What to do is not any easy question. I would agree a transitional period would help, but it still leaves the long term problem of low pay. A change to the tax credit and housing benefit regimes may help more, to take greater account of housing costs.

While greater training and support opportunities in some locales may help, my experience is that a lot of people are keen to work, but, particularly perhaps in London, simply can’t afford to. The supposed hordes of the determinedly work-shy don’t exist, although there are certainly a few like that. More worrying are those who have simply had no experience of work, for whom it is an unimaginable thing.

A combination of proper, long term support/training and benefit/tax credit reform is probably the best answer. Bullying people into employment is only a short term answer, usually with ‘unexpectedly’ bad consequences for those so pushed.

What, though, would you propose as a way of helping more social housing tenants back to work? For my part, leaving aside the a miraculous improvement in the administration of the DWP, I’ve wondered about allowing people a grace period during which they can work and remain on benefits in the first few months after getting a job, with the benefits gradually falling away.