Single parents forced to hunt jobs

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Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper said that she was changing regulations to enable them to find work which fits around school times.

But single parents' campaign group Gingerbread accused the Government of failing to provide the necessary support to help them find work.

From Monday, lone parents whose youngest children are aged 10 or 11 will be switched from Income Support to the tougher Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), which is paid at the same rate but requires them to attend fortnightly JobCentre interviews and show that they have applied for jobs or lose benefits.

Parents of children aged 12 or older were switched on to JSA last year, and the change will be extended to all single parents with children aged seven or over in October next year.

Plans to remove 300,000 lone parents from Income Support were announced in 2007 as part of a drive to achieve an 80% employment rate, which some critics say is no longer a feasible goal in the light of rising joblessness caused by the recession.

The Department for Work and Pensions promised then that the increased obligations to look for work would be matched by "personalised help and support", with greater flexibility for JobCentre staff to respond to individual circumstances.

But Gingerbread released a report suggesting that the lone parents who moved on to JSA a year ago did not get the support they needed.

Many did not get the meetings with a New Deal adviser to which they are entitled, said the charity. And others felt under pressure to find work and demoralised by repeated rejections.

In-depth interviews with 34 parents who switched to JSA in 2008 found widely varying experiences of job-hunting support, with some reporting only hurried fortnightly sign-on appointments and others complaining they had been offered inappropriate training courses.