Observations are secondary to factual evidence, which says that New Deal is limited to ineffective in converting the unemployed to employed. However, this is what I saw whilst I was there.

• Rules applied to you vary depending on who you are and your circumstances.

If you have a contract with the DWP to participate in New Deal, you will comply or be subject to sanction and possibly legal action, but if you are the provider Pertemps compliance is optional and being paid for services that you don't provide is acceptable.

• Questionable work ethic .

  If you are hard working, conscientious, professional, interested in removing inefficiencies, not frightened to challenge authority and very concerned for your client's welfare, you are in a minority and are likely to be ignored or vehemently opposed.

• Intensive job search is not an effective use of your time.

  Bear in mind that you can spend weeks on end five days a week doing this activity under the Pertemps New Deal regime. I did only three weeks, so I was lucky. In reality it is a junk mail, unsolicited phone call and spam email programme. Do you know what I do when I receive these? Dispose of them immediately. You can bet that if I find these things to be an unwanted nuisance, other people do too. Here is an example of how useful it is. This is a response from Pertemps to a speculative job enquiry I made to them, after all it is difficult to resist trying out the very techniques they advocate on them:

Mark
Unfortunately there are currently no vacancies in the Kidderminster PEA office but should this situation change we advertise vacancies in the local media. I would like to thank you for the interest shown in Pertemps Employment Alliance and wish you luck with your job search. Regards
Keeley

So Pertemps are saying that the only way to apply for a job is to wait to see an advertised vacancy, so what they tell you about speculative applications is, according to them, redundant.

• Outcome is either positive or negative with no middle ground i.e. job or no job.

Although you might argue that it is theoretically useful to be able to put on applications forms the new references and work experience that you might be able to receive on New Deal, it is only so if you get a job out of it, which has already been established as pushing the bounds of reality. I am of the opinion that being jobless with these things is exactly the same thing as being jobless without them, except the latter saves the state several million pounds.