THE latest pilots announced yesterday, Monday February 27, sum up everything that is wrong with this government’s vision of the benefits system. Publicly declaring their desire to help the most vulnerable to find much-needed work, while in reality imposing something very different: mandating some of the poorest in society to take part in a quick-fix scheme that will do little to help them secure work.

The truth is laid bare in the department’s own analysis, which confirms a likely risk of sanction for claimants who don’t comply with the mandatory ask placed upon them.

There is a mass of historical evidence that shows the threat of sanctions does nothing to help claimants find work, yet the Tories are hell-bent on keeping the threat, which all too often leads to the most vulnerable losing their benefits, as a key plank of their punitive regime. The threat of poverty to force people into often poorly paid and precarious work will never be something PCS can support and nor should it be acceptable to anyone in our movement.