David Cameron wants jobless young adults to do charity work in return for benefits

PM wants jobless adults to do community work for benefits

Young jobless adults will have to do community work in return for their benefits from the day they sign on, if they have a previous history of being neither in work or higher education, David Cameron will announce tomorrow.

The sort of work the Conservatives see them doing is serving meals to the elderly, or doing shifts in charity shops.

They say it is a way of cracking some of the hardest cases for Job Centres – those who left school at 16 and have had no experience of work discipline. David Cameron has already committed the next Conservative government – if he gets back into power – to abolishing the Jobseekers’ Allowance for 18- to 21-year-olds, and replacing it with a ‘youth allowance’ that will last for a maximum of six months, after which claimants will have to undertake an apprenticeship or daily community work.

The plan takes the proposed Tory crackdown on youth unemployment further, by laying down that any 18- to 21-year-old who has been Neet (Not in Education, Employment or Training) for six months before claiming benefits would have to do community work to claim payment.