'Suspend millionaire back to work tsar': MPs demand Cameron acts after police probe job placements t

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6. A4e compelled jobseekers to work unpaid in its own offices

The company at the centre of a police investigation into an alleged abuse of government back-to-work contracts compelled jobseekers to work unpaid in its own offices for at least a month at a time, the Guardian can reveal.

In response to a freedom of information request about the company last year, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed that A4e sent jobseekers it was meant to be helping into employment to work in at least two of its own offices in an apparent conflict of interest.

The placements, part of Labour's Flexible New Deal scheme, were mandatory and are understood to have lasted for four weeks. Those on benefits were, in effect, forced to work for free for the company or have their benefits stripped.

The DWP's list of placements from just one of A4e's offices in Holloway, north London, shows that it sent the unemployed to work at two of its other London offices in Camden and Woolwich. The document also contains a third reference to work in an A4e office.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/22/a4e-compelled-jobseekers-unpaid-offices