IAIN DUNCAN SMITH is set to unleash jobcentre staff at foodbanks across the country in a “sinister” ploy to offer desperate people “advice” to get jobs.

The Work and Pensions Secretary revealed the scheme yesterday, which is being launched at a foodbank in the Lalley Welcome Centre in Manchester.

Struggling people referred to foodbanks for emergency provisions could be given job-finding tips under the plans that could be rolled-out nationally.

Mr Duncan Smith told MPs at the work and pensions select committee: “We are already getting very strong feedback about it.”

But official foodbank stats show many of those depending on them are in work — and the number is likely to rise due to tax credit cuts.

Figures from the Trussell Trust, which runs 400 foodbanks, show that people who cited “unemployment” as having been one of the contributing factors behind them visiting foodbanks made up one of the smallest groups of users — 4 per cent — in 2014/15.

Underpaid workers and those struggling to get by on a small income made up almost a quarter — 22 per cent — in the same year, which crushes the Tories’ claim that foodbank users are unemployed, unwilling to work or living in the lap of luxury on benefits.

Thirty per cent of those referred were severely affected by benefit delays caused by the jobcentre — one of the main referrers to foodbanks — and another 14 per cent by changes to welfare claims.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) piggybacking on foodbanks “reeks of something more sinister,” Richard from Respect for the Unemployed and Benefit Claimants campaign group told the Star.

This is after Mr Duncan Smith continuously denied that the soaring rate of foodbank use, which hit one million in April, was a result of his punitive welfare cuts.

Richard added: “Jobcentre advisers have no role to play in foodbanks. Those foodbanks have been left to pick up the pieces in helping people let down by their so-called government.

“We will remember this crime against those who have been left in the despair of poverty and cast aside into the gutter.”

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union warned that the government was normalising foodbank use as it prepares to slash child and working tax credits by £4.4 billion a year.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka added: “Ministers must put an immediate halt to plans to cut tax credits that would just drive more families into poverty and more people to foodbanks.”

Mr Duncan Smith claimed that advisers would also help those whose benefits are severely delayed.

He boasted to MPs that they were able to “release claimants’ payments immediately” by fast-tracking supporting documents and evidence to benefit decision-makers.

But the DWP did not return calls when the Star asked if it was likely that delayed benefits would be paid immediately if claimants’ situations got so desperate that they were referred to foodbanks under Mr Duncan Smith’s plans.