It’s rare that something comes along which can be described as truly Orwellian, but this government hasn’t disappointed. The sheer desperation of Chris Grayling can be revealed in this document, which is the providers guidance for the Work Programme workfare scheme. As mentioned recently, this document contains the pronouncement that:

“Where you are providing support for JSA participants, which is work experience you must mandate participants to this activity. This is to avoid the National Minimum Wage Regulations, which will apply if JSA participants are not mandated.”

Which can be seen in this screenshot:

Unfortunately for the DWP this is from google cache, something their no doubt highly skilled IT professionals presumably haven’t heard of. It can be viewed here.

Unfortunately it can no longer be viewed on the DWP’s website, as that particular phrase, which proves Chris Grayling was a lying bastard when he claimed there was no mandatory workfare in the Work Programme, appears to have disappeared: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/wp-pg-chapter-3.pdf

Truly desperate stuff from a truly desperate government. Not content with lying through their teeth about workfare, it now seems that Chris Grayling and Iain Duncan Smith are attempting to rewrite government documents to cover up their fibs.

Perhaps the DWP got hacked by the Socialist Worker Party along with Grayling’s email account.

Many thanks to Anton in the comments for spotting this.

UPDATE: More evidence of ministers fibbing at: https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/the-case-of-the-disappearing-workfare-documents/

ANOTHER UPDATE: Now it’s Freedom of Information responses vanishing from the DWP’s website: https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/yet-more-disappearing-dwp-documents-now-its-a-freedom-of-information-request/

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