BURY Council is to boycott the Government's controversial "work for your dole" scheme.

And local authority leaders are also telling their business partners to join them in kicking Project Work out of the borough.

Bury has been chosen to pilot the scheme, which is targeted at people aged 18-50 who have been unemployed for more than two years.

It offers six months' work experience and advice on finding a job. Those taking part will receive an extra £10, but anyone who refuses to join will have their benefits withdrawn.

Now councillors have made their opposition clear following a plea from Josh Walsh, from the Bury Unemployed Workers' Centre.

He told Monday's policy and resources meeting that Bury should have nothing to do with Project Work.

"This authority has been making workers redundant, and it would look very bad if it was then to take on conscript labour," said Mr Walsh, who recently led a protest through Bury wearing prison clothes and manacles.

"It would be anathema for the council to take on unemployed people like a chain gang, working for just their benefits."

Labour councillor Mike Connolly agreed, saying the scheme punished unemployed people and massaged the dole figures. He further proposed that the council should encourage everyone it deals with to refuse to take part in it either.

In Bury and in Bolton, which has also been chosen to pilot the scheme, there are 1,500 places available. Deputy council leader Derek Boden described Project Work as exploitation which also undermined the job market. Coun Boden said the scheme had not met its targets in areas where it has already been piloted: in fact, the reverse.

"People gaining permanent employment through this scheme is lower than those who were not on the scheme in the first place," he said.

The sole dissenting voice came from Tory group leader David Higgin.

"This is an attempt to do something for the long-term unemployed," he said.

"Maybe it's working, maybe it's not working, but to put it down saying it's a waste of time and space is not giving people a chance at all."

But council leader John Byrne said the council was not against genuine schemes which got people back to work and gave them real wages and training.

"The problem is that this is ill-conceived, like the Child Support Act," he said.

"The CSA was presented from the moral angle of making errant people pay, yet it was used to cut the benefit bill.

"Project Work is merely trying to get people off the unemployment register."

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