'An Insider’s Damning Testimony of the Restart Scheme' by Andrew Davies—guest blogger

When the UK government launched the Restart Programme, it was sold as a bold initiative to help the long-term unemployed back into work. Providers would deliver tailored, compassionate support; the kind that understands barriers, builds confidence and matches people to sustainable jobs.

But according to one former employee of Seetec, a major Restart provider, the reality is far from the marketing brochure. In a candid Reddit post, they describe an environment that’s toxic for both staff and participants, and driven almost entirely by money. See:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DWPhelp/comments/16ct4ta/inside_of_the_restart_programme_during_my_time_5/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

The ex-employee paints a picture of a workplace ruled by intimidation. Advisors are overworked, underpaid and micromanaged to a degree that borders on absurd. From assigned seating to being told not to talk to colleagues outside your “team zone”, it’s a rigid, joyless environment.

Team leaders, they claim, don’t lead; they use their hardest-working staff to prop up the rest, with no extra pay or recognition. Those who raise concerns about workloads or stress are met with hostility, not support. HR, in practice, doesn’t exist. Complain, and you’re out.

Perhaps the most disturbing detail is how participants are treated. Far from tailoring support to people’s circumstances, management allegedly views each person as nothing more than a “job outcome” target, worth up to £3,000 in payment once they’ve earned £4,000 in wages.

According to the whistleblower, this leads to:

1. Pushing people into unsuitable, full-time work, regardless of health conditions or caring responsibilities.

2. Threatening sanctions to force compliance, even on claimants approaching state pension age and those clearly unfit for work.

3. Pressuring participants to travel long distances for irrelevant job starts, simply to get them “off the books”.

They claim management even encouraged threats against participants’ families to intimidate them into taking jobs. And that the Jobcentre forces people into the scheme, and the Restart process often leaves participants more stressed and demoralised than when they began.

Some, they note, start the programme full of hope and confidence, only to emerge months later with their mental health in tatters. Others turn to their GP for sick notes or apply for disability benefits just to escape the pressure.

One of the most alarming allegations is the open sharing of participants’ sensitive information in office meetings. Health conditions, criminal records and personal histories are apparently treated as casual gossip fodder, an outright breach of confidentiality rules.

The post describes a constant churn of staff, with one resignation notice per week being the norm. New hires are often people with no relevant experience, sometimes from completely unrelated careers, given minimal training before being unleashed on vulnerable participants.

At the heart of this testimony is the claim that the Restart Programme is driven by financial incentives, not genuine support. Once a participant hits that magic £4,000 earnings milestone, the provider gets paid and loses all interest in their wellbeing. Whether the participant stays in work or ends up back on benefits is irrelevant.

The post claims that DWP is already facing growing complaints and may remove Seetec’s contract in the future. Whether that happens or not, it’s clear from this insider’s account that the Restart Programme (at least in some places) is failing to deliver the respectful, tailored support it was supposed to provide.

If the allegations are accurate, then Restart isn’t just broken, it’s actively harming the people it claims to help. And that raises a bigger question: when welfare-to-work schemes are built on targets and payments, can they ever truly put people before profit?

What Happened to Bold Street?

Bold Street was once one of Liverpool’s eclectic shopping streets, where independent retailers with a creative spirit thrived. Now, those independent outlets have been drowned out by an avalanche of expensive bars and chain cafés, most with outside seating that takes up large areas of pedestrian walking space.

Streets evolve, of course, but the issue is not whether shop units are full, it’s what replaces long-standing independents, and how that changes the street’s role in civic and cultural life. A full street isn’t automatically a healthy street if the mix of uses narrows and public space becomes more privatised.

One of the casualties of this shift was Rennies Arts & Crafts, which traded on Bold Street for 42 years before closing. Its departure was described on Facebook as a “huge wrench”, a sentiment shared by many who valued the knowledge, artistry and sense of place that such businesses brought. While a few independents, like the radical bookshop News from Nowhere, still survive, they are increasingly surrounded by drink-led businesses charging inflated prices for pints.

Supporters of the changes point to the street’s current bustle and cosmopolitan food scene as proof of success. Or that independents can simply move elsewhere, to side streets or cheaper areas. But a street can be bustling and still lose cultural variety. And while relocation might keep them alive, it strips them of the visibility and civic presence they had in the city centre.

This transformation has prompted considerable debate, with news articles and social media posts questioning whether Bold Street is reinventing itself or simply succumbing to corporate homogeneity. For many, the answer seems to be the latter. This concern is not simple nostalgia, but about the erosion of the unique character, local knowledge and artistry that independent businesses like Rennies provided.

Plans to breathe new life into the area seem to have been ignored. One online forum comment suggested that the potential of Bold Street is being wasted, and called for pedestrianisation, public seating, art installations and tree-lined thoroughfares to be established in it; and expressed frustration regarding the licences issued by the council, which reportedly enable an “army” of street charity collectors to harass passersby.

Meanwhile, the prominent Lyceum building, originally built in 1802 as England’s first subscription library, is symbolic of this lost ambition. It was once a respected public space, but now houses a restaurant offshoot and a mini-golf-bar hybrid, showing no signs of genuine mixed-use or civic engagement.

Liverpool has shown in other places (from its markets to its creative districts) that economic vitality and cultural richness can co-exist. Bold Street could embody that balance again, if planning and licensing decisions made space for more than just the most profitable retailers. 

Bold Street now stands at a crossroads in its long and respected history. It is no longer the thriving, imaginative place it once was, yet it still clings to remnants of its past. The shift from independent enterprise to corporate hospitality has blunted its creative edge, replacing character with commercial blandness. Unless the city takes meaningful steps to prioritise cultural preservation, public space and genuine community use, Bold Street risks becoming just another generic high street.

'GB News Overrates its Ratings' by Andrew Davies—guest blogger

GB News is claiming a "seismic moment" in British broadcasting. Why? Because in July 2025, it barely managed to edge past the BBC News Channel in average daily viewership. But behind the chest-thumping, the reality is far less impressive, and far more revealing.

According to BARB, GB News averaged around 80,600 daily viewers last month, edging just ahead of the BBC News Channel’s 78,700. That’s a lead of fewer than 2,000 people. GB News has also announced strong performance in key time slots like breakfast and weekday evenings, framing it as a transformative moment in UK broadcasting. But dominating a few hours in the day on a low-reach channel like GB News doesn’t make it a media powerhouse—it simply confirms its status as a niche outlet with a loyal, if limited, audience.

GB News has always styled itself as the underdog ("the channel for people who feel unheard") but what it really offers is a steady diet of manufactured grievance and culture war talking points. If it’s drawing in viewers, it’s not because of journalistic rigour. It’s because it knows how to serve outrage with breakfast and paranoia with the evening headlines.

And yet even within its own narrow definition of success, the victory is hollow. When we look at the broader picture, the BBC remains overwhelmingly dominant.

GB News might have edged a daily average, but the BBC News Channel’s weekly reach still far exceeds it—often more than double. That means more people across the UK are watching the BBC, even if only briefly, while GB News relies on a smaller base of habitual viewers. That is not really growth, but more like saturation.

Then there’s the rest of the BBC's output, which dwarfs anything GB News could hope to match. BBC One’s Breakfast, Six O’Clock News and Ten O’Clock News still reach massive audiences. None of those numbers are included in the News Channel’s BARB figures. And that’s before we even include iPlayer and the BBC’s website and app, which together draw more than 40 million users. GB News online just draws over 10 million.

And radio? The BBC’s network of national and regional stations delivers news to millions more every day. GB News, by contrast, doesn’t even try.

So GB News, despite its claims of speaking for "the people", still trails badly in that department. You can game viewing figures for a time, especially when your programming verges on the sensational, but you can't manufacture credibility.

If anything, this supposed breakthrough shows the limits of GB News. It’s carved out a niche. That’s all. A vocal, partisan slice of the public is watching more intently, but that doesn't mean the channel is reshaping British media. It means it's doubling down on its core audience while alienating the rest.

So despite all the noise GB News makes, it’s still playing catch-up.