welfare to work programmes to be cut back?

Reports today that the govt is planning to ‘tear up’ its contracts with private “welfare to work” contractors and/or ‘slash funding’ for back to work programmes

Ministers are set to slash funding for programmes to help the long-term unemployed, sharply reducing the role of private companies in delivering “welfare to work” programmes.

More than £2bn was paid out to work programme providers in the four years from 2011. However, under a successor programme, due to get under way next year, just £130m a year is guaranteed to be spent on outsourced support for the unemployed by 2020.

Funding will in future largely be earmarked for disabled people, or those with other health problems, who have fared poorly under the current work programme.

https://next.ft.com/content/d0c75710-c11b-11e5-846f-79b0e3d20eaf

Stephen Crabb, the new work and pensions secretary, is seeking to tear up government contracts with private “welfare to work” contractors as part of a radical overhaul of Iain Duncan Smith’s benefits revolution.

In the first sign that Crabb will make changes to the government’s flagship reforms, he held a crisis meeting about the troubled universal credit on Thursday and ordered officials to come clean with him and the public about the problems.

Whitehall sources say one of Crabb’s first moves will be to “get out of” problematic government contracts.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/article1684378.ece

NB: the FT articles says that a white paper will be published after the EU referendum in June.