Reed in Partnership and the Carers Scam

Ipswich Unemployed Action has been tipped off about Reed in Partnership’s intention of forcing Flexible New Deal participants into Carers Jobs – which is pretty much a duplication of the Jobcentre Plus activity that was underway in 2009 at the Ipswich Jobcentre Plus Office – and a few others I know of.

Reed in Partnership is ignoring the Flexible New Deal participants’ 5 chosen job areas and in some cases forcing on participants a career in caring.

This strikes me as extremely concerning – not primarily because jobs are being unnecessarily forced on to Flexible New Deal participants – but due to the fact that the disabled, the elderly and the young requires a person undertaking a carer role who are passionate about the job and not someone who couldn’t care only not to get a 6 month variable benefit sanction.

A carer who doesn’t care really goes against the point I think…

Flexible New Deal in Ipswich

Ipswich Unemployed Action has done some primary research on the two Flexible New Deal providers in Ipswich: TNG and A4e.  (Reed in Partnership Scandal Grows).

Claim unlawful travel deductions back

Sister site Flexible New Deal Scandal (flexible-new-deal.co.uk) is seeking volunteers who have been on a New Deal course at Dencora House within the last year to help everyone claim their travel back. Last year we exposed that such travel deductions were unlawful and now we wish to take action. 

Right to Work Conference Report.

Guest Post by “Unemployed from Ipswich” who attended the conference.

Right to Work

A Conference for Resistance and Solidarity

Central Hall, Oldham Street, 30th January 2010

Workshop 10:  The Welfare Reform agenda, fighting for our rights.

Chairman: James Eadon – Chesterfield Trades Council President.

Delegates were invited to contribute experiences to identify the issues that needed tackling and therefore, help shape future action.  Though it quickly became clear that not only was there a huge ignorance of rights, particularly by minority groups, but there is an erosion of the funding to monitor rights.

Here are selected contributions:

John Bradley of Derbyshire Unemployed Workers Centre.

New Labour has gone further than any previous Conservative government in its harshness of policy on unemployed people.   The majority of whom, the system treats as potential fraudsters.   No talk of wealth redistribution.  The minimum wage coupled with Tax credits has amounted to a huge subsidy to employers.

The TUC must be central in organising the 40 unemployed centres in an organised fight-back.

Scott of Cambridge Unemployed Union.

Example or a group already getting organised: defendwelfare.org

PCS member from Manchester working in the call centre for crisis loans

Money is running out at the end of the month, meaning that requests for essential items have to be refused.  The replacement with a call centre service, has led to deterioration in ‘customer’ service – coupled with staff cut-backs led to slow resolutions.

GP from East London

Ethnic minorities cannot deal with call centres because of language barrier.  Schemes turning into internships that were leading to depression among the poor.

Rights Worker from Midlands

Marginalisation through debt, Continuous amendments in law created a complexity, both in rights of individual and of the state.  Partial solution was in an understanding of the “newspeak” and that had a part to play in informing the disadvantaged.

Case study: Mick from Sheffield

His overpayment, despite his informing and resulting reassurance that there was no overpayment, wisely retained the overpayment because following a change of opinion and resulting request to return the over-payment, was able to do so.

Rachel, Welfare Rights Worker from South London

Sanctions were part of the erosion of the welfare safety net.  What has happened to the minimum amount to live on?  Her view that the poverty of people in work was meeting the same level as those on benefit.  Little debate on the matter.

ESA appeals ¾ not passing their appeals.  Lifetime DLA awards being removed leading to more appeals at which, because of the Legal Services Commission system of fixed fee, personal representation at appeals was unfunded.  Appeal tribunals taking place on 2nd or 3rd story rooms without lifts.

My contribution was to stress the need to monitor Flexible New Deal because the old scheme had been nothing more than 13 week detention for claimants and if that was tolerated, what incentive is there to make FND helpful in the present climate?  I reported the London TUC’s “unhappy with certain aspects (ND)”, but would not oppose ND stance.

Cats & Dogs aka Odds & Ends

10% cut in funding to advice centres while competition between private (A4E) and voluntary sector advisors was favouring the business organisations.

 Privatisation had returned welfare to the Poor Laws of past times.  That training had been neglected.  What training was available was too expensive.

The near-future action that was suggested included the assembling of all the campaigning groups.  To inform claimants of their rights and a  Right to Work  march at the party conferences.

Other observations There was an expectancy of about 700 people at the conference, but the estimate was 900 because the closing session was full to the rafters – delegates having to listen from the corridor.  There was much dismay with UNISON who had to be lent upon to represent cleaners in London and their intolerance of perceived factions within the union.

Logistics: left Ipswich 6.40am arrived Manchester 12.20am.  Parked beside The Britannia Hotel.

http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference/

Sanctions on Flexible New Deal.

“Should a customer not fully participate in Flexible New Deal it may be necessary as a last resort to raise either an Entitlement Doubt or Sanction Doubt“.

Entitlement  Doubts when “we suspect a participant is not complying with the basic rules of claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance

• Being available for employment, and
• Actively seeking employment.

Sanction Doubts: “are used to formally notify Jobcentre Plus of specific incidents of non-compliance by the participant with relation to his or her participation through FND, where YMCA Training’s staff make a decision that a  temporary penalty should be raised.

A doubt may be raised against your benefits it:

• You do not appear to be actively seeking work
• You do not make yourself available for work
• You refuse to apply for, or take up, a job
• You restrict your availability for training
• You leave training before it is completed. 
• You do not attend your agreed appointment
• You refuse to sign your action plan
• You refuse to do what is on you action plan.

And:

• You do not curtsey or bow when in the presence of your betters.

Actually I made that one up.

Anyway, this list of ‘doubts’ is, well let’s just say,  comprehensive.

Councils Under Tories May Set Benefit Levels.

Tories may give councils power to set benefits

Toby Helm. Guardian here.

Under the proposal benefits would be lower where it was easier to find work, and councils would also be given incentives to help people find jobs.

The Conservative Treasury team are holding talks on handing responsibility to local councils for setting and distributing benefits such as the jobseeker’s allowance.

A move to setting benefit rates to match the needs of local labour markets has been pushed by radical Tory councils but it is the first time that the frontbench has embraced the concept.Speaking at a conference organised by the New Local Government Network in London, the shadow chief secretary, Philip Hammond, disclosed that he was holding talks on the issue with Conservative councils, including Kent.

He said: “There are some key challenges we will have to face in delivering this agenda. Can we take the public with us in this agenda? Can we persuade people living in your area, for example, they would rather see the management of workless benefits in the hands of a local authority than in the hands of a national government setting standards nationally?”

He said “huge potential savings” were available, adding that he regarded local government as pivotal to reducing the public sector deficit.

Under the proposal benefits would be lower where it was easier to find work. Councils would also be given incentives to help people find jobs. The plan has not yet appeared in any formal document.

In Ipswich this would be an utter disaster. The Liberal-Tory administration has attacked public services: shut down local Housing Offices, closed the Film Theatre, closed Crown Pools Car Park, hived off work to ‘consultants’, threatens to shut a residence for homeless families, and is now  privatising Ipswich buses. They refuse to deal properly with the needs of growing numbers of street sleepers.

Their attitude to the poor is summed up by one leading Tory Councillor saying that their new ‘Community Centre’ in an old town Church (St Lawrence Centre)  will ”keep the riff raff out“.  

Put that lot in charge of the dole and we will be queuing at Charity soup kitchens in no time.

Right to Work Conference: Welfare Reform.

A conference of resistance and solidarity Saturday 30 January, Central Hall, Oldham Street, Manchester 11.30am-5pm Fight for every job Organise to stop the cuts Defend services and pensions Unite the public and private sectors Demand a million green jobs Jobs not bombs Defend migrant workers – jobs for all Speakers include: Mark Serwotka (PCS), Sally Hunt (UCU), Tony Kearns (CWU), Pete Murray (NUJ), Jerry Hicks (Unite), Mark Smith (former Vestas worker), Paul Brandon (Unite bus worker), Nahella Ashraf (chair, Greater Manchester Stop the War), Dave Chapple (Chair National Shop Stewards Network), Clara Osagiede (RMT cleaners’ secretary), Kevin Courtney (NUT national executive, personal capacity), Dot Gibson (General Secretary, National Pensioners Convention). More here.

We note that there will be discussion of a campaign against Welfare Reform. In our view this is a central concern. We have posted extensively on this.

The TUC sponsered campaign had not gained momentum.

This is not just an issue for trade unions, NGOs, and left political parties. It is time that those affected, unemployed,  single parents, those on Incapacity Benefits, make our voices heard.

New Labour Christian Charity.

Via Fat Man on a Keyboard.

“In June of last year a young Frenchwoman jumped off the sixth floor balcony of her sister’s flat in London holding her five-month-old baby in her arms. Both were killed. A tragedy, but one with a reason. Let Jenni Russell take up the story. Christelle fitted no stereotype. She was a 32-year-old Frenchwoman living in Hackney who had lived in Britain since she and her sister moved here in 1997. In May 2008 she graduated from London’s Metropolitan University with a degree in philosophy. At about the same time she discovered she was pregnant. She looked for work while claiming jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit.

Then in December 2008, the advisers at the jobcentre told her she no longer qualified for jobseeker’s allowance.

According to the Department for Work and Pensions the fact that she was within 11 weeks of giving birth disqualified her from being an active jobseeker. She was told to apply for income support instead. What no one warned her was that European nationals who claim income support must provide more proof of residence than jobseekers have to. All a jobseeker needs do is show they are looking for work. Income support is only given if the claimant can prove that for the previous five years they have been either in work, searching for work, studying, or self-sufficient.

Christelle had an eight-month period in 2003 when she said she had been working in a cafe but had no employment records to prove it. Her claim was turned down.

Once that happened, the welfare state stopped operating. Her housing benefit was automatically withdrawn. The state, having decreed she was not in a fit condition to look for work, took no further interest in how the penniless mother of a new baby was going to survive.

This is how it ends. All the endless measures aimed at tightening the rules on claimants and foreigners in an attempt to appease the supposed, and probably fictional, atavistic appetites of the electorate, all the cosying up to the the editors of the right wing press, all the creation of increasingly labyrinthine bureaucratic rules, they all result in two broken bodies lying on a Hackney pavement.

And now we turn to the ‘coup’ that failed – the last ditch attempt to oust the Prime Minister. I may have missed it, but I can’t recall any debate about what the Labour Party should be and what would change under a new leader. Was there a discussion of alternative ideas, philosophies and policies? Was there any mention of how to create a better Britain, one forged from the best traditions of the Labour movement, one that would not lead someone to choose death over destitution? Not as far as I could see. Instead all the talk was of who would be most likely to win an election, of who is in and who is out, of factions and intrigues. Court politics. That is what we are left with, court politics.

Jenni Russell concluded, I don’t believe this is a stance a civilised society can justify. It pitches foreign-born mothers back into a Victorian-style existence in which pregnancy may mean destitution and disgrace. I agree. And as the ghastly prospect of a prolonged election campaign, dripping with platitudes, looms, don’t expect to hear anything about the suicide of a young mother and how we should ensure that something as grotesquely tragic never happens again. It wouldn’t do to disturb the formulaic answers and sloganising with the lives and deaths of real people. Would it?”

I wept when I read this.

Right to Work Conference.

The forthcoming Right to Work conference in Manchester on Sat Jan 30th and the transport that is being put on to get people there from our area in case you or any of the other unemployed people you have built up contact with are interested in taking part. The local contact for the conference and transport arrangements is John Curtis, and his mobile number is 07517 531733, and his e-mail address is below. The Right to Work website is www.righttowork.org.uk where you will find lots more information about their campaign. If you or other local unemployed people want to go but feel the £5 cost is more than you can afford, please get in touch with me and I will see if we can raise some financial help.

Petition to Abolish Workfare.

Please sign the following petition supporting the abolition of Workfare.

We want to abolish work for your benefit/workfare schemes in the UK. The Welfare Reform Bill will cause severe financial and emotional distress to the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

Via Harpy Marx.

Coming Flexible New Deal Providers for Ispwich.

Information (from 2006 but we doubt it’s dated) here. 

 

James Purnell: Expenses Diddler To Be New PM?

Purnell with Close Friends.

The unemployed may be interested to hear that there is a rumour (here) going round. That James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the man who brought us the Flexible New Deal,  could stand as a joint Leader of the Labour Party with John Cruddas. 

James Purnell, keen to keep the workless on the minimum of around £64 a week, has also been doing very nicely from the MPs expenses racket.

We learn that he received over the last years £143, 955 (on top of his annual salary of £142,000). Including £9,054 for groceries! The Daily Telegraph reports that the former Banking Genius managed to wheedle a substantial sum to pay for a flat that his girlfriend also forked out for. James now stands accused of being a fraudster.

We are sure the unemployed, especially those on the New Deal, sympathise with his plight.

HOW TO: Jobcentre Plus Programme Provisions

So you are unemployed and fed up of attending the detention centre that is Dencora House and wondering how hard is it to run the New Deal course? YMCA has acknowledged that the New Deal contracts are the most complex they have ever seen. Below I will quote some of the New Deal course requirements and you can compare between the guidelines and the actual delivery by YMCA Training into whether they are even following the contract.

Real Benefit Levels.

There’s a letter in the papers (Guardian) today that’s worth reading:

 

The inadequacy of the £64.30 weekly jobseeker’s allowance (£50.95 for the under-25s), noted by Paul Nicolson (Letters, 11 May) is a modern phenomenon. When unemployment benefit started in 1912 it was 7 shillings a week – about 22% of average male earnings in manufacturing. The percentage fluctuated over the succeeding decades, but by 1979 the benefit rate was still about 21% of average earnings (manual and non-manual, male and female). By 2008, however, as a result of the policy of tying benefits to the price index while real earnings increased, the renamed jobseeker’s allowance had fallen to an all-time low of 10.5% of average earnings. And while, in the past, means-tested allowances raised unemployed income to a higher minimum level, the jobseeker’s allowance rates are now the same, whether means-tested or not.

Of course, average earnings have grown but so has the relative deprivation of the unemployed. This is not a policy justified by the need to maintain work incentives. It is just a dreadful record of neglect by governments since 1979.
Jonathan Bradshaw
University of York
Tony Lynes
London

As Dan from this Blog has pointed out, if you’re under  25 you don’t have by any means less cash needs.

Birmingham March for Jobs.

Sky Report.

 

Workers are fighting to keep plants open until the economy recovers.

 

The demonstration in Birmingham was to urge the Government

Workers are fighting to keep plants open until the economy recovers

 

The demonstration in Birmingham was to urge the Government to “wake up” and take action to halt the unemployment crisis gripping the UK.

It is part of a campaign by Unite to press ministers to do more to help manufacturers ride out the recession and hold back the tide of job losses which has hit British industry in recent months.

More than 7,000 people took part including workers from firms hit by the recession, such as steel giant Corus and car companies Vauxhall and Jaguar Land Rover.

Tony Woodley, joint leader of Unite told Sky News: “It’s no good just bailing out the banks and the spivs and the speculators who caused this global crisis.

“It’s got to be about the workerss and protecting our jobs and making sure our kids have jobs in the future so we don’t needlessly force people onto the dole.”

 

We should be marching for the rights of us on the Dole!

Jobcentre Plus illegal dismissals and sanctions

I have found a website that claims that the sanction and dismissals made through Jobcentre Plus by training providers awarded a contract by the Department of Work and Pensions are illegal. If correct, this is a major concern. This website specifically mentions about the Gateway 2 Work provision even though I presume it is the same with the main 13 week New Deal courses. New Deal participants may be extremely interested in reading this…

Pertemps Receive £2.25 Million and Breach New Deal Contract

I am aware of some unknown until now New Deal training provider called Pertemps People Development Group that has received £2,259,282 even though they significantly breached their contract. This just goes to show that the Government consisting of greedy MP’s who recently have been exposed in the MP expenses scandal like to waste taxpayers’ money beyond what they can personally claim for

Jobcentre Plus not exempt from Human Rights Act 1998

Bad treatment of participants on New Deal courses are not exempt under the Human Rights Act 1998.

Companies get £2500 to employ Jobseekers

The Government has announced a scheme that will give businesses of any size up to a £2,500 grant to employ unemployed persons who have been claiming Jobseekers Allowance for over 6 months.  This will relieve the businesses in the current economic climate and give Jobseekers a break – in fact it is a better idea then New Deal full stop.

YMCA Training: Dencora House Detention Centre

If you have been on this website for more than 10 seconds you will read Dencora House, Dencora House, Dencora House!  You may be thinking “What’s this Dencora House you talk of?“  Well it is a “training centre” operated by a faith charity called YMCA Training who happily receives £20 million from the Government every year -  and this article sets out the reasons why we go on about Dencora House so much! Well worth the read…

Purnell Tries Stout Denial of Tax Avoidance.

             Purnell’s Bedside Book.

Ipswich Unemployed Action’s fav’ Government Minister, James Purnell, takes ‘”stout denial” as the best policy faced with his latest scandal over capital-gains tax avoidance. The Daily Telegraph has reported alleged misdemeanours of the Workfare Wonder. But he has received the ’support’ of Gordon Brown, said to be PM, for his brave attempt to face the accusations out.

We suggest that Purnell submits to the same procedures enforced on New Deal participants: he should be ‘exited’ from the Government and his pay suspended. He will then be open to re-sign on at the House of Commons.

Welfare ‘Reforms’ Under Attack.

Report from PCS (union for staff in Department of Work and Pensions) here. Staff could be reminded of the Union’s position…

This, from the Morning Star,  is the only media coverage I can find.

 

Purnell’s forced workfare plans slammed at PCS conference

Civil servants vowed on Friday to fight the government’s latest plans for reform – or privatisation – of welfare benefits.

The Civil Service union PCS conference voted to reinforce the union’s campaign against the welfare reform agenda and the privatisation of social security services.

Delegates were already angry at Work and Pensions Minister James Purnell (far right) over plans to privatise jobcentres and to force benefit claimants into “workfare,” which are contained in the government’s latest Welfare Reform Bill, before revelations that he had dodged paying capital gains tax on the sale of his second home added insult to injury.

Dorset delegate Mandy Preece, who works in Mr Purnell’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), condemned new Labour’s “obsession with attacking the poor” in pushing forward with the “ill-advised so-called reforms to the benefits service” during a time of soaring unemployment.

The government has ignored the opinions of its own social security workforce and accepted the recommendations of merchant banker David Freud that job centres should be privatised – pouring more public money into private pockets.

While being forced to admit that job centres were providing an excellent service to their users, Mr Freud went on to say the service was a multibillion-pound “market” that should be opened up to private bidders.

DWP Lincolnshire and Rutland delegate Graham Peck noted: “This Bill seeks to force claimants to work to earn their benefits,” warning that employers would use the scheme to drive down wages and make money by offering “false training opportunities with little or no prospect of employment at the end.”

DWP Avon delegate Mike Wheeler added: “This Bill has been rushed through Parliament with no scrutiny or accountability.

“It is a major attack on the welfare state, which we are told by government is already on the verge of collapse. This will penalise those who need work, not workfare.”

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka urged Mr Purnell to face “the real challenge – how to address the fastest-growing rate of unemployment in Europe.”

But Mr Serwotka lamented: “His whole plan is to attract venture capital to force the unemployed and single parents into low-paid work.”

Exposed: The Government’s Love Affair with Private Companies

It has been announced that the Government intends to privatize the benefit system. At current schemes like New Deal and the upcoming Flexible New Deal scheme are outsourced to the private sector (and third sector), soon Jobcentre Plus will be run by private companies* on like an franchise model and before you know it, benefits will be paid by private companies too. Why? Ipswich Unemployed Action explains why…

Ipswich Unemployed Action: 2 week review

Ipswich Unemployed Action Member Outside the ‘Den’.

So it has been around 2 weeks since this blog was created and the Ipswich Unemployed Action group set up. As a group we are still very young and have literally not found our feet yet. Please feel free to read our review.

Chris Mole, Ispwich MP: Work for Up to £50.95/£64.30 Quid a Week!

       Sanctions in  Mole’s ‘Win-Win’ Future?

Mole backs ‘Work for Dole’ plans ahead of Ministerial visit (here). (A friend found this while trawlling the Web. There is no date, but we can assume it was not too long ago).

New Government plans which would see local term jobless helping to improve the local community in Ipswich are being backed by Chris Mole MP today, ahead of the visit of Department for Work and Pensions Minister Mike O’Brien MP to the town.The  Minister was in Ipswich to visit the JobCentre Plus in Silent Street to see how people are being encouraged to return to work, and discuss with staff the role of sanctions on benefits for those who don’t cooperate with new training and assistance from the JobCentre. The discussion also focussed on the role of local employers in helping to encourage those who are long-term unemployed back to work. The proposals would see people who have been unemployed for two years or those who go on and off of benefits working for their benefits and for the benefit of the local community.   The proposals would see those people in Ipswich who have been through the support of the New Deal and still haven’t found work or people who have a history of going on and off benefits taking part in full time community activity in return for their benefits. This will give people work experience that employers look for and will help flush out the people who are abusing the system or working while still signing on.   Commenting on the new plans, Chris said:   “Long term unemployment is down 76% in Ipswich and more people are in work than ever before. But the days of mass unemployment have left scars and in some families worklessness has been passed down from generation to generation.”   “This could be a win-win situation. Unemployed people will get valuable experience of work and we can all think of work that needs doing in the local community.”

Mole is joined in this support for ‘Workfare’ by the Tory Party and the Liberals. None of them seem to realise what making people work on these schemes means. It will have to involve heavy supervision – overseers. It will cost  a vast amount of money and achieve little. It will stigmatise the unemployed - doing the tasks those sentenced by the Courts (‘Community Service’) currently do. It will undercut the pay of those in work.  And it will cause massive misery.

Not everyone in the Labour Party agrees with plans for forced labour. John McDonnell, MP, says, “

“As people look to it for assistance in a dismal economic climate, it seems perverse that the government’s answer is a welfare reform bill with a bloody-minded focus on New Labour’s twin obsessions of penalising the unemployed and privatising public services.

With 2 million unemployed and vacancies drying up, already 10 people are chasing every vacancy.

The “work for benefits” scheme contained in the legislation would force long-term unemployed people (disproportionately with disabilities, ethnic minorities and, increasingly, lone parents) to work for their benefits. This workfare scheme would oblige claimants to work for £1.73 an hour.”

Concerns Raised over YMCA Training Organisation.

Sexual harassment and unfair dismissal, forged signatures, tampered induction forms and timesheets, intentions of fiddling with forms, serious allegations made against staff and attempting to complete forms stating that persons completed placement even though were dismissed for disruptive behaviour… just some of the issues regarding troubled New Deal prime contractor YMCA Training. (No, not the words of an unemployed person but internal complaints regarding two staff members which ended up at a Tribunal).

Dencora House: without planning consent

Is Dencora House a Greater Blot on the Landscape?

A short while ago we announced a bunch of issues regarding YMCA Training. It now appears that YMCA Training operated without planning permission. Dencora Business Centre is B1 usage (offices). To run a training centre you require D1 usage (non-residential education and training) permission.

YMCA Training is 31 years old: and boasts over 40 training centres nationwide. You would have thought they would know about requiring D1 usage instead of being forced to submit the following planning application after Ipswich Borough Council enforcement action was made against them.

Banned For Blog: YMCA Suppresses Dissent.

WARNING: THIS BLOG IS DANGEROUS!

This morning I went to Dencora House, Ipswich. For my ‘New Deal’ induction at YMCA Training. A little while in and I was summoned. YMCA manager and colleague. Copies of this Blog, and the Ipswich Unemployed Action’s, on the table. Nervous type. Points to print-out. Picture of medieval Bastille. Legend, “Storm Dencora House“. Liked he it not. Or calling it a “detention centre”. Oh dear. Next, famous (hundreds of viewings), New Deal: YMCA Training, A Major Scandal. 

Finally, their account of  this,  

“I have placed this website as the Home Page on all computers at Dencora House today. Hopefully some of my fellow detainees here will read it. There has also been print outs of your articles left around the centre. The staff have been going round ripping them off the walls. They then get put up again. 

People who merely found this site as the home page have been undertaking these actions on their own. Hopefully more people will involve themselves in such sabotage. If we make it too much hassle for them to treat us like this then they will be forced to stop!”

Apparently, the chief said, some people are upset about this kerfuffle. Deary me.

The upshot is I face being suspended from all benefits for exercising my (see YMCA Induction Pack), “freedom of conscience”. Apparently human rights do not apply to the out-of-work on the New Deal. Still no doubt they’ll find some way of justifying themselves. YMCA Mission Statement, “Motivated by its Christian faith, YMCA Training’s mission is to inspire individuals to develop their talents and potential and so transform the communities in which they live and work.” Needs some creative re-writing.

Oh yes, one of our many invisible supporters  tells us that they’ve blocked their computers’ access to our Blog.

Some faith.

Blog hits double on news of YMCA Suppresses Dissent

After posting the news of YMCA Suppresses Dissent the Ipswich Unemployed Action blog unique hits rocketed 9 times more than the previous day and the overall record hits almost doubled.

After making their potentially fatal decision, under pressure YMCA Training staff anxiously flooded to the blog to further investigate, on their twice weekly pilgrimage, to try and justify their decision.

We will keep everyone updated on any further developments.

If you work for YMCA Training and have the confidence to read the site, copy and paste and/or print out copyrighted pages, leave a comment disputing any claims you disagree with or be deemed that you agree with the site in its entirety.

Dencora House: planning consent attempt #2 granted

If at first you don’t succeed – try again!  After their previous attempt for planning permission (which they were obligated to undertake by council enforcement action) was appealed against for problems including damage to cars, litter and youths hanging outside in the grass area behind the building; YMCA Training made another attempt for planning consent. This time it was granted temporarily for a year. Expires 31st July 2009.

YMCA: Partial Victory?

That Letter.

 

 

Latest developments.

Letter from YMCA (received yesterday lunch-time), 

“Dear Mr Coates

 New Deal Programme. Further to our meeting earlier today, I am writing to confirm that you have been dismissed from the New Deal Programme at YMCA Training, Dencora House.

As Discussed, the dismissal is due to our Health and Safety concerns due to the comment made on your Blog, ‘Tendance Coatesy’ which states ‘Storm Denocra House’. Our Duty of Care to our staff and participants on New Deal programmes remains paramount.” (my emphasis)

Operations Manager, Nofolk and Suffolk. “

Phoning my New Deal Adviser at the Dole she was surprised. Later in the day, another call, and I was told that I would indeed be treated as having been ‘exited’ (suspended) from the New Deal. Which means loss of benefits. She had seen this Blog. A special interview was arranged next week  - local manager to be present.

This morning I heard again.

It appears I will not be suspended. No special meeting will take place. I will  have to make a new claim. This means I am not sanctioned, but will have to go through the process again. Not immediately though. Not (I wonder why) with the YMCA. But, eventually, with whoever is running this autumn’s  new ‘Flexible New Deal’ .

Two observations.

Firstly, it clear that this proved more trouble than it’s worth. The YMCA letter indicates that ‘comments’ from my Blog were a cause for concern.  The picture of a medieval Bastille and the legend “Storm Dencora House” ( published start of May) was the cause. Yet, oddly, Dencora House has not been overrun by a pike-waving mob of baying leftists.

The revolutionary acts advocated were two: 1) Send E-Mails to Chris Mole MP, and the YMCA in protest at the New Deal, and 2) Stepping up the Campaign against Welfare Reform and the YMCA-run local New Deal.

It was obviously hard to pin a case against this other than on political grounds – Dodgy for the Dole, Crass for the Christians of the YMCA.

Secondly, there is little doubt that the solidarity shown here, and by many bloggers played a major partin this decision. I would like to thank everyone who did so. We often give solidarity for causes and don’t really think about what it means to those affected. I can assure everyone it means a lot.   

There are those in trouble with this system who do not have the networks we have. We must extend our solidarity to them, and continue the fight. As Harpy says, the Flexible New Deal promises to be worse. Some contracts have been won by private prison companies and similar organisations. Their victims need aid, to organise and for that they must have our solidarity.

An Injury to One is an Injury to All!

The Failed New Deal scheme in figures

Labour in 1997 began its welfare reform regime including Gordon Brown’s New Deal scheme aimed at getting rid of the  “life on benefits” trend. Regardless of progress made in making benefits harder to claim resulting in 2/5 of a million less claimants, 12 years on politicians are still using this but rebranding to various phrases including “passive receivers” when most of this problem is a thing of the past.  This article also focuses on the Governments aim of eradicating Child Poverty by 2020 - a mission proposed by former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

New Deal has cost the taxpayer £75 Billion since it was introduced – as this website states most of this amount has been pumped into Private businesses and Jobseekers not seeing any benefits from the course…

3 million new jobs, but only 400,000 less claimants – something not right here. Most claimants are due to unfair sanctions imposed and procedures tightened to prevent people claiming benefits they are entitled to. Some of this figure will be however due to Jobseekers securing employment.

1 in 9 jobs are occupied by foreign workers – gives great insight in the number of unemployed people who would have had a job if the Government didn’t let in foreign people so easily. These foreign workers have greatly taken up employment opportunities where they could have been filled by British people – remember some of these people will be skilled migrants such as doctors and entrepreneurs or investors however most are not specifically skilled (no degree or professional qualification).

51% in 1998, 34% in 2005 and 25% in 2008/09 – The percentage of New Deal participants finding work has been on the decline. This probably is due to participants doing no work experience and having no training. Please Note: The 25% is an average figure – third sector providers such as YMCA Training performed much worse.

Government failed to reduce Child Poverty by 1/4 and since missing that deadline Child Poverty has increased

New Deal final chance: Jobcentre forces Jobseekers on to New Deal

Feedback has it that Jobcentre Plus is trying to push as many people through on to New Deal courses as possible regardless of the actual legal implications of them being unable to put through a lot of them – they are still hoping to catch people out who are unaware of the rules and are happy to participate in order to secure benefits. So much for the “passive receiver” trend the DWP and MP constantly claim.

This will result in a lot of people nationwide (especially in Ipswich) to be stuck in places such as Dencora House Detention Centre to spend 13 weeks wasting away and being mistreated.  This is because the New Deal contracts end soon as the scheme is being replaced with Flexible New Deal with it’s contracts starting this October 2009.

It is then of great pleasure for me to announce the following guide I have prepared to empower you in to avoiding being stuck on a New Deal course that contradicts with the promise they make towards you of support finding and securing employment.   I hope you find it useful: links to and comments welcome!

Why YMCA Training didn’t bid for Flexible New Deal…

“YMCA Training works with people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds offering apprenticeships, NVQs, adult key skills and job search training. In the past 30 years it has worked successfully with JobCentre Plus, but the size of the latest Flexible New Deal contracts has resulted in the charity reevaluating the nature of its involvement.“

http://www.cover-east.org/cms/uploads/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/Manifesto_Jul08.pdf

“New Deal contracts now cover huge
geographic areas and demand levels of
administrative experience and financial risk
we can’t consider. Future Flexible New Deal
contracts are rumoured to cover more than
one region and have a value around £40m.

The result is that YMCA Training is unable
to bid for direct contracts, because the risk
factor is too high, and in future we will only
act as a sub-contractor, which may result
in us getting less money to deliver the
programme.”

YMCA Training East, Ashley Seaborne.

What’s wrong with the truth?  Let’s rephrase this above statement…

“The Flexible New Deal demands high levels of
administrative experience, financial cash flow,
managerial performance and resources that we
simply don’t have and cannot offer or deliver.

Our Cambridgeshire & Suffolk New Deal contract
for example we lacked the staffing resources to
deliver the contract and resulted in us having to
advertise for volunteers to deliver the contract
in the Cambridge area.

It was no fun in the Ipswich area neither. We were
reported allegedly by neighbours for not having
the correct planning consent at Dencora House.

This wasn’t our main concern however. DWP set
our target of job outcomes to 45%. In the past
two fiscal years we failed to achieve this.

We were thoroughly disappointed at our
performance of 12% however satisfied that we are
making progress when the following year was 21%.

As we can only hope to gain sub-contractor
contracts for smaller parts of the region this means
our income would be smaller than the overall regional
contract – so we will have less money to deliver the
programme.

This is not initially a major concern as we have a
strong working relationship with the SCA in
Cambridge to provide volunteers to cut down the
actual staff expenditure.

We are hoping desperately to gain a sub-contracting
contract with A4e to save the majority of our employees.”

Dencora House: Safe for How Long?

 

This disgraceful information comes from the notorious ‘Tendance Coatesy’ Site.

 

“A mob of unruly Transylvanian Peasants are rumoured to be heading towards Dencora House this Saturday. To celebrate the Victory of their alleged ‘leader’.” (Vlad the Impaler Workers’ Daily)

I have to announce to the International Proletariat  and Unity of the Peoples against YMCA-Training, that guess what, Coatesy has won his epic struggle!

I was not best pleased yesterday reading some stuff from the Dole about my ‘misconduct’. Just a phase, but it rankled.

But I noted – that is after quenching my thirst on three pints of Abbot Ale – that I had got the Dole transfer in my account.

This morning, looking at the sordid pile of junk mail, I picked up a Dole paper.

Coatesy has been reinstated on the Dole.

Now the struggle has to focus on the rights of the other blokettes and blokes who have got thumped on.

 

This so-called Coatesy, more like pretentious frog eating, namby-pamy, is now saying:

 

” An injury to one is an injury to us all. We have to unite to defend ourselves: no-one else is going to do it.”

73% of employers admit to discriminating against the disabled and older ages during recruitment

A survey for the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) undertaken by “YouGovStone” returned the devastating verdict that almost three quarters of employers would not give people on Incapacity Benefit (now Employment and Support Allowance) and older people, the opportunity to return to employment.

Cambridge Jobseeker felt “humiliated and degraded” by YMCA Training

We have been biased in our coverage of YMCA Training by only including experiences of the Ipswich provided New Deal courses. Well… it is no better in Cambridge!! (this training centre is also included in the same New Deal contract as the Ipswich one) One New Deal participant spoke out against his disappointment of expecting to be given a work placement (as promised by Jobcentre Plus to get you enrolled) and be given a course of watching DVD’s, paper contests and walks.

Feel free to read the Department for Work and Pensions attempt to justify YMCA Training’s activities when New Deal participants should have been stuck in a work placement 4 days a week and been given supported jobsearch.

Conservatives to rewrite Flexible New Deal contracts

The Conservative Party has promised to implement changes to Flexible New Deal if they win the General Election.

At the Welfare to Work conference shadow Secretary of State Theresa May said if the second phase Flexible New Deal contracts have not been signed by the time they enter power, they will rewrite the contracts.

The proposals include introducing Flexible New Deal at 6 months NOT 12 months. Not really a significant big deal, as Labour currently plan to fast track Job Seekers to Flexible New Deal at 6 months anyway. We recently reported that the Jobcentre are unlawfully fast tracking “customers” on New Deal courses so it can be expected that most people would be fast tracked for Flexible New Deal.  The proposals by Labour states anyone who has claimed before, regardless of the period, will be fast tracked after 6 months, and those that make a new claim which is also their first ever claim will have to wait for 12 months.

The proposals also include changing the contracting system to allow for smaller players in particular the third sector. Figures released show that New Deal prime contractors such as YMCA Training were amongst the poorest performing New Deal programme provision providers. I am not sure why, solely due to past performance, why anyone would want to consider the worst performers of the previous failed New Deal scheme to ruin a reformed scheme.

The Conservatives want to continue New Labour’s welfare reform agenda and take it further.

This seems another reason NOT to vote for the Tories. Thousands of people including jobseekers and other benefit claimants along with various Unions and other organisations have hit out against the Welfare Reform plans and not to mention the Welfare Reform Bill which caused some major concerns.

The Conservatives have made it clear that they want to create a stronger workfare system than what Labour proposes, bring forward the default timescales by slashing it in half from 12 months to just 6 months and sticking more Flexible New Deal participants in to Community Service like activities.

YMCA Training 517 London Road: No planning permission

It has been announced that YMCA Training operating out of their London Road training centre also has NOT got planning permission for a training centre – even though they have been using it for numerous years and had enforcement action taken against their newest Ipswich location of Dencora House over a year ago, planners at Ipswich Borough Council are still waiting for an application form to be submitted.

YMCA Training Activities Exposed

Today we expose the so-called training and learning activities at YMCA Training. We are aware of these being used at Dencora House and the 517 London Road training centre even though are likely to be used at all the training centres in the region covered by the New Deal contract.

New Deal Complaints.

Is Your New Deal Scheme Resembling This?

New Deal Complaints: a must-see new site. (here)

YMCA Training Wolsey House: The TRUTH!

If you have been on a New Deal course previously at YMCA Training it may have been at Wolsey House in Princes Street or you may have heard about it.  Two main reasons given by YMCA Training as to why they left are as follows:

1. Wolsey House wasn’t big enough for their needs;  Or
2. A participant let off the fire alarm which made everyone evacuate the building including other businesses and those businesses either later sued YMCA Training or threatened to do so (conflicting reports)

Both the above reasons were given by staff at YMCA Training and not New Deal participants.

I will not state that any of the above reasons were lies – I never attended YMCA Training at Wolsey House so I didn’t know the comparison of size between Wolsey House and Dencora House or 517 London Road.

The REAL and actual reason for the relocation to Dencora House were…

New Deal fraud probe begins: A4e under investigation

Ipswich Unemployed Action can report that the Department for Work and Pensions is investigating Action 4 Employment and 2 other undisclosed New Deal training providers for fraud.

This means that A4e could lose their Flexible New Deal contract if further investigations show widespread fraud.

One of the New Deal providers under investigation have entered a contract with a local temporary job recruitment agency to gain job outcome payments while the New Deal participants gained short lived agency work until the provider profited from the bonus.

This is a concern that Ipswich Unemployed Action has previously raised with the new Flexible New Deal course – we were NOT surprised to learn that at least one provider has already been using that with New Deal.

A group called New Deal Scandal which runs the New Deal Complaints site we recently displayed on this site aims for a full investigation of the £75 billion New Deal scheme and believes that the DWP investigation is just the tip of the iceberg. Jobcentre Plus hasn’t shown any concerns from complaints from New Deal participants.

It could be presumed that out of the few providers the Department for Work and Pensions have admitted to, only Action 4 Employment has been named, could be proof of guilt. A4e is the largest New Deal provider and would have taken legal action to protect their reputation should the claims not be true.

The Guardian reports that Action 4 Employment has to repay at least £15,000 and another provider to repay £48,000. We think this provider could be Pertemps.   The article also states that the investigation has been ongoing for over 13 months and criticises why A4e was allowed to bid and win Flexible New Deal contracts while being thoroughly investigated for fraud and been found guilty of at least 20 cases from the beginning – thus the continued investigation.

New Deal: The TRUTH Exposed!

New Deal, courses to “help” the unemployed get back in to employment: overcrowded rooms, under resourced facilities, full time job search, zero rights and no independent regulation, forced short term employment just for providers to get job bonuses,  providers under staffed and using volunteers, no training or learning opportunities, identities stolen by providers in order to fraudulently gain Job Outcome bonuses, depression and boredom for participants,  decreasing the availability for the unemployed to seek jobs and apply for them,  providers not even having planning permission to provide courses,  work placements in charity shops sorting through used clothes all day,  dismissals for trivial reasons resulting in loss of benefits and sanctions imposed … the list goes on.

So why is the New Deal not helping people? We have an Government document which describes the main reasons for the New Deal – and this document isn’t leaked – readily available just under publicised.

We have Won a Small but Significant Battle.

 

The Spirit of our Goddess was with us today.

The Historic Leader of Tendance Coatesy, and activist of Ipswich Unemployed Action, (Internationally famous pioneers of fighting for the unemployed)  was in a bit of a foreboding.

The Dole had summoned me for  a special meeting.

Turns out I am excused from any version of the New Deal.

 

I wonder why…

And I get my dole!

Now if we all stood up like this we would smash the New Deal (and variants) into the ground.

Ipswich Unemployed Action Member Attacked by Security Guards.

Manuel for Job Centre Security.

News just coming in is that a prominent member of Ipswich Unemployed Action was attacked by 3 Security Guards at the Silent Street Job centre. Coz he got a bit stroppy. He managed to escape before the Police came. Details are only now emerging. But he was there because he had an interview.

So it took 3 security guards acting on a charge of “trespassing” to pin down a small working class youth.

What a fucking nightmare the Dole is becoming.

YMCA Training and the New Deal participant data breach

YMCA Training Manual.

YMCA Training keeps all New Deal participants details on file and discloses this personal information to QDP Services who then later sends a letter pretending to be YMCA Training with a poor made up letter, requesting your support to help future participants by giving feedback on the course. They claim it to be anonymous and “cannot be attributed to you” but it can as it contains a tracking code on each page of the survey.

DWP New Deal Scandal has more information on this.

We rather recently reported that:

• YMCA Training didn’t have planning consent for 517 London Road
• The REAL reason they left Wolsey House
• YMCA Training’s Training Activities
• Cambridge jobseekers have similar problems with YMCA Training
• Dencora House detention centre

Suffolk unemployment benefit claimants DOUBLE

Ipswich Unemployed Action can reveal that the number of claimants in Suffolk has doubled in one year, where in Essex it has increased more than double. An average of 4,000 new claims per month in the last few months has been reported in the region.

YMCA Training data disclosure: take action!

What can I do about YMCA Training breaching the Data Protection Act 1998?

Read on for advice regarding resolving the unlawful disclosure of your personal details.

YMCA Training New Deal contract terminated

We have heard a rumour from someone returning back from the Jobcentre that YMCA Training has had their New Deal contract terminated with immediate effect and everyone who were on New Deal have been pushed on to Flexible New Deal Stage 3.

How to Revive the Unemployed Movement.

This list is sparse. Here.

Interesting to note the North East Unemployed Action Group.  I think we can be sure that we are in solidarity with our sisters and brothers  from the same movement.

 

But what we need is a campaign. Nationally.

Complaints Rising. New Contributions to Ipswich Unemployed Action

Letters to IUA:

I’ve been reading the blogs and swatting up for my 2nd New Deal interview 18 months after I was kicked off. I replied to the blog entry from “Ipswich unemployed action” if you need some info..
Now I’m in the process of writing a complaint letter and request another interview as I thought I unfairly treated.
 
You can publish this letter if you want, but would like some advice as to how to go about my next interview?
 
Regards,

 

NEXT:

 

Thought you might find the following message very interesting: I received it earlier from Ann who runs the Freewebs site. 

Hi, chaps, I hope this gets through. I’ve just had notification that the site has been banned because of complaints from A4e that it’s defamatory. I’m going to try to retrieve the content, so spread the word.
http://www.freewebs.com/watchinga4e/

Apologies for not posting immediately: we have so much to do on the Web.  Plus I’ve got four E-Mail accounts!

Surprise, Surprise: YMCA Training New Deal Southend; No planning consent

Ipswich Unemployed Action has previously spoke about YMCA Training not having planning permission to deliver training services at 517 London Road, Wolsey House and Dencora House detention centre. This is all part of the Cambridgeshire and Suffolk New Deal contract.

We can now reveal that, YMCA Training have traded from premises in Southend delivering New Deal to those in their New Deal Essex contract – also without the required planning consent.

Government to Create Jobs for Young People (?).

Announced by the Government a couple of days ago.  See Here.

With Comments.

A £40m campaign has been launched by the government aimed at creating thousands of new jobs for young people

‘Backing Young Britain’ will create 20,000 additional internships.

These of course are not jobs. Behind the fancy American word, internships, they mean work experience. Not to be sneered at – well not totally – but not real employment. And what about those on these schemes employment rights?

Launching the scheme, work and pensions secretary Yvette Cooper said:

“We are determined not to lose a generation of talent because of the recession.

“Many young people were denied the help they needed in the recessions of the 80s and 90s, ending up out of work for months and years. Too many never got a start in the jobs market.

Very True. Let’s see what they are actually proposing.

Ministers also announced the first 47,000 youth jobs supported by the Future Jobs Fund for young people who are unable to find work or training within a year.

The £1bn investment, announced by Alistair Darling in April’s Budget, will attempt to prevent the country from losing a generation to unemployment brought about by the recession.

The jobs aimed at 18-24 year-olds will include sports coaches and teaching assistants.

 Good. At least that’s more useful than New Deal schemes teaching you how to sit in a room and endure boredom while ‘job searching’.

Latest figures show that 726,000 18-24 year-olds are currently unemployed.

In other words 47,000 jobs is a drop in the Ocean. This is not going to change the fate of a ‘generation’.

The government has called on business to support young people attempting to find work. Children, schools and families secretary Ed Balls said:

We must not repeat the mistakes of the past and abandon a generation of young people.

The government already has programmes up and running to help school-leavers, graduates and young unemployed people and wed like (?) businesses and charities to join in by offering volunteering places, work experience and apprenticeships.

Nothing new here. This has been long in existence.

As part of the campaign, a graduate talent pool website will be launched tomorrow, with more than 2,000 internships available to graduates, with 4,000 more to be added in the next few weeks.

More non-jobs.

 

Conclusion: a very small step, barely a quiver, but in the right direction.

 

A lot more needs to be done.

 

How will those in such jobs get paid? Will ‘Interns’ get more than the Dole (or even that) ? What will be their employment conditions and rights?

Workfare Coming To Suffolk.

 

From Harpy Marx,

“Workfare, euphemistically known as ‘Work for Your Benefit’ schemes,  is going to be piloted in a town near you from 2010. The pilots will take place in Greater Manchester, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk and will run for two years from October 2010.”

This is something which we will organise against. I have already had talks with the President of our Trades Council and he suggested a campaign. I was initially a little – a very little – reserved. Because nothing concrete we could target clearly was in the offing.

Now we have it.

Its official: £4 weekly travel deductions are unlawful!

Ipswich Unemployed Action can reveal that the £4 weekly travel deduction on New Deal is unlawful.

An intense investigation reveals that no legislation warrants this £4 taxation.

The Training Allowance is mentioned in legislation but the £4 deductions is not. At current the Provider Guidance (a manual for New Deal providers) which is referenced into the New Deal contract gives permission for the New Deal provider to deduct £4 per week.  This however isn’t statutory law and thus is only a contractual agreement between Jobcentre Plus/DWP and the New Deal providers.

As this deduction was unlawfully acquired you may claim it back. The first instance would be to ask for it back. If they refuse to do so the next step would be via the legal system – if you still are a Jobseeker it would be free to do so.

Using the DWP provided data for NDYP alone up to November 2008 it leaves a pool of £68,377,400 of potential total travel deductions since New Deal started – or as an average just shy of £7 million per year. Of course not everyone will claim for travel reimbursements and we can’t assume that everyone lasted the full 13 weeks.

I would estimate it as nout less than £2 million fraud involved here. New Deal participants assumed that the New Deal training provider has the lawful authority to make such a deduction – they didn’t – they profited from it. Jobcentre Plus was involved. I wouldn’t be surprised if it did reach reach near the £20 million mark.

For each time you been on New Deal (assuming you claimed travel for whole 13 weeks) you can claim £52 plus any applicable interest – roughly a weeks money. If you had been on New Deal 3 times then you are looking at around £156 – or 3 weeks dole money.

YMCA Training forced to submit an planning application for 517 London Road

So since the D1 use of 517 London Road by YMCA Training in April 2003 – 6 years later they have finally submitted an application for D1 planning consent. This wasn’t, however, without Ipswich Borough Council pressure.

A4E and Working Links To Snaffle More Public Money.

Today’s Observer (here)

 

“A furious row has broken out over government plans to extend the “privatisation” of the job market after it emerged that two companies subject to a fraud inquiry were on the shortlist for lucrative contracts to get people with severe disabilities into work.

Recruitment companies A4e and Working Links have been shortlisted for a new programme to find work for people with long-term mental or physical needs. Both are under investigation by the Department for Work and Pensions following allegations that employees had made false claims of getting people into work.”

 

I noticed on Channel Four that some heroine from A4E is going to get the star treatment in a programme this coming Thurday. Helping single-mums back to work.

 

Those bastards don’t seem to know when a very long period of silence from them would be welcome.

Benefits Busted!

Coming to your telly this Thursday on Channel Four. More free-publicity for A4e - one  wonders why not a even a tinsey mention of the mountain of allegations against them…

 

Instead of this programme’s utter cack  – a celebration of bullying by a bunch of chancers out to grind the faces of the poor (below) those interested in this murky world should look at this and this.

 

“Hayley Taylor’s job is to persuade single mothers on benefits to go back to work.

The company she works for, A4E, which is helping to tackle the Government’s target of getting 70 per cent of lone parents into paid work by 2010, is the largest welfare reform company in the world.

A4E is run by multimillionaire entrepreneur Emma Harrison, who believes her business is ‘improving people’s lives by getting them into work.’

Until recently, the 700,000 lone parents receiving benefit didn’t have to look for work until their youngest child was 16. Soon, they must either work, or be looking for work, once their youngest child is seven.

At Doncaster A4E, Hayley runs a course called Elevate that aims to give lone parents the skills and confidence to enter the workplace and convince them they’ll be better off doing so. Cameras follow her group of ten single mothers during their intensive six-week course to prepare them for work”

 

Seeing the advance clips we’d say Hayley is a  dead-ringer for Little Britain’s Marjorie Dawes,  the terrifying, pudgy, leader of weight loss support group Fatfighters.

The Future for Workfare?

Prophecy for Workfare?

 

How will workfare develop? Its going to be difficult to keep people working for their Dole, so we know that there will be a hard time for those forced on the schemes. But, on the bright side, for some, there will be lots of opportunities to make money out of people labouring for free. Hey, the  state will pay companies and ‘voluntary’ organisations to take them on. Loads of opportunities for overseers and officious busy-bodies.

But where’s it going to end.

In a forgotten novel by H.G.Wells, The Sleeper Awakes,  the hero, Graham,  wakes up, after a few hundred years dozing, in a new world. It’s a planet controlled by huge Trusts. Futuristic cities, skyscrapers, aeroplanes, gleaming machines. But it’s no socialistic utopia. The world is run by the White Council. No democracy. Pleasure resorts for those with money. Who are they?  Graham’s own trustees, in charge of his funds as  he lay sleeping.  The legacy had been invested so well that they ended up in charge of every economy and country.

The story develops around a rebellion led by an ambiguous figure, Ostrog.

But that’s not the really interesting bit.

The world still needs workers. Clad in blue – hounded and beaten. On the bread-line. Permanently. Why? It turns out that they are directed by The Labour Department. Huh? It’s a privatised descendant of the Salvation Army, turned into a compulsory workfare system for the unemployed. Out of a job? No money? No right to benefits. Plenty of responsibilities. To this: you trace your steps there. Anyone refusing to work gets slung in prison. Anyone a bit stroppy about the set-up gets given the worst tasks. They are bound in servitude. For ever.

Who knows. A4e is already a paradise for bullies, and the YMCA run dodgy private ‘training’ schemes. Then there’s all the other job-stockers and chancers swarming around Welfare Reform. We might see this happening here. Good for the economy. A lot cheaper than employing people on real wages, with rights. To help discipline and boost identity, shouldn’t they be in serge. Like blue?

 

Who’ll bid for the contracts of the Labour Department when Cameron and Co. get their  greedy paws on the unemployed?

More Attacks on the Welfare State: Abolition of Attendance Allowance and Cut in Housing Benefit.

Brighton & Hove UNEMPLOYED WORKERS CENTRE 4 Crestway Parade, The Crestway, Brighton BN1 7BL ( & 01273-540717

PRESS RELEASE:

 Unemployed Centre Condemns Proposals to Abolish Attendance Allowance & Disability Living Allowance and Cut Housing Benefit .

Brighton & Hove Unemployed Workers Centre has sent an open letter to all 3 of Brighton & Hove’s New Labour MPs asking them to speak out about the proposals in the new Care Green Paper to abolish Attendance Allowance, which is paid to people aged 65 and over who need help with care. No sooner have MPs put behind them the scandals of Second Homes Allowances and decorating their own homes at public expense, then they are choosing to attack the most vulnerable sections of society. Housing Benefit was capped a few years ago and this attempt to make the unemployed move into the worst accommodationwas sweetened by allowing them to keep any monies below the fixed rent levels. Then this was cut to £15 a week and now it is proposed to cut any surplus altogether. DLA and Attendance Allowance, which were originally introduced by a Conservative Government, is now the subject of proposals to abolish them . In its place the Green Paper proposes that the money ‘saved’ will be allocated to care by local government. The latter pledge will no doubt be forgotten about whilst the disabled will suffer massive cuts in their living standards.

Tony Greenstein, Secretary of Brighton Unemployed Centre said: ‘I have a disabled child, who suffers from autism. DLA is not used for care but to pay for the extra expenses involved in caring for a disabled person. Things like breakages, outings, clothes etc. Pie-in-the-sky promises that it will be put in a local government pool, with all the vagaries that this involves, are unacceptable. New Labour has pilloried the poor. Welfare ‘Reforms’ that force lone parents to ‘actively seek’ work if their child is 7 are in marked contrast to the lavish lifestyle of MPs. This Government has bailed out the banks with hundreds of billions of pounds, whilst doing absolutely nothing about the payment of million pound bonuses. Yet it has audacity to cut the meagre amounts that the disabled are entitled to.’ We call on all 3 Brighton & Hove Labour MPs to make it clear that they will vote against these and any similar proposals. ’For Immediate Release For further information contact: Tony Greenstein 01273-540717/07843350343

 

Ipswich Unemployed Action notes with concern these moves. Attendance Allowance is essential for many elderly people. Housing Benefit is already difficult for the unemployed (some landlords do not like the out-of-work as tenants in the first place). The money they propose to cut can make all the difference between being able to pay utility bills and being permanently in debt.

 

We wonder if Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer – who got his garden sorted at public expense – or other local MPs, like Chris Mole, Ispwich, who has a London flat allowance to complement his local home - know what it’s like having to rely on Housing Benefits.

 On the edge of complete destitution.

More Campaigning Links All The Time.

The masses are revolting.

Not literally.

But there’s plenty of new sites and campaigns against unemployment. Welfare Reform. The activities of companies like A4e and the YMCA (to name but two). And the sheer miserable waste that is the New Deal - soon to be flexibly miserable.

There is naturally the venerable and highly-rated New Deal Scandal (here) - written by a someone not too far away from this very site.

Here are a few:

New Deal, including the valuable Diary of a New Dealer here.

Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty – full of useful stuff – here.

Watching A4e, heavyweight information against the grinders of the poor - here.

Anna Raccoon has her say on New Labour’s welfare plans here.

The extremely informative Nottingham Claimants’ Action here.

Newsjiffy from Nottingham here.

The Void – doesn’t seem too fond of A4e – here.

 

Harpy Marx on the Insurance Industry trying to get money out of the welfare state – here.

Taking It Easy – speaks from the heart. Anyone who thinks life’s a doddle on benefits read this and weep – here.

Salford is part of a move to set up a National Unemployed Workers’ Union – here.

Abolition of Disability Allowance: Hits Most Vulnerable Unemployed.

From Tony Greenstein’s Blog:

 

New Labour Proposes to Abolish ALL Disability Benefits – DLA and AA included

What kind of ‘Labour’ Government are the Trade Unions Funding?

Having already abolished Incapacity Benefit, with barely a squeak or murmur from the trade unions or labour movement, New Labour has signalled that it wants to scrap ALL disability benefits.

On July 14th New Labour published a Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Care. Reading through the spin and waffle, the message is clear. DLA is ‘inefficient’ ‘poorly targetted’ [because it’s not means tested!] and has to go.

In fact DLAis the best benefit there is. If your needs are great enough, if you cannot care and need help with bodily functions for part or all of the day (and night) you are eligible for DLA. There are 3 bands – lower, middle and higher. Receipt of DLAdoes not overlap with other benefits and is not counted as taxable income. The result is that people who are the most vulnerable and sick in this society see a small increase in their standard of living.

More here.

Tony and his fellow Brighton activists think we should have a national demo against ‘Welfare Reform’. That the TUC and Unions should be pressured into action.

We need to begin by organising ourselves at the grass-roots, against a4e, the YMCA and other profiteers from the out-of-work and disabled. Above all, against the Government, and Tories’ plans to divide, harass, and grind us down.

The name of the end for many of us (and who knows, the disabled as well): Workfare. Undercutting  those in employment, and toiling for a pittance under the kind of overseer we see in the companies and the ‘voluntary’ sector now setting up the ‘Flexible New Deal’. Whether they are hectoring bullies (with all the prejudices you can imagine) or genuinely good people (who want the best for their ‘clients’) they will soon have to face a choice: collaborate with the forced labour system or be opposed to it.

Youth March for Jobs.

CAMPAIGN group Youth Fight for Jobs has warned the government that it was planning a national demonstration against unemployment as the number of youngsters out of work surges towards the one million mark.

The campaign, backed by a number of leading trade unions, is staging the event in London on November 28 and will press the government to do more to help young people through the recession.

More info here.

It would be a good idea if the March was also: Fight Welfare ‘Reform’, Against Workfare, For Decent Benefits for All!

TNG and Avanta.

The Flexible New Deal  is due to begin this October.

In Suffolk A4e was one of the preferred bidders. It will be, we assume, up and running, round here soon.  The other company in charge in the County is part of TNG, part of AVANTA here.

 

Looking at the Board of this company, which appears to do very well out of public money, we find some dodgy-looking people.

 

Comments in Bold Italics:

No company promotion at the Ipswich Jobsfair

Ipswich Jobsfair
Wednesday 9th September 2009
Ipswich Corn Exchange
10am to 3pm

What a joke!

I have never seen such a bad unprepared, underpromoted, plain and pointless event in my entire life!

I had been to an Jobsfair earlier in the year at the same place and it is obvious that the businesses featured whom want people to signup and work for them this time round didn’t stick an effort in to persuading people to join them.

Lack of promotion

If you are a Jobseeker and recently been to the Jobcentre (apart from one Ipswich Unemployed Action member who signed on the same day and wasn’t advised about its existance) you would know about the jobsfair.

Even though Archant had a table they didn’t seem to advertise it on their website. Why not?

Entrance Security

Two employees of Jobcentre Plus obstructed the corridor obtaining the Jobseeker Directions (letters from Jobcentre saying you have to attend). Not everyone have them, so thsoe attending (like myself) without one found it difficult to get through. Beside them was a table containing a map of the hall with boxes scattered around numbered from 1 to 42.

Jobsfair: disorganised

• Instead of having a stall it really did consist of nothing more than a table and above it on a board was a number.
• In order to co-ordinate where you are going you would have to non-stop read the map/Jobsfair plan
• No signs at all of company logo or brands… no Argos, no KFC logo, no Toys R Us
• No laminated sheets with the company name printed on them (just a number!)
• Every “table” was identical apart from a different assigned number and different people behind it
• No job advertisements displayed at all
• No leaflets, freebies, etc. on display at all

1. Archant
2. CV Connect
3. Reed
4. Jobcentre Plus
5. Suffolk Childcare / Redundancy Advisor
6. Navy
7. Prestide Nursing
8. Key Training
9. Les Enfants
10. Holiday Inn
11. Argos
12. Primary Homecare
13. Mencap
14. Seetec
15. Money Shop
16. CSV Media
17. Adepta
18. ITEC
19. Army
20. SCC
21. SCC
22. Fire Service
23. ISG Jackson
24. IBC
25. IBC
26. Avon
27. Stag Security
28. Handford House
29. KFC
30. Elizabeth Copdock Hotel
31. Guardian Security
32. Suffolk Employment Care
33. Label Craft
34. Nacro
35. Snap
36. Anglian Home Improvements
37. Briarcare
38. Just Tech
39. Telecom Plus
40. Toys ‘R’ Us
41. WS Training
42. Care UK

Unemployed Workers’ Union.

FROM FACEBOOK GROUP:

Alex Halligan September 10 at 2:41am Reply

Hi everyone,

I have been swamped with emails and phone calls over the last couple of weeks. The unemployed Workers Union looks like it will go far

it looks like we will be able to set up a minimum of 25 Branches around Britain and Ireland over the coming months.

*Please get in touch if you want to get innvolved
*send me your email address and town or city
*Spread the word and INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TO THE UNEMPLOYED WORKERS UNION FACEBOOK GROUP

Details of a national Youth Fight for Jobs demo can be found at the following link

http://www.youthfightforjobs.com/article/6946

Solidarity,

Alex Halligan

“Massive jobs boost”: 200 new jobs in Suffolk

Evening Star has reported that the Government’s “Future Jobs Fund” will create 200 new jobs in Suffolk.

SUFFOLK’S future looked bright today after the announcement of 200 new jobs for young people.

The county council has been given the go-ahead to create the vacancies in waste and environmental work, the voluntary sector, arts and culture, general admin, social care and youth work.

Role will include library assistants, assistant rangers, and heritage and tourism positions.

The new posts were among more than 600 created across the East of England and 7,500 in the country as part of the government’s £1billion Future Jobs Fund (FJF).

They bring the total number of jobs created through FJF to almost 55,000.

It is good that new jobs are created but I have a few concerns

Ipswich Detention Centre Operated by YMCA Training to Stay

Ipswich Unemployed Action can reveal that YMCA Training were successful in their planning permission application therefore the Dencora House Detention Centre is here to stay!

Unemployed Workers’ Centres.

Rising unemployment, Welfare Reform, The Flexible New Deal, Workfare. Against these we need strong campaigns to defend the rights of those of us who are out of work.  We need places which can offer independent advice and help, somewhere to talk, organise, maybe have a cup of tea and food. Independent and responsible to the workless.

There were, once upon a time, plenty of these. They were called Unemployed Workers’ Centres. Inspired by the unemployed, unions, and backed by the TUC, there was a network across the country. Set up with funds from the movement, and sympathetic local councils. A few still remain. Some have been changed into Community Resource Centres. Many have closed.  Faced with the cuts every political party is threatening the future for independent support for those on the dole or receiving any form of welfare payment, looks grim.

But…

The recent TUC Annual Conference passed a resolution (text available soon – we hope), calling a renewal of these Centres. Now setting up a building with staff is a big task. But we should at least ask: if the TUC back the unemployed then we should ask for support for other initiatives. Like Unemployed Unions.

These need to be independent.

Not separate (from unions, other campaigns). But free from ties with the state and the Voluntary and Charity sector.

Why?

It seems more and more obvious that with Workfare on the horizon parts of the ‘voluntary sector’ are gearing up to be the drill sergeants for the State. They will be the organisations running at least part of the schemes (in ‘partnership’ with the likes of A4e, TNG,  and the YMCA). Already trial-runs are being played out. This involves co-operation by some of  the unemployed. It involves putting pressure on the out-of-work to collaborate. Paving the way for the compulsory scheme. 

One can see the opportunities this offers for some people to excercise power over others. For some to play the Charity Prince and Princesses helping the unfortunate. And for dodgy people to become important.

Instead of being under the thumb of the private companies running the lives of the unemployed, relying on the DWP,  or trusting to the good will of the Charitable, we need independent organisations. In fact ones that can fight against this raft of would-be runners of our lives.

Unemployed Workers’ Centres would help us do this.

Scottish MSP Expenses 93% of their salaries

A FoI request reveals the Scottish MSP expenses almost as large as their salaries.

They refused to disclose the year 2008/09.

Year	Cost of Salaries	Cost of Expenses	Approx percentage
2007/08	£11,301,000	£9,727,000	86%
2006/07	£10,050,000	£9,738,000	97%
2005/06	£9,698,000	£9,572,000	98%
2004/05	£9,600,000	£8,896,000	93%

YMCA Training lies to Ipswich Borough Council

YMCA Training lied to Ipswich Borough Council to attempt to secure retrospective planning permission for 517 London Road.

1. Proposal

The non-residential education and training centre run by the YMCA has been carried
out at this site since April 2003. The YMCA were unaware until recently that they
required an application for planning permission for the change of use.

Once this was brought to their attention they applied for the formal consent.

The use operated at this site is similar to that operated from 34 Whitehouse Road
(given a permanent planning permission at the last meeting of this committee).
YMCA Training also operate from similar premises in employment areas elsewhere
within Suffolk.

Given the history relating to the use at 34 Whitehouse Road it was determined that in
this instance this application should be presented to Committee for determination.

Nonsense…

Even though YMCA Training were forced to get planning consent for Dencora House they still refused to get planning permission for 517 London Road, Ipswich, IP2 0ST.

If it wasn’t for someone reporting them to the council (wonder who that could have been?) they wouldn’t have bothered applying.

Unemployed to Be Forced to Take Drug and Alchool Tests.

Don’t Forget to Bring These!

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…

 

It’s been reported (here) that the DWP will soon (if the law passes) be able to order compulsory drug and alcohol tests on those singing-on. The aim? To force anyone they consider an addict or an alcoholic to undergo rehabilitation. Usual bean-bags and people hectoring you (perhaps A4e will get the contracts?).  Otherwise: no Dole.

 

Giving these powers to your local Job Centre is not a good idea.

 

Apart from the massive intrusion into people’s lives, it will lead to all kinds of front-desk rows. Plus more people begging in the streets.

Now many of us find addicts a pretty severe problem. But this is not the way to get round it. They need real treatment. As Campaigning Groups like Release (which does a good job) say. Not anything that’s a version of the New Deal (the likely offer).

It makes me want to turn up with a four-pack of Tennent’s Super, a Bottle of Vodka and sniff some Talcum Powder (JSA does  not extend to the price of real Coke!).

Tories to Make Things Worse for Unemployed.

Update (Monday).

People on employment support allowance who are deemed fit to work would be put on the jobseeker’s allowance, reducing their benefits by £25 a week. Work ‘experience’  and ‘training’ to be compulsory after 6 months. The core elements of the Tory package involve putting everyone on a single out-of-work benefit, including the stock of 2.6m incapacity benefit claimants and lone parents. The back-to-work programme will largely be run by voluntary groups and private sector companies.

I woke up – briefly – around five-thirty this morning. Put the radio on (Radio Five I think). Some woman from (guess it!)…A4e. Haven’t heard anyone so thick. And such a  goody-two-shoes. Unable to get simple questions. Interviewer asked if there was a subsidy to take on the unemployed employers might get rid of existing workers to have the extra money. She failed to understand this. Replied about what a  wonderful job her company was doing.

These are the people who are going to Get Britain Working!

I

The media today (written Sunday) is full of David Cameron’s plans to Get Britain Working.

He plans to abolish the New Deal (in its various forms) for the Unemployed.

Good.

But what will they put in its place? And who is behind the schemes?

Details are sketchy (we will update them as they are revealed), but this (here) is worth noting. The policy is called,

“Get Britain Working” – which will see sweeping changes to policy across whole swathes of Whitehall in an attempt to “unleash investment and entrepreneurial activity that helps create more jobs”.

That is, the usual guff.

But wait..Who is the Shadow (unelected) Chap in Charge?

Mr Cameron’s article puts wholesale reform of Britain’s welfare system at heart of his drive for jobs – masterminded by Lord (David) Freud, the welfare expert who “defected” from advising the government to become a Tory shadow minister earlier this year.

David Baron Freud’s ‘expertise’ on welfare is nill. What has he done in his life? Well, he was a public schoolboy. He went to Oxford. Worked at the Financial Times. He then swanned around advising on financial deals, pilfering and making a mess of things.

 

To start with, what is his experience in life? Sketch here.

“His involvement in raising £50bn ($72bn) during some of the biggest deals of the 1980s and 1990s made him a wealthy man – yet he continues to cycle to work, swim regularly in Hampstead Heath’s ponds and conduct his business in functional off-the-peg suits.”

Mistakes he has made in his career include (here), 

He moved into advising companies, and was involved in piecing together extremely complex deals such as the flotations of Eurotunnel and EuroDisney, which cost investors millions, and the financing of the Channel Tunnel rail link. Eurotunnel opened in May 1994 one year behind schedule and £2bn ($2.9bn) over budget. Sir David later admitted the deal was a “shambles” and that he had “successfully sold the market a pup”.But his chutzpah meant his career was not held back.Hauled before furious MPs to explain the mispricing of Railtrack, he was subsequently appointed an advisor to the government on its successor, Network Rail.

As a an adviser to the Labour Government Freud was responsible for introducing the principle of Workfare and the Flexible New Deal. Now he has ratted and joined the Tories we can be sure he will have had an even freer hand. Expect loads of money for the usual suspects (A4E etc) to ’train’ the workless, and a programme of workfare. That will be as a futile, demeaning, pointless, costly, as anyone can imagine. And do absolutely nothing to deal with mass unemployment.

 

Watching A4E gives some more information on this depressing, tyrannical, absurd, scheme (here).

Welcome to the Baron in charge of Creating Social Exclusion.

Work for Benefit.

This is not so widely reported,

 

“The proposals also build on the government’s “work for your benefit” scheme, forcing long-term unemployed to engage in community work programmes to “earn” benefits.

Participation in community work will be for one year, at the end of which participants will start a fresh back-to-work cycle with a fresh assessment.

The Conservatives admitted that they were basing their ideas for the unemployed on Australia’s “work for the dole” projects.”

 

Here.

Youth Unemployment Heads to One Million.

From the Observer (Here), 

“The government’s record on youth unemployment will come under intense scrutiny this week amid fears that the number of jobless 16 to 24-year-olds will rise through the one-million barrier.

Economists believe the failure of large numbers of this year’s school leavers and graduates to find work this summer will lead to a sharp jump in those under 25 without work when the data for August is released on Wednesday.”

 

The Labour, and Conservative response is that there has to be an expansion of unpaid workplacements – ‘Internships’.

 

Perhaps they should take a Butcher’s at this site: Carrot Workers (here).

YMCA Training: We can’t give out phone numbers

A member of Ipswich Unemployed Action rang Dencora House on Tuesday asking if they had the phone number for another detention centre of theirs. Surprise, surprise, the person who answered the phone stated YMCA Training had a policy where they couldn’t disclose telephone numbers.

Unemployed FORCED to take Drug Tests.

As noted already here, this is in prospect everywhere. However even we did not realise this practice has already begun.

 

Hat-Tip to Chris.

Published: Friday, 9th October, 2009 2:00pm Full Story here.

Job centre drug test fury by Russell Steele

DRUG SHOCK: Job Centre.

SHOCKED jobseekers were subjected to ‘degrading’ drug tests in a Greenock street by a top recruitment firm, the Tele has learned.

People who were interviewed for posts with cabling firm Sanmina were left astonished this week when they were escorted outside Greenock Jobcentre by staff from Pertemps for mouth swabs to be taken – as cars drove past and pedestrians walked by. 

The tests were taken outside the Jobcentre because Pertemps did not have permission to conduct them inside during interviews. ”

 

This is a major scandal.

Vagabonds, criminals, paupers & gangrels? Variant Magazine Interview.

Interview with Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty & Edinburgh Claimants.

 

This is highly recommended reading for anyone who thinks ‘Welfare reform’ (reducing our living standards and taking away our rights)  is a good idea. .

“They hang the man,
and flog the woman,
That steals the goose
from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common
from the goose.”
Anonymous, 17th century

A false division exists between those in work and those ‘out of work’, and, despite the correlation between welfare and work, there have been few effective movements to defend the unemployed and low-wage workers collectively. However, with the unemployed increasingly herded into a privatised workfare industry, and with the onset of large-scale unemployment under recessionary conditions, there lies the possibility of a convergence of interests and perspectives between the unemployed, people in precarious work, and all those who contribute to society outside of the wage-relation. In the context of punitive Welfare restructuring there have been some challenging community responses – ECAP and Edinburgh Claimants are among those groups that are only too well aware of the implications. Variant interviewed them, as building and strengthening coalitions between people in low paid work and people on benefits is surely (more here)

Working Links’ £13m Flexible New Deal boost

Royal Bank of Scotland has loaned Working Links £13 million via its Revolving Credit facility (designed to provide businesses with the working capital required) to help fund the initial working capital to deliver the £500 million 5-year Flexible New Deal contract allowing the employment of over 300 new employees at 40 new offices they intend to open across the UK.

SAVE DLA AND ALL DISABILITY BENEFITS.

This is cross-posted from Tony Greenstein’s Blog.

Tony is in contact with Ipswich Unemployed Action. One of his complaints (see below) is the lack of serious opposition to Welfare Reform. Here he gives further details of the threat this poses and what should be done.

There are already serious cases in Ipswich of people having their money cut. The DWP runs examinations popularly known as the Lourdes cure: the halt and the lame emerge in full health (er…). Some of the most serious examples involve people with ‘invisible’ disabilities – that is those suffering from mental troubles.

SAVE DLA AND ALL DISABILITY BENEFITS

Tony Greenstein Having already abolished Incapacity Benefit, New Labour has now made it clear that it wants to scrap ALL disability benefits. On July 14th New Labour published a Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Care. Reading through the spin, the message is clear. DLA is ‘inefficient’ ‘poorly targeted’ [because it’s not means tested!] and therefore has to go towards paying for a new national care service. DLA is the best benefit there is. If your needs are great enough, if you cannot care and need help with bodily functions for part or all of the day (and night) you are eligible for DLA. There are 3 bands – lower, middle and higher. Receipt of DLA does not overlap with other benefits and is not counted as taxable income. The result is that people who are the most vulnerable and sick in this society see a small increase in their standard of living. This is what New Labour hate most of all. The proposal is to use the money for ‘individual budgets’ run by private companies, whereby the disabled, in agreement with the local authority, can spend the money on care. Of course they’ll never actually see the money!! The whole system will be discretionary and, of course, liable to cuts. Anyone with any experience of the existing system of individual budgets knows what a nightmare the whole system is.

The Green Paper talks about abolishing Attendance Allowance which is paid to those 65 and over (AA is the equivalent of the care component of DLA). Instead they intend to force the elderly to pay £20,000 to insure themselves!! The Green Paper talks about replacing not just Attendance Allowance but ‘disability benefits’ – a clear sign that it is not just AA which is in their sights. And the Green Paper dresses up its purpose with the usual New Labour waffle such as proclaiming that “our aspiration (is) to build a stronger, fairer Britain.” The Attlee Government of 1945-51, which was a right-wing cold war Labour government, introduced the building blocs of the welfare state which New Labour is intent on dismantling. They introduced the 1948 National Assistance Act intended to act as a safety net for those who fell below a certain level of income.

Workfare (Forced Labour) to be Piloted in Suffolk (and elsewhere).

Work for Your Benefits (here)

Work for Your Benefit (WfYB) pilots were a key part of the Green Paper “No one written off: reforming welfare to reform responsibility” published in July 2008 and the response “Raising expectations and increasing support: reforming welfare for the future” published in December 2008.

1. The Work for Your Benefit programme will consist of full-time (30 hours a week) work experience, backed up with flexible employment support.
2. There will be two pilots:
3. Greater Manchester
4. Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk

 

This is coming, very soon. This will apply to people who have completed the 52 weeks programme of the Flexible New Deal. Given the rates of unemployment it means quite a few of us will be facing the prospect for working for our meagre Dole. Locally ‘voluntary; organisations are already trumpeting a ’soft’ (voluntary) version of workfare. Well-rewarded professionals consider that we should contribute something to society  at rates of pay they would never dream of accepting. Like Housing Associations we will see some of them transform as they become publicly-funded (but privately run) bodies. Already there are some reports of dodgy individuals getting involved in these ‘projects’.  

More to the point: given Councils are cash-strapped, looking for ways to save money, how long will it before some Town Hall hits on the idea of using Workfare to replace paid staff?

Unemployment Set to Keep Rising.

Unemployment in the UK is set to hit 2.75 million by November next year as the economic recovery fails to boost the jobs market, research has claimed. (More here).

The ‘Flexible New Deal’ is to be followed by Work for Benefits. We have mentioned that East Anglia will be a Pilot area. This will be followed by the rest of the country. With these figures the signs are that a vast number of people are going to end up under the thumb of private Companies, Charities, Voluntary Organisations. Full-time. Dependent on their Good Will. Of the ‘good practice’ of the likes of a4e and Working Links. Not that, charities and ‘voluntary groups’ are exactly famous for this in regard to their own staff. As the trade unions know only too well.

New Deal Sanctions Exposed

679,820 New Deal Sanctions

So, we are always hearing about the millions of people who New Deal has supposedly helped get such jobseekers back in to work off benefits. You have also heard about how poorly New Deal participants are treated and perhaps you have your own experiences to back up this, but Ipswich Unemployed Action can reveal that over 679,820 sanctions have been awarded to lucky New Deal participants since the year 2000.
Whether the Government likes to admit this or not, the figures are an alarmingly high figure (equates to approx 84,977 sanctions per year) which probably suggest why the Government has refused mine and numerous other peoples attempts to reveal the numbers of people on New Deal being dismissed (or exited as they like to call it) under the Freedom of Information Act claiming an exemption.
Whereas these figures state the exact number of sanctions successfully imposed, it doesn’t state the number of times New Deal participants were exited/dismissed. It can be assumed that for each sanction a dismissal had occurred because that is the procedure however, myself and Andrew to name just two examples have been dismissed in the past without any imposed sanctions at all.
The figure of 679,820 definite dismissals with sanctions is a big figure so it is best to break it up.

New Deal

Prior to April 2004 but after April 2000, there were 193,300 sanctions awarded. At this time their systems didn’t specify which New Deal scheme it referred to. After April 2004 they are more detailed. The above figures equates to a rough average of 48,325 sanctions per year.
This is 4,027 sanctions per a month; 929 sanctions each week or to break it down completely, 261 sanctions each working day (5 day week Mon-Fri) solely from New Deal.

New Deal for Young People (NDYP)

Since April 2004 up until April 2009 (not up until New Deal ended) there were 325,390 successful sanctions awarded.
Gateway 2 Work (GtW)
On New Deal for Young People (NDYP) Gateway to Work there were 119,570 dismissals leading to successful sanctioning.
This is 2,491 sanctions per a month; 575 sanctions each week or to break it down completely, 115 sanctions each working day (5 day week Mon-Fri) solely from the Gateway 2 Work (GtW) stage of New Deal for Young People (NDYP).
ETF/VSO Option etc. (Option stage)
On New Deal for Young People (NDYP) VSO etc. there were 205, 560 dismissals leading to successful sanctioning.
This is 4,282 sanctions per a month; 988 sanctions each week or to break it down completely, 197 sanctions each working day (5 day week Mon-Fri) solely from the Option stage of New Deal for Young People (NDYP).
Other NDYP
I assume this category refers to the Adviser stage of New Deal; there were only 260 sanctions which equates to just over 1 a week.

New Deal 25+ (ND25+)

Since April 2004 up until April 2009 (not up until New Deal ended) there were 64,750 successful sanctions awarded.
Gateway 2 Work (GtW)
On New Deal 25+ (ND25+) Gateway to Work there were 7,110 dismissals leading to successful sanctioning.
This is 148 sanctions per a month; 34 sanctions each week solely from the Gateway 2 Work (GtW) stage of New Deal 25+ (ND25+).
Intensive Activity Period (IAP)
On New Deal 25+ (ND25+) IAP there were 57,640 dismissals leading to successful sanctioning.
This is 1,200 sanctions per a month; 277 sanctions each week or to break it down completely, 55 sanctions each working day (5 day week Mon-Fri) solely from the IAP stage of New Deal 25+ (ND25+).

Basic Skills

Since April 2004 up until April 2009 (not up until New Deal ended) there were 1,700 successful sanctions awarded equating to almost 2 every working day.

IAP (ages 50-59)

Since April 2004 up until April 2009 (not up until New Deal ended) there were 40 successful sanctions awarded equating to just under 1 a month.

Refusing/Failing a Jobseeker Direction while on New Deal

Does this mean refusing New Deal?! Since April 2004 up until April 2009 (not up until New Deal ended) there were 70,190 successful sanctions awarded for refusing New Deal/Jobseeker Direction.
This is 1,462 sanctions per a month; 337 sanctions each week or to break it down completely, 67 sanctions each working day (5 day week Mon-Fri) solely for refusing New Deal.

“Unknown”

Since April 2004 up until April 2009 (not up until New Deal ended) there were 5,980 successful sanctions awarded. We assume this category of Unknown New Deal is the other schemes such as NDDP, NDLP etc. out of process of elimination (i.e. the NDYP, ND25+ accounted for).
This is 125 sanctions per a month; 29 sanctions each week or to break it down completely, 6 sanctions each working day (5 day week Mon-Fri).

Reflection

From 2000 to April 2004, there were 193,300 sanctions making a rough figure of 48,325 sanctions per year. After April 2004 (up until April 2009) there were 486,520 sanctions making a rough figure of 121,630 per year.

This is an increase of 60% in sanctions.

Flexible New Deal

The Conservatives claim they will bring tougher sanctions and the Labour Party seems to have similar ideas.

Bypass Norwich! Local benefit claimants must read

Bypass the Benefit Delay Scandal

Jobcentre Plus gets correspondence sent to the below published address for the Suffolk (?) area:

Bury St Edmunds BDC
Thorpe Road
Norwich
NR99 1AD

Claimants’ Unions National Meeting.

Signs that things are starting to happen,

No to Welfare Abolition

the national planning meeting

Manchester University Students Union, Steve Biko Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR, rooms MR1 and MR2

Saturday 14th November

Arrive 11.30am for 12 noon start. Finish 5.30pm.

* The aims: stop the implementation of the welfare reform (abolition) bill; build a network of solidarity between claimants; create links between unemployed workers and workers in the PCS

* The day: 1. Share information 2. Plan a national action 3. Build a strategy and work out how we can co-ordinate nationally

The Welfare Reform Bill is a massive attack on the disabled, single parents, unemployed workers and workers in the Department for Work and Pensions and we cannot allow it to be implemented. 

14^th November is our chance for welfare and disability rights activists, members of unemployed workers’ groups and trade unionists to get to together, build links of solidarity and plan our struggle. If you are organising against welfare abolition or want to start doing so, please make sure people from your group come along!

We say to the government and the bosses, we do not exist for your benefit!

Free lunch will be provided.

Let us know you are coming by emailing hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com.

Contact rebecca.galbraith@yahoo.co.uk if you want to use the free creche.

Contact hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com if you need transport from London

 

Naturally, Manchester is rather a long way from Ipswich….

Unjustly Imprisoned Claimants.

Mick’s Blog contains some important stuff,

“Many hundreds of claimants are unjustly imprisoned every year because overpayment amounts are being ‘wildly exaggerated’ by the DWP, welfare benefits expert witness Neil Bateman has told MPs . In one case he assisted with, a woman prosecuted for a £47,000 overpayment had in reality under-claimed benefits.  

The shocking revelations were made in written evidence to a House of Commons committee currently examining the standard of DWP decision making.”

More here.

Reed in Partnership. What Kind of Partners for the Unemployed?

Reed in Partnership - the  word ‘partnership’ should make anyone wary.

They are subcontracted to provide the flexible New Deal. In Suffolk.

Flexible New Deal has raised issues about them in the recent past.

We have yet to hear any criticisms of how they treat ‘customers’ locally. And we shall be scrupulous in fulfilling any demands they make on our members and supporters  - insofar as they correspond to Reed’s own criteria.

That is their “set of six core values “,  “Accountability, Honesty, Efficiency, Forward Thinking, High Performing and Customer Focus”. (here)

Any experiences of these – please comment.

Flexible New Deal, TNG and Sanctions.

Well, it’s all off the Flexible New Deal. Contrary to what I was led to believe by other people, it is TNG that I have to report to.

The New Deal Scandal site, and others, have  already shared their knowledge and experience of this “provider” (for example here)

I wonder if any of this relates to the contents of the Jobcentreplus Flexible New Deal document, “What you can expect and what we can expect from you.” (FNDI 10/09).

It begin with  two pages explaining what the FND is.

One page on what we can expect from you. That is  responsibilities we owe to the DWP and the ‘Provider’.

Then “What happens if you don’t meet your responsibilities”?”

Answer: Sanctions. Seven pages  ( Page 7 to 13), from a total of 14,  about them.

Ends with “How to make a complaint.”

On Page 2 there is some stuff about ’service standards’.

It would have been more useful if they explained how the Flexible New Deal is going to be delivered, what is consists of, and what responsibilities the ‘provider’ TNG, has towards its clients.

But of this, nothing. 

 

Work For Benefit: The New Helots.

This article appears in the December issue of Labour Briefing – a left journal strongly critical of the present government. 

Work for Your Benefit: Labour’s New Helots. 

Welfare reform legislation is due to be one of this Government’s enduring legacies. From this autumn there will be two benefits: Jobseeker’s Allowance, and Employment and Support Allowance. Already there is pressure on medical assessors to channel those on Incapacity Benefit into the former, where many lone parents and others will also eventually join them. JSA brings a lower income – down to the standard rate of £64.30 a week, in contrast to £89.80, the starting point of incapacity allowance – and, after six months, puts claimants on the Flexible New Deal. This, being tried out in large parts of the country, will eventually replace all existing welfare-to-work schemes. For a year the jobless will be farmed out to private companies, intensively advised and obliged to carry out a minimum of four weeks of “work related activity” (they may be “advised” to do much more).

This sounds relatively benign. It replaces 13 weeks in “work placements” of dubious value or simply stuck in “training centres” (where the only “training” is sitting in front of computers “job searching” for work that does not exist) of the previous New Deal. However, the Government has learned nothing from its experience of farming out the New Deal to private companies, two of which at least have been accused of malpractice. The faith-led YMCA has also run schemes. Most have scraped through their contracts with low employment outcomes and feeble training standards. The approximately 600,000 claimants who have faced sanctions for not complying with every aspect of the schemes shows how they are used to punish people. If participants were in charge of inspections, the companies would fail in an instant – yet the DWP has been told to contract out its new scheme to the same bodies.

The new regime will closely regulate people’s lives. Partners of JSA claimants will also have to seek work actively. Those dependent on drugs and alcohol will undergo compulsory rehabilitation. There is no clear notion of what will happen if they fail, other than they will have no benefits.

Most worryingly, after two years unemployment people will be forced onto the Work for Benefits programme. This will involve full time activity in “training options, short term work trials, a remuneration subsidy for employers to take them, or voluntary work in the local community,” (DWP October 2009). With unemployment set to rise to 3 million by October next year, when this policy is enforced, they will have plenty of compelled “volunteers”.

Some argue that since JSA is supplemented by housing and council tax benefit, it is “fair” to work for this money. However, those further benefits are paid at varying rates, making the overall pay rates different between individuals – and still leaving them well below the minimum wage.

This all raises fundamental issues. First, why should those who through no fault of their own have no job be forced to do what has up to now been the task of those sentenced to do community service by the courts? Indeed, what will happen to community service orders when the long-term unemployed start to undertake similar “sentences”?

Second, this will corrupt the voluntary sector, parts of which are already gearing up for it. The character of the voluntary sector will change. The nature of forced labour is to give power to the employer while discouraging the worker, making them dependent on the goodwill of the employer. The rights of volunteers are not the same as those on paid contracts. Groups and no doubt individuals will profit financially.

Third, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that cash-strapped local government will see this as an opportunity to plug gaps in their services. A tied labourer is cheaper than a paid employee. In areas as disparate as home helps to environmental projects volunteering could become a new national service, replacing those working for real salaries.

Those opposed to welfare reform have to date had little impact on Brown’s take it or leave it decision that this is the direction welfare will go in. The umbrella initiatives organised by the TUC have petered out in well-meaning but ineffective lobbying by a coalition of “antipoverty” NGOs with some union support. There are now signs of a more militant approach emerging from unions of the unemployed and other groups. There are web sites promoting opposition and plans for a decent benefit system that could really cope with people’s needs. As mass unemployment returns pressure for change will increase.

 Labour looks set to leave behind a new class of helots – the work-for-the dole underclass. An incoming Conservative Administration will have plenty of conscripts for its plans for workfare. Both ideas were pioneered by the same person – once adviser to Labour and now the Tories, the exceedingly wealthy Lord Freud.

Andrew Coates

􀁺For more information, visit Ipswich Unemployed Action: http://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/

TNG are racist! (Ed’s note: Ofsted alleges “inadequate” Equal Ops)

Equal Opportunities?

Ipswich Unemployed Action would like to alert Flexible New Deal clients that an Ofsted report for ”TNG (Avanta) Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire New Deal” raised massive concerns about the central structure of TNG/Avanta being racist at its core.

During the Ofsted report inspection, the inspector noted some “inappropriate language and images” by both TNG staff and subcontractor staff – whereas Ofsted didn’t state whether these fell under racism, sexism, disability discrimination or a mixture of more than one, it raises extreme concerns especially when Equal Opportunities is written in the core of New Deal contracts.

DWP/Jobcentre Plus are aware of this concern at the time prior to the inspection and forced the holding company to establish an equality of opportunity representatives’ group (although this was for Avanta not TNG itself) and to immediately implement equality and diversity policies, procedures and staff training in TNG.

The report concluded that although had given plenty of time to do so prior to the Ofsted inspection most staff did not receive training on equality and diversity and the direct results of this are present when such staff couldn’t suppress such behaviour when being inspected by Ofsted, resulting in them being caught speaking offensive language and advocating the presentation of disgusting images to participants. Any attempts to include equality and diversity in TNG’s adult training public service environment have failed. The staff racism etc. was solely noted on this contract area although the failing’s in the company as a whole was raised i.e. if they dont have policies and procedures in place and staff aren’t trained – the situation will be a problem nationally.

Although these are major concerns (and on the tendering stage potential provides have to show awareness of Equal ops, harassment policies etc. these are also policies which form part of the New Deal contract hence why providers mention them on induction as they have to) TNG kept this prime contract. They also managed to secure Flexible New Deal.

TNG Ipswich: How do we get there?

So many people in Ipswich may have got  an invite to attend Flexible New Deal at TNG.

TNG which stands for Training Network Group or more to the point Trainee Network Group. Maybe the company should be called NGT (Network Group in Training) as even though they are part of a bigger company (Avanta) and have landed huge Government contracts to deliver Flexible New Deal – they are the most incompetent useless unprofessional dim wits ever!

Before you see this as a rant against the Flexible New Deal provider, read on and see how poor their methods of communication are.

We can hear an TNG employee stating:

How come only those who came by train had arrived?

Ipswich Jobseekers should claim back New Deal travel deductions after DWP has admitted it is illegal

New Deal Scandal has just announced that the £4 weekly travel deductions are illegal when DWP finally admitted:

There is no legislation involved in this decision.

DWP has since tried to remove the Freedom of Information request from the WhatDoTheyKnow Freedom of Information website. More details (and the full response) are available on Flexible-New-Deal.co.uk : New Deal Travel Deductions: DWP admits £4 deductions are unlawful

Ipswich Unemployed Action recommends everyone who fell victim to this multi-million pound scam since 1998 should contact their New Deal training provider and demand their money back (with interest to keep with inflation).

Those in Ipswich should contact Dencora House, YMCA Training.

Their details are as follows…

Dencora House
Units 6 to 10
34 Whitehouse Road
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP1 5LU

Tel: 01473 243980

Or

517 London Road
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP2 0ST

Telephone: 01473 406126

Contact name: Sally Smith

YMCA Training New Deal Contract Published

So, amongst reporting about the failings of New Deal as a whole and numerous other unemployment/welfare issues including new and proposed schemes such as Flexible New Deal and Workfare; you would have read about numerous concerns regarding local New Deal prime contractor (and I hear, also a subcontractor for Flexible New Deal) YMCA Training based at Dencora House and London Road.

Just to recap:

• Poor conditions at Dencora House and mistreatment of participants (overcrowding etc)
• Leaking participants confidential information
• Sending participants on walks (Cambridge) and requesting volunteers in order to run provision
• Dismissing participants with lies including claiming someone was a breach of Health & Safety obligations for saying “Storm Dencora House” on his blog, but really was down to speaking out about the scandal *before* he started the course
• Harrassment and Diversity issues
• Not complying to the Data Protection Act 1998 i.e. overdue information requests
• New Deal Fraud including timesheet fraud – saying participants are there longer than reality
• Deducting £4 week without legal authority to do so (advice on reclaiming coming soon)

YMCA Training New Deal: no Diversity or Harrassment policies

So, YMCA Training’s New Deal contract had been recently published and one of the most interesting discoveries was no diversity or harrassment policies were included when the contract was signed.

Draconian Testing Regime.

Via Mick, (here)”

In two reports issued last month, UK charities have finally begun to wake up and challenge the government over the ‘cruel’ and ‘unacceptable’ failings of the Employment and Support Allowance, (ESA) which is to replace the sickness benefits paid to those who are to ill or disabled to work. In the article below, the web site Benefits and Work looks at the disquiet which is gradually emerging over the way claimants are tested by the DWP to find out whether they are fit for work, and thus not eligible for sickness benefits. The new system has proved especially problematical as it operates on a one size fits all computer programe, which is unable to take into account the different ways illness and disability impacts on individual claimants. Some of the examples the article throws up are shocking. For example a claimant undergoing chemotherapy was obliged to attend a medical by badly trained DWP staff and told if she failed to attend she would lose her sickness benefit. Others claimants with cancer scored very few points when assessed under the new work capability assessment and were refused ESA. One woman with cancer scored just six points and was found capable of work.

Read the rest here.