Welfare to Work: need for overhaul

A new report into welfare to work is calling on the Federal Government to make urgent changes to the policy in the May Budget.

The report was funded by the New South Wales Department for Women and looks at 70 single parent mothers and how they coped with the introduction of the policy in 2006 and 2007.

It found women were being forced to leave their careers and move into low-paid, unskilled work to meet the policy's requirement of working 15 hours a week, or having welfare payments cut off.

One of the report's author's, Eva Cox, says the Federal Government needs to make core changes to the system.

"I think what we should be looking at is not a 'one size fits all', not a rigidity - about 15 hours - but looking at people who can earn a reasonable amount of money in the time they're working, regardless of whether that's 10 hours or 15, or even eight in some cases," she said.