JOBLESS Scots will not be compelled to take part in training courses or volunteering in a major break with UK welfare rules following transfer of powers to Holyrood.

The use of benefit sanctions against those who fail to comply with preparation-for-work schemes will not be replaced when Scotland takes control of employability from this weekend.

Jamie Hepburn, the minister responsible for back-to-work schemes, said those who failed to comply with the new Scottish terms would simply lose their place to more motivated job-seekers.

However the minister for employment and training denied the benign approach would make the Scottish system a soft touch.

From April 1, when the Scottish Government will oversee employability, the Department for Work and Pensions has agreed with Scottish ministers that sanctions will not be deployed against people who fail to take part in back-to-work schemes or drop out of them.

Mr Hepburn said the DWP's previous approach had been overly punitive and added: "The evidence is punitive sanctions have long term negative consequences for people getting into employment. People worried and anxious under threat of benefit sanctions aren’t going to be able to concentrate on a programme designed to get them into work."

In cases where people did find work, he said, it was usually low paid and short-lived.

Addressing the public debate about so-called "welfare dependency", he said: "It may be that there cases where multiple generations of individuals or families have been on social security for a significant period of time. But my starting premise will never be that people are 'at it' and don’t want to work.

"My assumption would be that people are genuine and not trying to fiddle anything. If they disengage, we have to find out why, but ultimately the sanction is that if you aren't genuine, you don't get to maintain a place in the programme."

Swathes of people support sanctions, but Mr Hepburn said this was due to heated but often inaccurate media coverage.

"I am not naive," he said. "There is a large element of public opinion out there who would say sanctions are appropriate. That is inflamed by public discourse but the reality of the situation is that the proportion of benefits which are drawn down subject to abuse is positively minuscule - compared with, for example tax avoidance."

"People clearly shouldn’t be ripping off the benefit system, but I don't believe this will be soft touch."

The Scottish Government has introduced two new programmes: Work First which will help 3,300 unemployed people towards work, and Work Able which will do the same for 1,500 people with long term health conditions, at a combined cost of £9 million.

Mr Hepburn said the UK Government had slashed the funding for such work, resulting in the amount passed to Scotland being similarly reduced, from an estimated £54m to £10m. "If we had the equivalent to what they were spending before we could have shaped it differently," he said. "Expectations need to be realistic, given the funding settlement we've had."

As well as the two new programmes, after a transition period, from April 2018 there will be new employability schemes covering nine geographical areas of Scotland, including one supported business, which will be required to have 30 per cent or more of its workforce comprised of people with disabilities, or facing other barriers to work, at a combined cost of £96m. Bids are currently being sought for tenders to run these contracts.

Mr Hepburn insisted the schemes would be more effective, by engaging other public servies such as health, justice and social services in supporting job seekers. Meanwhile it is being made easier for social enterprises and charities to bid for contracts, partly through paying up front rather than only when jobs are found for people.

"Thee previous system priced many smaller providers out, and payment by results alone was a perverse incentive to contractors to pick 'low hanging fruit' - concentrating on those who were already most read for the labour market," Mr Hepburn said. The DWP viewed job-seekers primarily as claimants, he said. "We won't talk about claimants, we will talk about people. I want people to come out the other end with meaningful employment that can sustain them and sustain their families."

John Downie, director of public affairs at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, said; "Sanctions don't work. The DWP's own figures show the majority of people sanctioned are sanctioned wrongly and decisions are regularly overturned at appeal. But not before they have probably been made destitute."

Citizens Advice Scotland, which published a 2014 report highlighting problems caused by benefit sanctions, called for a full-scale review of the whole sanctions regime. CAS Head of policy Susan McPhee said: "We believe that sanctions should be applied with discretion, to deter those people who are consistently and deliberately refusing to engage with jobseeking requirements. We believe that sanctions are not necessarily the most appropriate form of support for getting people into work, in terms of the impact they have on a claimant's progress to work."