If so, how is that verified?
Or do Poundland (etc) simply rotate staff that they get for free whilst the taxpayer picks up the bill?
If the latter, then IDS has a feckin nerve criticising tax credits (which IMHO should be reduced/abolished and a living wage introduced instead).

This one is not done and dusted. There is still the possibility of an appeal to the Supreme Court. Curious - should said girl lose in Supreme Court who will cover the Government's legal costs?

That regardless, this whole episode has probably done her career prospects no good. She will now be listed as a potential trouble causer who employers will probably choose to avoid.

Still, so long as Phil Shiner and his mates have made a few quid out of it job's a good 'un.

It's the latter though they may try and dress it up as the former. Poundland say that they have slots free to give the unemployed some work experience and the girl in question was given the job for two weeks. The Job Centre tells an unemployed person this opportunity has arisen and that they must accept the post or lose their job seekers allowance. Poundland doesn't pay the employee (or the government) a penny for the persons services.

The case of the older bloke is actually worse as that would have involved him working 30 hours a week for his £71 JSA for six months. Tax payer funded exploitation and nothing less.