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  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

Jobseeker's Allowance Megathread ver. The Jeremy Kyle Fan Club

cherrycolouredfunk said:
^ They'd even pay you to take a course in spelling and typing too. ;)
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Lol, my spelling, typing and grammar is second to none IMO. I just choose to use the lazy way to write on interweb forums cos it's so much easier!

I'd happily go on a course from the government to try and teach me anything academic, it'd be a breeze I reckon. Cos they gotta teach at the level of the lowest common denominator which I reckon wud be pretty low!!
 
TheSpade said:
The bitch I dealt with for my interview was a horrible horrible cunt. Demeaning, demoralising, sarcastic, rude, unhelpful. If everyone had someone like her it's no wonder so many people are unemployed.
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in fact its a wonder anyone goes into these places to get what they are entitled to. its an absolutely shameful system designed to put barriers up in front of people and make things very difficult for them. i used to do the job. it was joyless. you were either telling people the good news that they had now got a pittance to live on, or telling them that they were entitled to nothing at all, or you were dealing with the longtermers who kind of still got unemployment benefit due to the longness of their claim.....ah yes and i forgot to mention: you were working with some people who were horrible assumptive wankers talking about "people like that " and "these people..."
 
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pinkpapaver said:
in fact its a wonder anyone goes into these places to get what they are entitled to. its an absolutely shameful system designed to put barriers up in front of people and make things very difficult for them. i used to do the job. it was joyless. you were either telling people the good news that they had now got a pittance to live on, or telling them that they were entitled to nothing at all, or you were dealing with the longtermers who kind of still got unemployment benefit due to the longness of their claim.....ah yes and i forgot to mention: you were working with some people who were horrible assumptive wankers talking about "people like that " and "these people..."
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They do a very poor job a lot of the time. mainly as you said, because they put up barriers rather than actually help (see article below).

The full day of job search is a fucking ludicrous idea, and they don't seem to actually help with that in a constructive way at all, and most people seem to just come away demotivated and depressed. Lobbing people in a room all day and leaving them to it simply will not help someone find a job. Threatening sanctions if they don't attend something that doesn't help is just crazy.

The courses they normally promote are basic at best. juvenille.

I think single days of work experiences would work better, with a greater range of sectors/industries, and not just with the major nationals like Tescos, who when it comes down to it, just wish to exploit. It takes more time and organising and setting up on a more local level, and they're not going to sacrifice the manhours to set those up in case they lose the contract next year or whatever, and since the govnt have granted contracts on the lowest bids, despite saying they wouldn't, it's never going to improve when it's run by private companies.

The back to work schemes should be run solely by non profit organisations too. plenty of them put up bids when the contracts came up

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Private firms awarded multimillion-pound contracts to run the Work Programme have advised that there should be many more cases where claimants have their benefits stripped as punishment for failing to seek work.

As part of its crackdown on welfare dependency, David Cameron's government has more than tripled the number of punishments enforced against failing jobseekers across all its schemes. The number of cases has risen from 139,000 benefit cuts under Labour in 2009 to more than 500,000 in 2011. Yet documents obtained by the research group Corporate Watch reveal how private firms on payment-by-result contracts have suggested that a much greater number of punishments should have been meted out to people on the Work Programme, a key part of the coalition's drive to "get Britain working".

In the first eight months of the government's flagship employment scheme, jobcentres agreed to cut benefits in about 40,000 cases. But figures contained in an internal Department for Work and Pensions analysis reveal private firms running the programmes actually referred almost three times as many (110,000) for sanctions. And critics say jobcentres are gradually upping the number of those denied benefits.

Richard Whittell from Corporate Watch said the Work Programme appeared to be focused on slashing benefit rather than putting people into work. "These figures give the lie to the government's claims its welfare reforms are about helping people into work," he said.

"By the time it's finished, more people will have been sanctioned by the Work Programme than properly employed through it. Every month thousands of people are having their only source of income stopped and being pushed into hardship. Companies like Serco, Working Links and G4S may not be very good at finding people suitable work, but they're dab hands at punishing them." The private firms say they make their referrals to job centres in line with government guidelines.

After a week in which the prime minister signalled his intention to hit those on benefits harder to create a more "responsible" society, the new figures suggest a hardening of attitudes towards the jobless, in spite of widespread misgivings about the fairness of the reforms already in place. Two claimants last week took the DWP to court over being forced to work for free.

Jobseekers can lose their benefits for up to 26 weeks for "refusal, without good cause" to attend an employment programme or carry out what is called a jobseeker's direction, a formal instruction to take certain action. They can also be punished for "refusing employment without good cause, or losing employment through misconduct".

The public-private partnership giant, Working Links, which boasts a turn-over of £123m and whose shareholders include Capgemini, referred the most cases for sanctions (11,910) between June 2011 and January this year. The jobcentres accepted the argument for cuts in 6,210 of those cases. A4e, which paid its former chairman Emma Harrison an £8.6m dividend in 2010, referred the second largest number of cases for punishment. The firm, which has been at the centre of a series of fraud allegations, requested sanctions in 10,120 cases. Jobcentres agreed to withhold benefits in 3,000 of those cases.

Other large contract holders leading the way in demanding punishment for benefit claimants included Serco, which has an annual turnover of £4bn a year. The outsourcing giant recommended punishment in 9,090 benefit claimant cases, but only 2,230 were approved.

Employment minister Chris Grayling said there was no financial imperative for private firms to punish jobseekers. "This government expects jobseekers to comply with the conditions of their benefit if they are receiving taxpayers' money," he added. The DWP said that the figures had not been confirmed by the Office for National Statistics.
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^thats a fascinating article there. in the drugs in the media thread there was something about IDS saying they were going to force people who they "suspected" of having addictions into treatment. they treat "customers" /claimants like scum anyway. imagine being "suspected" of having a drug problem: they treat people like scum enough and then they'd have some clueless adviser wh had to meet targets of getting people into rehab and nto work...in fact theyd have them "working" for free inthe rehab or something

the sanctionning system makes it hard for people to claim back to work benefits / be elgible for some of the potentially helpful schemes and id say statistically reduces the "numbers out of work and seeking employment for over x weeks/months/years etc...oh yeah..ive got their number...AND ITS ANOTHER SHITTY CALL CENTRE where no one you talk to can actually solve your problem: only send an email to the processing office who might phone you back within 3 hours. no body you speak to at the office can talk to anyone in another office. its such a ridiculously ridiculous system. theres no way you can know what their rules are. i believe that when you become a jobseeker they should give you a booklet that tells you of all the sanctionable/disallowable/ claim closing actions. i can feel my blood pressure rising


also as someone who did the job i think it must be even more horrible for the decent folk who wrk there because of the immense depersonalisation of the whole thing. people used to come into the office with their claim, and sometimes it could be processed there and then, and they knew that if they had a change to report they could come in report it and it they could even see the person who wasputting it into the computers . in some cases they got to see the person making the decision 8o

its like this so that theres no one there to kick off at and to remove common sense and to make it a one size fits all operation . some of the staff seem to loike it that way tho. all "i'm only following guidelines" and "well it says here" and "getting jsa is like having a job"=D:! "i cant tell you go downstairs and use the phones" and "come here and use the phone":!:!:?
 
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regarding the treatment of addiction. I read that too, but I'm not sure how they're going to be able to force anyone to do anything in the long term, given the following article in todays Guardian/Observer. Seems they're quite happy to shove vital care into the hands of charities, but not work placements or work schemes. Unbelievable


Just two months after the coalition's drugs policies came under fire from campaigners who accused the government of putting lives at risk by promoting total abstinence to deal with addiction, a fresh row has erupted over the transfer of longstanding drugs and alcohol services from the NHS to the voluntary sector. Substance misuse experts and trade unions are accusing the government of failing to stem a "rapid" and damaging loss of established NHS treatment programmes as charities increasingly win contracts for services put out to tender by local authorities.

The problem is so serious, according to Clare Gerada, head of the Royal College of General Practitioners, that "vital" NHS provision could be "extinct" within a few years. "I think we are taking services backward," Gerada says. "It's a full-on uni-directional shift from the NHS to the voluntary sector, and the pace is accelerating."

The furore around which organisations are best placed to provide addiction treatment and recovery services was thrust into the spotlight earlier this month following protests from unions when two NHS drugs services in the north of England lost out to charities in a recent tendering process. Public services union Unison and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) criticised the decisions to withdraw contracts from existing treatment programmes, claiming the contracts were awarded to charities to cut costs, and arguing that local NHS staff and service users would be adversely affected by the disruption. A total of six centres across Manchester, including a needle exchange that has been treating users for decades on the largest housing estate in England, are being closed as part of the overhaul.

National problems

On the face of it, the demise of NHS addiction services in Manchester and Darlington shouldn't raise alarm bells. Services are put out to tender around the country all the time, and many programmes have been run successfully by charities for years. However, a Unison spokesman said the decision to transfer services from Greater Manchester West NHS trust, which delivers services to more than 2,500 people annually, to three charities (Crime Reduction Initiatives (CRI), Lifeline and Addiction Dependency Solutions) was emblematic of problems nationally resulting from what he called an "ideological mantra of competition" in the NHS under health secretary Andrew Lansley.

Gerada says that, from her vantage point as a GP with more than 20 years' experience of working closely with NHS addiction services and alongside charities, the key issue is a largely unreported wholesale dismantling of key NHS provision and an associated loss of expertise. "We are rapidly losing specialist services in which the NHS has led the world, [for example] in terms of HIV reduction. What we are seeing [now] is services being moved wholesale at a basement price to the third sector."

A worry for those working within the NHS, she says, is that many charities "don't want to take on the difficult cases" that are expensive to manage. "I don't think they are set up to offer services to what is a particularly chaotic, transient group."

Put this against a backdrop of the government's 2010 drugs strategy with its emphasis on recovery, which stresses discharging people quickly from addiction services, and with the wider austerity drive, and the problem is compounded.

"This is about cost – whatever anybody tells you – and cuts are driving a lot of this now," Gerada adds.

Martin Barnes, chief executive of DrugScope, an umbrella organisation for charities working in the sector, says there are legitimate anxieties surrounding the way services are commissioned, and that the retendering process can cause "massive uncertainty" for service users, staff and providers. "Unfortunately, we are aware that there can be little monitoring of whether services are better or worse after retendering."

Gary Sutton, head of drugs services at the drugs and human rights charity, Release, says: "Funding of drug treatment is now driven by competitive pricing, streamlining services and meeting the government's recovery agenda. Some areas have seen a 20% cut in funding for not discharging enough clients in the last 12 months." The danger, he suggests, is that service users "will not get the treatment they need" and providers "will undercut each other in a bid to obtain contracts".

Importantly, Sutton says, these concerns were flagged up as recently as April when the UK Drug Policy Commission published a document, Charting New Waters, examining potential threats to drugs services in light of the government's drugs' strategy, a key tenet of which was a radical shift from centralised oversight toward local control of commissioning services. The report raised a number of cautionary "early warnings", including questions about whether the changes would "deliver the outcomes that people need" or help control public expenditure. "In short, a major social experiment is under way, the outcomes of which are uncertain," the report concluded.

Mark Moody, director for the north and the Midlands for CRI, says that while he understands the worries people have concerning disruption caused by services being transferred, he is "absolutely confident" that CRI's quality of care will be equal to, if not better than, that previously provided by the NHS. It is not, he insists, about cutting costs or reducing services. "At any given time, CRI is working with around 32,000 services users [nationally]. We have a lot of experience at this. Transition is a priority. I personally feel people's worries are misplaced," says Moody.

Red herring

Tom Woodcock, director for the Lancashire drug and alcohol action team, agrees that the vital expertise Gerada speaks of "does not just exist within the NHS". He insists, too, that the idea of cuts driving commissioning is a red herring. Often what it comes down to, he believes, is NHS bidders being "naive" about what the tendering process entails. Much of the time, he says, NHS services "don't sell themselves" and they "don't have the commercial savvy" of the charities. "I think they are in danger of being stuck in a defeatist mentality."

But Woodcock admits that the government's drugs strategy, with its emphasis on local commissioning, opens the system up to marked differences in how services are commissioned and delivered by different local authorities. "There are some shocking arrangements in some parts of the country," he says. It doesn't help either, he adds, that the Department of Health has no centralised data on where contracts are being awarded, let alone tracking trends.

Woodcock says both NHS and charity providers might soon be shunted aside by large private companies such as G4S, who he says "are gearing up … and are waiting in the wings".

With the debate showing little sign of abating, those on both sides of the argument seem to agree on at least one thing. "Let's not forget who is at the centre of all of this … the service user," says Woodcock. "Providing the right service is what our focus should be."
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all these private companies with their fingers in government pies...g4s , serco to name a couple. i didnt know serco were into employment as well. they do prisons and schools . pertemps. my mate has been sent for an interview at morrissons on a sunday. they forced him to phone, tho its polly likely that the jobs there are only part time..i think there are tough times ahead for those in and out of work
 
So what's the deal with JSA these days? How many weeks / months do you get of being unemployed before you're sent off to a course or forced to pick up dog shite?
 
im currently at college get 400 a month as a bursary , before i worked offshore on rigs paying 40% tax on some of my wages , me an her split a while ago hd to sell house blah blah , i blew money on drugs but when i was welding i fucked my back now i need to study for a y or 2 to get the job i want using more head than brawn , in process of getting a flat before college on esa i was entitled to 180 a fortnight to live on plus no council tax and 650 a month for rent , soon as i told em i was going to college everything was withdrawn , nobenefits,houing benefit etc as i was getting 100 quid a week bursary and was supposed to liv pay rent etc on that, try n better yourself u get penalised if i stayed on dole id be entitled to house etc ,its a feckin joke
 
I concur, Mr Pecker (=D). NobCentre finding out I was at college many years ago was when things went very wrong for me. Went from having me own place, getting on fine at college and having a part-time job (declared to the social too) to being unemployed (and unemployable) and homeless with an H habit literally within a month (well, the habit probably took a bit longer to be truly habitual but had become a daily essential just to keep warm cos it was the middle of winter and I was having to kip in the park). Have never understood why they don't let you go to college when you're on the dole. Surely it's an investment in future employment rather than making a life of shitty jobs and/or unemployment more likely cos you've got no qualifications. Is ridiculous.
 
Can take a bit longer depending on if there's any special circumstances, but they normally get it set up pretty quickly if its a 'vanilla' application so should get first payment within 2 weeks a month at worst with it backdated.
 
I applied for JSA last September and it was a month until I received any money from them.
Just make sure all forms filled in correctly etc as any queries with your application will only drag out the waiting process.
Don't let them tell you that you have to sign up to Universal Jobmatch website as it isn't mandatory but they like to pretend it is.
If you do still want to sign up to their site don't tick the box that allows them to view yr job searches because even if you have applied for loads if there is something they think you haven't done but should have done in their eyes then giving them access to yr account makes it a lot easier for them to sanction you.
 
mine was a "rapid" reclaim, done all the forms in that initial wak meeting thing. And seeing my new advisor on tuesday.

and yeah universal job match: babylon!

GREAT article you got there marmalade. I've said it before and I'll say it again: BABYLON!
 
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Regarding the Universal Jobmatch website, it is supposed to search for the type of job I'm looking for in my local area and notify me of them.
That would be great if it actually worked but I live in Cambridgeshire and the last load of jobs I was informed of were in Nottingham,Middlesbrough,Oxford and Manchester, everywhere but the area I actually requested jobs for.
Also a lot of the jobs on there are duplicated or don't exist, have already expired.
It's like the government are trying to make it appear that there are more jobs available than there actually are.
But the government wouldn't do that to us,would they?
 
On a similar line to the charities doing drug services in place of NHS, I know that in oxford last year around April - May 2012 a new drugs agency agency took over and cut the pay of the drug workers from 23000-24000 a year to 16500! Needless to say the best staff left, you can't do to people and expect them to stay they got bills to pay! But its a easy saving of money. So services have gone down, so I hear. Not that they were very good, bar 2 or 3 staff members :\
 
TheSpade said:
So what's the deal with JSA these days? How many weeks / months do you get of being unemployed before you're sent off to a course or forced to pick up dog shite?
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Think it depends on your age - up to 25 they can have you picking up dogshit (with your mouth - not a bag) after 3-6 months, after 25 I think you get a years grace.
 
what you need to do is sign off for a couple of days every now and then. Get a job that falls through ;)

Personally I have been on for about a year without mention of any slave labor.
 
For anyone that may be called in for a medical assessment with Atos,it is your right to have the session recorded on their equipment and they have to give you a copy for yourself at the end of the session.
Let them know in advance of your assessment that you wish the session to be recorded.
Having a copy of the session could be very handy if any dubious questions or behaviour by Atos occurs during the session as you then have proof if you choose to take any decision to appeal.
This law only applies to England,Scotland and Wales but not N.Ireland.
40% of all appeals against Atos decisions are overturned in the claimants favour.
 
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