Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

By Tom McTague

'Catastrophic' back-to-work scheme for families gets just 720 people back to work - out of 88,000
3 Dec 2013 07:00

Bungling ministers spent almost £8million trying to find people from the nation's most troubled families a job

A flagship back-to-work scheme for troubled families has been dismissed as a “catastrophe” after a Government watchdog savaged its failings.

Bungling ministers spent almost £8million trying to find 88,000 people from these families a job - but managed to get just 720 off the dole.

This left taxpayers with a £10,000 bill for each person helped into work on Iain Duncan Smith’s scheme.

The Work and Pensions Secretary had set a target of getting 19,832 on the scheme into work.

But a damning National Audit Office report found the “families with multiple problems” programme was missing this target by 96%.

Under the scheme the Government pays private companies to get those from troubled families off benefits.

But Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of Whitehall’s Public and Commercial Services union, said the poor results also showed that giving work to private firms was “fantastically misguided”.

He said: “It’s difficult to see the DWP programme as anything other than a catastrophe for the vulnerable families who deserve our help but are being let down.

“First with the work programme and now this, private companies are proving themselves incapable of providing the kind of complex, dedicated support necessary, despite the hundreds of millions of pounds of public money being funnelled their way.”

The Government has estimated that troubled families cost taxpayers around £9billion a year.

Some £1billion a year is spent tackling mental health and drug abuse - and a further £8billion on social care, crime fighting and court costs.

Alongside Mr Duncan Smith’s failing scheme to help these families into work, the Department for Communities and Local Government has set up a separate programme to turn around their lives in other ways.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles launched his “troubled families” programme at the same time as Mr Duncan Smith - with a budget of £448million.

But the National Audit Office said both schemes - designed to help 120,000 families in England - were underperforming.

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: “These innovative and ambitious programmes are beginning to provide some benefits but elements of both are underperforming.

“This is the result of poor co-ordination between the departments when designing and implementing their programmes and of the risks taken in launching the programmes quickly.”



Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/back-to-work-scheme-families-multiple-problems-2877384#ixzz2mUXiMpUo
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Please sign the Petition......

Parliament: Debate UK hunger and rise in foodbank use #jackspetition

Petition by
Jack Monroe
Southend-on-Sea, United Kingdom

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/parliament-debate-uk-hunger-and-rise-in-foodbank-use-jackspetition

There's nothing wrong with private companies providing services to the gov back to work scheme.

The problem is in the "non performance" of these companies.

Whoever awarded these contracts should be sacked and have their gold plated pensions cancelled.

I D SMITH for the chop then.

here here.

yep, smiffy and the crew behind him.

Cant stand her from Liverpool, that blonde bird.

I was thinking the civil servants who put the package toghether, you know, the ones with Rolls Royce brains.

GF,

She is a cheese grater.


=


MaxK - 04 Dec 2013 08:34 - 33596 of 33599

There's nothing wrong with private companies providing services to the gov back to work scheme.

The problem is in the "non performance" of these companies.

Whoever awarded these contracts should be sacked and have their gold plated pensions cancelled.

========

The same could have been applied to many of the state owned enterprises.

Royal Mail.

Making a profit for friends in the city!!!!

--------

What is the National Debt at the moment?

Fuck off Fred! Knobhead, you were quick enough to make a few bob yourself on RMG shares. Sour grapes cause you sold too soon? Hypocrite!

Chris

" Fuck off Fred! Knobhead "

That's a good summing up of what 95 % of poster's on here think of him apart from goldfinger and Stan [ 5% ] ?

Chris

Try playing 30 minute games, i notice that when am playing even short games of 15 minutes, that when your opponet gets in trouble they dissconet from the game to go on chat to get help from their friends or a chess computer.

ald - Not cricket eh, no it's chess :O) Those guys must be pretty sad to cheat at chess. Bit like golfers who cheat, at the end of the day only cheating themselves.

Chris have you got your rubber kecks on ready for tonight. Reckon 3-0 to UTD.

OUR Davey has got your lot mapped out and frightened.

Ill be thinking of you when Im eating my prawn sannys in the box. he he.

gf - Bring it on! I do hope dithering davie "THE CHOSEN ONE" plays Fellaini and Ferdinand 2 fuck ups in one :O) Seriously mate big game for both teams a disgrace it's not live! In Martinez we trust! If Van Persie plays I would be concerned (slightly). Noticed the Moysiah is a bit concerned about the reaction to him from the Everton fans. All I can say to him is RELY ON IT! May the best team on the night win (as long as they are in blue) Will be listening intently to the commentary on Radio 5 Live and the chant I'm looking forward to is "Moyesy, Moyesy what's the score Moyesy what's the score?" 50,000 plastic mancs choking on their prawn sarnies! :O)

Chris, hes gone up a level as our Davey since he joined, learned all the new tricks in the book.

You watch when they come down tunnel for kick off he'l go over to Barklay and ask him for his autograph, dope wont realise hes signed up for us in January, he he LOL.

M A N ..... U T D..... manunited football team. M A N.... U T D..... manunited football team.

United cha cha United cha cha.

Clegg won PMQ by a mile , outclassed Labour. That question by one of the tory back benches on Europe was funny and clever .

Labour looked like idiots as usual.

you have to wonder where all these would be £100k+ a year people are coming from.




London's population boom means housing an extra borough every three years


As nine million people are set to call London home by 2019, the race is on to provide the 400,000 new homes and transport upgrades that will be needed.

David Spittles


06 November 2013


* The popular suburbs are where the population is predicted to grow

* Transport for London is set to gain more control of suburban commuter routes, from Liverpool Street through east London to Stansted airport and Cambridge, taking in Hertfordshire commuter towns such as Bishop’s Stortford and Cheshunt.

* 23 train stations will be upgraded. Areas and new developments to benefit include The Mission in Hackney Wick;Stanmore Place near Canons Park; Kidbrooke Village in Kidbrooke and London Square in Ruislip


London’s population jumped by more than 100,000 last year to a new postwar high, and at the current rate of increase the capital will grow by the equivalent of an extra borough every three years, hitting a total of nine million people by 2019, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

As a result the city needs a more extensive transport network for commuters, says London Mayor Boris Johnson, and 400,000 new homes over the next 10 years.

The popular suburbs are where the population is predicted to grow. After past flirtations with locating offices out of town, the mood is now for commerce to cluster in the centre of the capital, though this will inevitably put extra strain on the transport system. So London will not just have more people — predicted eventually to reach 10 million by 2030 — it will have more people travelling longer distances to work.

Private car use in London is falling, while journeys by Tube and bus are soaring. Once-quiet public transport routes are crammed, with 3.7 million people using the Tube each day. The Docklands Light Railway carries 100 million passengers a year, up from 66 million in 2008, while the recently completed East London line is already feeling the strain — though its capacity is being boosted by 25 per cent.


more property pumping here: http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/new-homes/londons-population-boom-means-housing-extra-borough-every-three-years-0?utm_source=indy&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=article

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8938044.ece/ALTERNATES/w940/Letters-cartoon-20131114.jpg