Unemployed people should do a nine to five day looking for work or undertake community service style duties such as digging gardens under moves to tackle the hardcore of joblessness, the author of a Government-commissioned report said today.

Professor Paul Gregg said there should be a completely new approach towards people such as parents of young children and those on incapacity benefit.

Virtually everyone on benefits should be required to take steps towards finding a job and should face having their benefits stopped for up to four weeks if they repeatedly refuse to co-operate with attempts to find them work, it was suggested.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said he "strongly welcomed" the report, adding: "The direction of travel is the right way."

A welfare reform bill will be included in the Queen's Speech tomorrow, and today's report is part of the Government's drive to get more people into work and cut down the numbers on benefit.

Mr Purnell said: "The approach that virtually everyone should be doing something in return for benefits is the right one.

Professor Gregg, of Bristol University, recommended that sanctions should be quicker, clear and more effective, with a simple system of fixed penalties and an escalating series of sanctions for repeat offenders.

Prof Gregg said it was important not to let people drift away from the labour market, especially as a result of the current economic downturn.

The report recommends a swift escalation of sanctions for jobseekers who fail to turn up to meetings and interviews.

After a written warning for a first transgression, they would thereafter lose a week's Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) each time they did not comply with conditions.

After a fourth offence, they would be required to undertake community service. If they refused, they would lose four weeks' JSA.

Prof Gregg suggested "work equal" activities, which he described as being like a school detention, under which the unemployed would undertake community service-style work or have to spend all day in an office using a computer to look for jobs.

"It would involve doing an equivalent 9-5 job search, with someone looking over your shoulder to make sure you were not just on Facebook."

The report urged more personal support for jobseekers, more tailored to their personal circumstances so they will have an adviser to help plan a route to work.

Ministers were told that this approach would achieve a "step change" in the opportunities claimants have to find a job.

Among the recommendations was a suggestion to identify unemployed people expected to make a prompt return to work, including those receiving Jobseeker's Allowance and lone parents with older children.

A second group should be established, including lone parents with younger children, who should be required to attend interviews about how to find work, it was suggested.

Mr Purnell said the review started an important debate about the next wave of reform, adding: "These issues matter now more than ever. When jobs are harder to find, we need to invest in those people who will one day be back in work so they don't lose touch with the labour market.

"I have felt for a long time that, whilst we have a good system of rights and responsibilities on those who are actively seeking work, we need next to address those who could move back into employment quickly with the right encouragement and support, such as lone parents of younger children and people on incapacity benefits."

The report was an "important milestone", suggesting clear obligations on what was expected in return for benefits, said the minister.

Mr Purnell said he would respond to the report later this month.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "This approach to welfare assumes a utopian world of unrestricted childcare and widely available jobs where only the lazy opt for life on the dole.

"The reality is very different. Thousands of people are joining the dole queue every day through no fault of their own.

"The TUC has long supported the case for responsibilities and rights going together in our benefits system but draconian workfare policies are not the answer.

"The Government should instead put employment services on an emergency footing and ratchet up its efforts to stimulate the economy."

The Gregg Review and the Government's welfare reform proposals were the "main item" discussed at this morning's Cabinet, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman said.

Mr Purnell and Prime Minister Gordon Brown later visited Work Directions, a private sector organisation providing employment support and advice to those on incapacity benefit or income support.

The pair toured the offices of the organisation, based in King's Cross, central London, and spoke to clients and their advisers.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Brown said: "We want to get opportunities for people to get jobs. We want to give them all the personal support that is necessary.

"I think you have seen, going around this centre, that individuals are getting help tailored to their particular needs. Some want part-time work, some want full-time work, some have been out of work for a long time, some need new qualifications and some need just the confidence to get jobs.

"We want to provide a personal service to everyone. I can assure people, having been here, that there are thousands of vacancies that can be taken up. We are determined to help people."

Shadow work and pensions spokesman Chris Grayling said: "I have lost count of the number of documents the Government has published promising radical welfare reform in the past few years, but they never seem to get on with the job of delivering that reform.

"It really is time they stopped producing yet more announcements designed to grab headlines, and actually did something.

"I am also puzzled by the degree to which they are still focusing on lone parents as the main part of the challenge we face.

"Of course we need to help lone parents into work, but not until their children are properly established in school - and our main priority should be to help the 2.6 million people who are on incapacity benefit and who, right now, have been largely abandoned by the system."

John Atkinson, associate director at the Institute for Employment Studies, said: "The approach of encouraging lone parents into the world of work through making benefits conditional in this way is not new, and works well in some Scandinavian countries.

"In fact, today's report is simply calling for these parents to attend relatively short work-focused interviews to prepare them for re-entry into the world of work when the time comes. The majority of parents want to return to the workplace when they are able to anyway.

"However, for these proposals to work, similar schemes in other countries show that it may require costly accompanying features, such as personalised training, childcare and further financial support. The Government may be unwilling to make these expenditures that would make this work."

Mr Atkinson said Denmark spent 4.5% of its economic output on measures to support workless people into the labour market, and the Netherlands spent 3.5%, compared with 0.5% in the UK.

Labour MP Nick Palmer (Broxtowe) said the report's conclusions had to be handled "very carefully" and the emphasis needed to be on support surrounding health issues.

He called for a "slow graduation" from helping with personal problems that were affecting their childcare and then moving into a transition towards preparing for work.

But he told BBC Radio 4's The World At One: "What I wouldn't think is realistic is to expect parents to have a plan to get back to work when the child is only one - I think that's not going to happen in practice."

Kate Bell, of Gingerbread, a charity for single-parent families, told the programme: "We are concerned about what these proposals are going to mean for single parents.

"We know single parents want to go to work but they are telling us the childcare, the flexible working, increasingly just the jobs at all, are not there for them to go into."

Labour activists accused the report of recommending that lone parents with children as young as one should be "bullied" into work.

Labour MP John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) said: "New Labour's reactionary flailings are punitively attacking the poorest in our society. Their plans will be rendered totally unworkable in a period of recession, and possibly depression.

"The pressure that will be placed on lone parents will have a direct impact on the care that they can provide to their children, and affordable childcare is still not sufficiently available.

"There will be a pitched battle in opposition at every stage of the legislation. It is a disgrace that New Labour attacks the most vulnerable in our society with such vigour and regularity."