Caught in the Catch-22 job trap

Simply juggling the mundane realities of her daily routine were considerably more pressing.

Since leaving a local electronics company three months before her first baby was due, Miss Pitcairn has found bringing up her daughter Caitlin alone while stretching her State benefits to last each week is quite a job in itself.

However, the Tories announced yesterday it is time that Miss Pitcairn and the tens of thousands like her throughout Britain got off welfare and into work. The saving, they claim, would run to #10bn a year.

To underline the Government's determination, Social Security Secretary Peter Lilley unveiled a #20m back-to-work scheme, Parent Plus, which will run as a pilot for three years involving the public, private, and voluntary sectors.

Only one pilot will focus on Scotland - in Motherwell, the Lanarkshire town town ravaged by cuts in traditional industries where a new job is a rare commodity.

Only hours after Mr Lilley's announcement in London, Miss Pitcairn was able to pick holes in his plans with little trouble.

''I'm not exactly work-shy,'' the 20-year-old said. ''I had a good job before Caitlin came along and after she was born my old boss was on the phone offering me my position back.

''But both my parents work and so does Caitlin's dad. The only thing that's stopping me getting back to work is finding someone to look after her.''

There are nurseries but, like many of her friends, Miss Pitcairn cannot afford to send her 12-month-old daughter to them. She is caught in the classic Catch-22 Mr Lilley professes his new scheme will solve.

Labour leader Tony Blair also wants to get single mothers off benefit and into work, starting with an interview at their local job centre. Under Mr Lilley's plans, originally announced last October, all lone parents who make a new claim for Income Support will receive an invitation to join the scheme. Existing claimants will be contacted within a year. Single parents will be invited to attend an interview with a caseworker who will explain how they would be better off in work than on benefits.

The parents - mainly mothers - would also be given help in finding a job and suitable childcare, as well as offered ''mentoring'' support once work has been found.

Mr Lilley said the scheme would focus on getting lone parents into ''real'' jobs, rather than just promising training and counselling.

However, his promises left Miss Pitcairn sceptical, although she said she would be willing to try the scheme if only in a vain attempt to see herself proved wrong.

''My daughter means there would be only a few jobs I could take. They would need to fit in with our lives rather than the other way around.

''To be honest, I can't see that many employers being too sympathetic. They haven't exactly been helpful in the past,'' she said.

According to Miss Pitcairn whoever wins the forthcoming General Election should channel their budget into providing superior childcare, allowing both married and single mothers freedom to job hunt.

Firms from the US are among those on a shortlist of private sector companies who will be invited to bid to run a pilot programme, loosely based on a compulsory system operated by the United States.

The scheme comes as single parents, and the burden they put on the taxpayer, shoot up the political agenda with both main parties looking for ways to cut the social security budget. Four private sector pilot schemes of Parent Plus will be run in central Manchester, Preston, Wiltshire, and Northamptonshire.

The Benefits Agency and Employment Service will operate eight public sector pilot schemes in Warwickshire, Cambridgeshire, North Worcestershire, North Surrey, North Cheshire, Cardiff and Vale, and Sheffield East as well

as Motherwell. The Department of Social Security will also be carrying out a mail-shot to 750,000 lone parents on income support drawing their attention to the range of work incentives available to them within the benefits system.

Shadow Social Security Secretary Harriet Harman has predictably savaged Parent Plus deriding it as ''too little, too late''.

''There are one million lone

mothers in Britain dependent on Income Support bringing up 1.5 million children.

''It costs #10bn a year to keep them and their children in social security benefits. This bill has risen 250% under the Tories,'' she said.

She said under a Labour Government single mothers would be invited to come to the job centre when their youngest child was in the second term of full-time school.

They would receive advice on child care facilities, training, and help to find a job.

The National Council of One Parent Families has welcomed the Parent Plus programme, but warned against underestimating the barriers and problems which keep so many trapped on income support.

Meanwhile, John Findlay, the director of the Glasgow-based lone parent pressure group One Plus, said: ''What one parent families need is a positive approach to their situation which offers opportunities and hope. Job searching in itself will not tackle the poverty facing so many oneparent families.

''The real answer is a national strategy which would combine childcare provision with education and training options for those able to work and policies to offer decent benefits to those whose parental responsibilities mean they are not yet able to work.

''Juggling caring for children alone with work is no easy matter and some lone parents may have to put caring for children and family responsibilities ahead of their desire to work.''