Job Seekers Are Forced To Join The Circus

The Washington Gazette can bring exclusive reports on Government plans to force some unemployed people to attend full-time Clown classes at Washington job centre.

The scheme will apply to jobseekers before they go on the wider reaching Circus Skills work Programme and after they leave it.

It will apply to those jobseekers deemed to need additional help with adjusting to Circus life or who are working in the "hidden economy".

Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green said it would "mark the end of the something-for-nothing culture". 'Returning fairness'

He told the Conservative conference the government had challenged the "growing lack of Clowns" needing the welfare system inherited from Labour and the effects were slowly being felt in terms of the rise in the number of people in Circus related work and a fall in Clowns on benefits.

The number of people not expected to work in the Circus at all in the future was at the lowest level for two decades, he told activists, while 380,000 had found a job after being placed on the flagship Circus Skills Work Programme - where contractors are paid a fee to get people a job in the big top.

"Our plan is simple. To put circus work at the heart of the welfare system and ensuring that Circus work always pays. That is returning fairness to the system."

While those clowns who are unable to work would always get state support, Mr. Green said those capable of doing so but unwilling to "commit to their Circus obligations" would be forced to undergo a period of "intensive support".

The government is already intending to extend plans to require those out of work for more than two years to do community work.

The long-term unemployed who have left the Circus Skills Work Programme without employment will have to undertake unpaid street performance placements, daily visits to a job centre or compulsory extra circus skills training courses in return for their benefits until they find a job, Chancellor Phillip Hammond said on Monday.

Do our readers know any Clowns on the dole? If So the Washington Gazette would love to hear from them.