Anya, I don't agree at all with a 'feed and forget' approach, but that's what we've got. Unfortunately, I have had first hand experience of unemployment - once before 2010 and once after the current regime kicked in.
Before 2010, there were real incentives to take up low paid work. There were grants to set up small businesses and help with childcare. There were also grants for courses to change career. There was even money to pay for travel costs to work for the first month and a small amount available for work clothes.
After 2010 the above were all scrapped. Despite the government's claims, it became more difficult to make the transition from unemployment to work. Meanwhile, the unemployed were subject to an increasingly ridiculous regime. People had to travel miles to more frequent meetings with so-called job advisors (costs couldn't be reclaimed) and had to make a totally unrealistic number of job applications. It didn't matter that the jobs were unsuitable. I actually feel sorry for employers who have to sift through hundreds of unsuitable applicants. To make up my minimum number of applications I once applied for a job as a temporary Christmas elf - I'm not joking!
The only people who have benefited from the Work Programme are the private WP providers themselves, who have been paid billions. Their courses aren't individualised, so I was once stuck in a room for six hours learning how to do an internet search and had to sit through another session on writing a CV. Doh! This wasn't support - it was punishment!
I met many other people looking for work and the vast majority were trying very hard. Many of them were single parents with young children. Just about the only work they could find was for zero hours contracts with variable hours doing care work or other very low paid work. Care work often required having a car, which most people didn't have. They also needed to have somebody to look after their children at a moment's notice. There were some free courses available for them to do functional English and Maths, but even they were scrapped. I wanted to do a conversion course, which would have cost just over £1,000. At the time I would have been eligible for a student loan, but I couldn't afford to do the course, because my Jobseekers' Allowance and tax credits would have been stopped.
Sorry to have gone on, but people who haven't been through this regime often don't understand what it's like. I'm afraid I take what IDS says with a large pinch of salt.