The Observer | Jobless single parents to face benefit cuts

[Article by Gaby Hinsliff, political editor, Sunday March 4, 2007 The Observer]

Although single mothers are offered benefits until their youngest child reaches age 16, in recent years some 3/4 of them have sought paid employment nonetheless. New government plans will reduce the benefit to include only those single mothers whose youngest child is age 11, an act which will force unemployed single mothers of 11 to 15-year-olds into employment.

Perhaps even more radically, the government will soon propose a privatisation scheme in which the welfare-to-work programme will be driven by private companies to whom the government will award bounties according to the number of benefit recipients they shift into the workforce, regardless of why the recipients received benefits in the first case (i.e. lone motherhood, demonstrated incapacity to work, etc.)