The New Deal for Lone Parents.

The objective of the NDLP programme, according to the government, is for lone parents to be offered advice by the Jobcentre Plus to develop a package of job search, training and after-school care to help them off benefit and into work. The service is delivered through jobcentres, with personal advisers offering a tailored package of advice and support to meet the needs of individual lone parents. The programme is aimed at all lone parents over …

…through the NDPL have stated their intent to treat unemployed single parents as a social problem that needs to be dealt with. The most practical approach would to learn from the evidence of the failure of the New Deal and construct a better alternative. But unfortunately, as highlighted by Willetts and Hillman, the desire of ministers to claim every policy as a total success means they cannot acknowledge the problems and try and tackle them.