Britain's long-term unemployed are now obliged to clock in at a Job Centre every day and undertake training or volunteer work in order to keep their benefits.
The new Help to Work programme has come into effect.
The new regulations apply to everyone who has not found employment after two years on the existing Work Programme scheme.
Those who do not participate could have their Jobseeker’s allowance suspended first for four weeks, and subsequently by 13 weeks for a second failure.
It is thought the new rules will affect 200,000 people. The people targeted by the scheme were the "hardest to help" and the government wanted to give them "extra support", according to minister of state for unemployment, Esther McVey.
But a pilot scheme involving more than 15,000 people produced "positive effects" - but those effects were "very small", according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
A number of charities, such as the Salvation Army and Oxfam, are reported to have declined to participate.
