A unanimous verdict at the Supreme Court has judged that the workfare schemes in the Cait Reilly case were illegal.
This follows the DWP’s appeal after a lower court had found that the almost all the Government’s workfare schemes were illegal. Iain Duncan Smith was forced to rewrite the law after this judgement retrospectively making these schemes legal.
That will not be overturned by today’s judgement, although a Judicial Review has been launched by lawyers questioning the legality of this decision.
The judgement can be read at:
http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/decided-cases/docs/UKSC_2013_0064_PressSummary.pdf
When Iain Duncan Smith rewrote the law on workfare he did not include the Community Action Programme. This was the six month period of workfare on which George Osborne’s mass workfare scheme announced at the Tory Party conference is based. It is hard to see how this scheme, which is due to begin in April next year, is now legal unless it is placed before Parliament.
