The government’s work experience scheme isn’t headed for the plug hole

Depending on which paper you read this morning, the government’s work experience scheme is either heading for the plug hole or going from strength to strength. The Guardian has an editorial praising Cait Reilly, the geology graduate who fought the workfare scheme she found herself on, The Telegraph says workfare can ‘still do the job for Britain’, and The Sun carries a bullish piece by Iain Duncan Smith on why the scheme is not ‘slave labour’.

The problem is that everyone has managed to interpret yesterday’s Court of Appeal judgement as favouring their own view of the scheme. Reilly emerged yesterday with her lawyer to claim victory, but the Work and Pensions department seemed relatively unperturbed, too. This case was well-known for the claim that putting people on jobseeker’s allowance on placements in Poundland was ‘forced labour’, so the assumption was that the government had lost the case on this point.