I mention this not to scare monger but it builds the picture as to why we raise this concern with our data.
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Welfare reform is as important a task now as it ever has been. With unemployment rising, increasing numbers are coming into contact with Jobcentre Plus and claiming benefits - many for the first time in their lives.
The government has brought in about £2bn of help for unemployed people. This is being used to support those facing redundancy, to help with mortgage payments, and to improve training opportunities. From next month the government will bring in cash incentives for employers to recruit and train people who have been unemployed for six months and support for people starting their own businesses.
For most, unemployment should be a short-term problem. People still get jobs during downturns - last month 244,000 stopped claiming jobseeker's allowance, and at last count there were more than half a million vacancies in the UK economy. Even in these difficult times, 60% of people get a job within three months of becoming unemployed, and 75% within six months. The measures in the welfare reform bill before parliament are designed to help the 25% who find getting another job more difficult, who are still looking for work after six months.
Some commentators have suggested we should halt the reforms: global recession and rising unemployment, they argue, mean it is not the right time. This is totally wrong, and risks, as in previous recessions, plunging people into long-term unemployment and storing up problems for the future.
Work is not just about a wage packet. Having a job gives people the vital sense that they are making a contribution. It doesn't just give them a reason to get up in the morning; it allows them to develop their skills and abilities.
Welfare reform is about further personalising the service, giving lone parents access to expert advisers who understand the challenges they face. It's about giving people with health conditions tailored support, advice and funding for adaptations that can be made at work to help them stay in a job. Simple things like installing specialist IT equipment can mean the difference between working and claiming.
It's about giving disabled people the right to control the help made available to them by public authorities. This is not just about helping them take their full part in the nation's economic and social life; it is also about empowerment and, most of all, dignity. The vast majority of people claiming benefits want to work - and welfare reform is about having the right support in place to help them realise that ambition. The bill will give people the right to increasingly personalised support from both Jobcentre Plus and private and third-sector experts. In return we expect people to take advantage of the help on offer and do everything they can to get back to work.
Some have criticised the increased responsibilities the bill will place on people claiming benefits - the additional requirements to take up training or a work trial. But these things are designed to help people improve their skills, try out new careers and broaden their abilities - and with that their horizons. Welfare reform is not about forcing people into a choice between an unsuitable job or having their benefits cut - it's about helping people find sustainable work.
An independent review by Professor Paul Gregg from Bristol University found that this system of support and conditions does work. And I've heard first hand from some of the many people who have already been helped because they've volunteered for this increased support under the current system. They ask, time and time again: why didn't you make me do this sooner? As we debate the merits of welfare reform today in the House, I will be thinking of all the people I have met in the last six months for whom the system has worked.
A more active welfare state, which engages with people as individuals, which improves their skills and increases their aspirations, can transform lives. That's why welfare reform is important.
• Tony McNulty is minister for employment and welfare reform
mcnultyt@parliament.uk
Employment minster Tony McNulty was accused of misleading parliament by Labour and Tory MPs last night after leaked documents suggested he had suppressed figures that highlight the failure of the government's flagship welfare policy.
The row erupted after the Observer obtained secret government papers showing how its plan to lift one million people off incapacity benefit, by employing private firms to place them in work, is in crisis. The documents - sent at the end of January by senior officials at the Department for Work and Pensions to Jobcentre Plus directors and managers - contained figures showing how private firms had performed far worse than the state-run job centres they are replacing, up to the end of October last year.
A report marked "restricted" revealed how the private companies placed just 6% of incapacity benefit claimants on their books into work, rather than the 26% they had claimed would be possible when they bid for contracts. This compared to 14% achieved by state job centres during the same period. The report described the performance of the private contractors as "not satisfactory".
However, when asked in parliamentary questions at the end of last month, tabled by Labour MPs Lynne Jones and John McDonnell, to provide evidence of how the private firms were doing, McNulty replied that "job entry information" was only available up to the end of March last year. Figures on the performance of private companies would be published in due course - but not until this summer, he said.
Last night, Jones - one of many Labour MPs with serious concerns about the "privatisation" of welfare - accused ministers of withholding information that was crucial to MPs as they decided how to vote on the welfare reform bill, which is now passing through parliament.
She said that if the figures were sound enough to be circulated among senior Jobcentre Plus managers and within the DWP, they were good enough for legislators in the Commons.
"The evidence provided to the Observer clearly shows that the minister was incorrect to state that job entry information is only available to March 2008," Jones said. "Misleading parliament in this way is extremely serious, all the more so when parliament is being asked to support changes in the welfare reform bill that will give an enhanced role to private contractors and extend compulsion.
"The leaked information shows that public-sector performance is far superior to that of the private contractors and that more people can be helped into work if their participation in programmes is voluntary. This knowledge should be informing decision-making and not being suppressed."
Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May said secretary of state for work and pensions James Purnell should apologise for the "cover-up".
"James Purnell's department has been caught red-handed, hiding damning figures and indulging in the dark arts of spin to cover up how badly their so-called flagship programme is doing," she said. "If ministers are not upfront about the problems in the department, how can they ever make any headway in solving them? Labour has wasted 10 years when they could have carried out wholesale reform to the welfare system."
A DWP spokesman said: "The figures released through a parliamentary question used data to the standard of the national statistics and were the most up-to-date statistics of this kind at the time. Other information from a range of sources does exist, but this has not been quality-assured and would give an incomplete picture of performance."
Private companies are leading the way in trying to get incapacity benefit claimants into work across 60% of the country, with Jobcentre Plus covering the other 40%. The project is part of a wider plan to involve private firms in getting the unemployed into jobs by paying them "by results" - meaning they receive income for every person for whom they find work. The recession has thrown the plans into turmoil, however, because there are so few jobs and so many unemployed people.
The leaked document was sent to senior jobcentre managers following what it called a "deep dive" investigation into the under-performance of the new semi-privatised system. Jobcentre Plus managers were told in a letter accompanying the report that the contents "must be treated as confidential". It adds: "You should not discuss these changes with providers yet and respect the security marking on the papers."
The under-performance of private firms, it says, raises profound questions about whether they are proving a good use of taxpayers' money. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents tens of thousands of Jobcentre Plus staff, said: "The latest evidence proves our claim that the government's obsession with the private sector isn't based on what works, but on free-market dogma. The private sector has been outperformed, yet the welfare reform bill extends the role of private companies in helping people back into work."