Jobs and Welfare

The Government believes that we need to encourage responsibility and fairness in the welfare system. That means providing help for those who cannot work, training and targeted support for those looking for work, but sanctions for those who turn down reasonable offers of work or training.

• We will end all existing welfare to work programmes and create a single welfare to work programme to help all unemployed people get back into work.
• We will ensure that Jobseeker's Allowance claimants facing the most significant barriers to work are referred to the new welfare to work programme immediately.
• We will ensure that receipt of benefits for those able to work is conditional on their willingness to work.
• We support the National Minimum Wage because of the protection it gives low income workers and the incentives to work it provides.
• We will re-assess all current claimants of Incapacity Benefit for their readiness to work.
• We will support would-be entrepreneurs through a new programme - Work for Yourself - which will give the unemployed access to business mentors and start-up loans.
• We will develop local Work Clubs - places where unemployed people can gather to exchange skills, find opportunities, make contacts and provide mutual support.
• We will investigate how to simplify the benefit system in order to improve incentives to work.

Social Care and Disability

The Government believes that people needing care deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We understand the urgency of reforming the system of social care to provide much more control to individuals and their carers, and to ease the cost burden that they and their families face.

• We will establish a commission on long-term care, to report within a year. The commission will consider a range of ideas, including both a voluntary insurance scheme to protect the assets of those who go into residential care, and a partnership scheme as proposed by Derek Wanless.
• We will break down barriers between health and social care funding to incentivise preventative action.
• We will extend the greater roll-out of personal budgets to give people and their carers more control and purchasing power.
• We will reform Access to Work, so disabled people can apply for jobs with funding already secured for any adaptations and equipment they will need.