Sanctions Report: Questions Unanswered.

An internal inquiry at the Department for Work and Pensions into the covert regime of welfare targets at jobcentres says it has found no evidence of the practice – yet it accepts that action is taken against those jobcentres that do not sanction benefits as much as others.

Reports the Guardian today.

This follows this (from Watching A4E),

In the last few weeks, DWP have been preparing the final statistics to the end of January and extending some of the tables to show new measures. These activities have exposed some significant doubts around the quality of the statistics relating to the new regime.

Consequently, to avoid a potentially misleading statistical release, JSA sanction statistics will not be released on 15 May.

DWP will perform further quality assurance activities on this new series and will publish as soon as possible. Unfortunately, it is not possible to commit to a definite date at the moment, but a proposed publication date will be announced in advance via

The Guardian continues,

The report also says some jobcentre staff are sometimes given personal targets, but only after being disciplined.

The internal report otherwise gives the DWP a clean bill of health, saying: “We found no evidence of a secret national regime of targets, or widespread secret imposition of local regimes to that effect. There is no national use of league tables. We found no evidence people are being wrongly sanctioned as a consequence.”

The article notes,

In recent months the Guardian has repeatedly found signs of a targets culture in the administration of benefits, and has reported on at least 16 jobcentres around the country involved in a drive to kick people off benefits, amid pressure to meet welfare targets set by their managers.

The DWP initially dismissed any suggestion of this, but last month said the practice had been going on in some offices due to a misunderstanding between the department and some jobcentre managers, and that this was no longer the case.

Now we come to the rub

The internal DWP report – written by the senior DWP manager responsible for the regime, Neil Couling – says benefit advisers can be given disciplinary warnings that contain a reference to what level of benefit might on average be expected.

This ‘internal report’ – that is not for the public or those signing-on – is we underline, dealing with decisions that affect people’s lives in the most serious way possible.

These warnings – known as personal improvement plans (PIPs) inside the DWP – “should be very clear about the consequences of an individual not fulfilling the personal responsibilities as a civil servant to administer the system in full”.

Are they? It’s the first we’ve heard of how they decide on how to “personally improve” our behaviour.

Couling argues that: “There is an important difference though in setting an individual target, which is not acceptable, and giving an individual an idea about what might be expected in their local labour market and for their size of caseload as an aid to judging whether the law is being properly applied. PIPs that make these references will be appropriate and do not constitute a local target or benchmark. That is a subtle difference that I suspect some advisers can struggle with.”

In an effort to explain the existence of tables – which were passed to the Guardian – showing how many claimants are sanctioned per benefit office, the internal report claims that these lists do not represent “league tables”.

They are no doubt merely lists, like lists for things you get at Liddle. Without consquence.

Or not,

Couling explains: “Management information is collected on referral rates and decision outcomes. This is used to assure managers that conditionality referrals are being done appropriately. Where an outlier is identified, whether that is high or low, managers collect evidence to explain these figures and where justified, no further action is taken.

“Should there be any issue of inappropriate use or non-compliance with the conditionality and sanctions legislation; staff should be supported to correctly impose conditionality with the use of personal improvement plan (PIP) and line manager support”.

“Staff should be supported to correctly impose conditionality” – what a phrase!

That is, they are told how to make somebody’s life a misery by taking away their benefits.

In the specific case of Walthamstow job centre, where managers demanded that staff increase sanctions or face disciplinary action, the report finds: “The language, tone and contents of the email were simply wrong and an inappropriate communication channel was used. The particular reference to a local DMA [decision-making and appeals] target of 5% was neither necessary nor accurate and appropriate.”

So if there was a 5% target.

No amount of mealy-mouthed rubbish about “neither necessary nor accurate and appropriate” can hide that.

Couling wrote: “Our wider review of the evidence suggests a limited number of other locations where errors of this type were also made.”

In other words the practice was more widespread.

By how much they refuse to reveal.

The report also refers to the 16 cases raised by the Guardian, and shows no evidence that any independent inquiries were made. In most of the 16 cases, Couling accepts errors of one sort or another had occurred.

Addressing the issue of whether league tables are routinely exchanged inside the DWP and Jobcentre Plus, he said: “It would be technically possible to configure management information into a league table (a simple manipulation of Excel) but as the leak showed, it is not in a league table.”

Not a league Table?

It was clearly a comparative table, which could be seen in this way, as the following jargon-riddled statement indicates,

But the report admits: “We have found a limited number of instances where a local manager has misinterpreted the instructions or has fallen back on target methodology in an effort to exercise their responsibilities to ensure the law is being properly applied. I believe that is happening because the cultural change underpinning the move away is incomplete.”

Couling claims the recent reports are the residue of a previous, now-abandoned, targets regime and staff imposing targets. “We need to be vigilant and consistent to ensure junior managers continue to move away from legacy habits as we focus on building the freedom and flexibility approach. We are using these incidents and the recent press coverage to redouble our efforts.”

Please note, the “freedom and flexibility approach” means giving great power to advisers to reduce people to destitution by “sanctioning” them

Couling also promised to publish at regular intervals figures on sanction referral by jobcentres.

See above on the DWP not publishing statistics.

The conclusion is this,

The issue will also now be investigated by the work and pensions select committee. The work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has also set up an independent year-long inquiry about the treatment of jobseeker’s allowance claimants.

The inquiry “will evaluate, where a claimant has failed to participate, how the sanctioning process then worked. This will include reviewing the clarity of information given to claimants to help them navigate this process.

“This will include what information was provided to explain that they can avoid a sanction by showing good cause and that they can apply for a review or appeal if a sanction is imposed.”

There is no space for people to ask:

• Is it right that the DWP and Job Advisers have such arbitrary power over people’s benefits?
• Whether it is right to give Work Programme Contractors auxiliary powers of this nature?
• How on earth people are expected to live on the money they get when they are “sanctioned”?

Skint, Channel Four: Is this How We Live?

Last night I watched Skint, a Channel Four ‘real-life’ documentary about the long-term unemployed.

It’s set in Scunthorpe, on the Westcliff estate.

Dean, who used to work at a steelworks but had been on the Dole for a year.

37 years old he lived with his wife Claire and their seven children and stepchildren.

This is how the programme is described on its site,

Skint tells the provocative and revealing stories of people who are in long-term unemployment, have never worked, or are growing up without any expectation of working.

At its height Scunthorpe’s steelworks employed 27,000 people. It now employs a sixth of that number. With work in the town still hard to find, the people featured in this series are thrown back on their own resources.

Told with energy, humour and boldness, the series offers an insight into their lives, highlighting social issues such as youth unemployment, crime, welfare dependency, truancy and addiction; but with the characters also revealing their ingenuity, resilience, community support and love and pride of family.

Skint gets behind the headlines as people who are often maligned for their lifestyle offer their own story and show the real impact of worklessness.

Public life seemed to centre on a hanging-out point, a wall.

When they were not showing people with major personal crises, like teenager, Connor who’d been excluded from seven different schools, and his long-suffering (lone-parent) mother Jordan, they were shooting scenes of people trading and swooping dodgy goods.

Shoplifters came with delicacies like Bernard Matthew’s turkey products.

Apparently these were flogged by the local junkies.

Personally (I’m sure I speak for most of us) I would walk ten miles in tight boots rather than have anything to do with hard-drug users, but there you go.

The screaming fraught scenes shown are not to everybody’s taste either.

Knowing – and seeing – that this kind of thing goes on does not make it any more typical.

Most long-term unemployed are a lot, a hell of a lot, more ordinary and would no doubt not make good documentary material.

“Quiet desperation” is a phrase invented for them.

Still Skint is more real and even funnier than the dire ‘sitcom’ on ITV about a Job Centre, the Job-Lot.
I’d put the cast of that series on the Westcliff Estate and see how they fare.

Is the Universal Jobmatch Complusory? Yes, and No. And What Else?

 

This is the letter I got after asking about what we have to do about Universal Jobmatch.

It says we have to register. This can be enforced through a “Jobseekers Direction” (a pretty ominous name).

But that there is “discretion” allowed for the Adviser.

That is, they have power.

It says that we have to do “what is reasonably expected” to find a job.

But it does not say that we have to supply print-out of our jobsearches.

I hope this clarifies matters.

UKIP hate the Unemployed too.

UKIP don’t just loathe migrant workers.

They hate the unemployed here as well.

We are, UKIP says, “a parasitic underclass of scroungers”.  (The Void)

They want this policy,

Require those on benefits – starting with Housing and Council Tax Benefit recipients in private rented homes – to take part in council-run local community projects called ‘Workfare’ schemes. The schemes will be in addition to council jobs.

The Void comments that it is now hard to find the policy document that says this.

But more evidence keeps coming in of their views,

We have this,

Some long-term benefit claimants would be banned from using their benefit cash to buy cigarettes, alcohol or satellite TV subscriptions under proposals due to be presented at the UK Independence party’s spring conference on Saturday.

The proposed ban on paying for satellite TV comes only a fortnight after it was disclosed that Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and biggest shareholder of News Corp, had met the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, for the first time, prompting speculation that the Sun may support the party.

Ukip’s welfare plans also include proposals to stop paying benefits to EU or other foreign citizens living in the UK.

Now you can only get benefits in the UK if you have ‘habitual residence’.

That is you’ve lived and worked here.

So they want people who’ve paid taxes to get no JSA.

Now we have this,

After Scrapbook exposed sick comments from a UKIP councillor on banning unemployed people from voting, the party’s most high-profile new recruit has rushed to his defence, claiming Cllr Tom Bursnall “has a point”, going on to say it is “dangerous” to let unemployed people vote.

Having defected from the Tories, 23 year-old Alexandra Swann was the star turn at UKIP’s recent conference in Skegness — with party leader Nigel Farage proudly declaring that “the Swann has migrated”.

But appearing to agree with Cllr Bursnall, who as the former chair of Conservative Future is also a defector from the Tories to UKIP, she continued:

“allowing people to vote on how other people’s money is spent — if they don’t contribute — is dangerous” Here.

That’s the real UKIP: the enemy of the out-of-work.

Benefit Cap: Eviction Notices from Genesis in London. When will Genesis Ipswich Follow?

Tenants participating in a trial of the government’s controversial benefit cap are being sent eviction letters because the welfare changes mean they “may not be able to afford the rent” and they may have to leave their homes within 14 days, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

The article continues,

The letter from Genesis says it has been forced into taking these steps because of the “significant changes being currently introduced to the welfare benefit system”. The letter warns that, if the tenants do not offer a defence, a court can force eviction within 14 days.

And,

A spokesperson for Genesis at first denied that letters had been sent out. When confronted with the text of the letter, the social landlord, which manages about 30,000 homes across London and south-east England, said there had been a “cack-handed attempt” to explain the situation in Haringey to “some clients”. “That letter should not have been written that way. We are working with tenants in Haringey to help them out of arrears.”

Genesis is present in Ipswich.

SG has secured phase one of a major urban regeneration project in the historic docklands area of Ipswich, bringing new homes and commercial accommodation to the town. The initial £15 million contract with Genesis Housing Association focuses on the delivery of 386 affordable and Extra Care houses, with ISG also working towards the detailed design and costing of the full scheme, which is expected to be in the region of £36 million.

Just in case evictions take place here Genesis helps provide a local Ipswich service for the homeless,

The Council and Genesis Housing Association provides 12 emergency cold weather beds at Cavendish Lodge in Turret Lane, while local churches are also supplying a winter bed service for people in need.

Meanwhile the Genesis CEO gets £200, 000 a year (Here)

Universal Credit Web Site Can’t Spell and Barely Works.

The Guardian reports,

The first step of the claim form for the government’s flagship welfare reform initiative, billed as the biggest change to the benefits system for 60 years, invites people to input a security code, “seperating” each word with a space.

Council staff and CAB advisers initially had some difficulty navigating beyond the welcome page as they tried to familiarise themselves with the system and found the password entry stage was temporarily stuck.

“I’m not saying it’s not working,” a council staff member said, flustered as she tried to demonstrate the system. “But we have a display error.” The issue resolved itself half an hour later, and staff concluded that it was probably a local problem rather than an issue with the DWP computer system.

Advisers were worried about the absence of a save function on the process (which takes up to 45 minutes to complete), meaning that if a claimant paused to get extra information and was logged off, they would need to start again. Staff said they hoped this would be resolved before the programme was rolled out nationwide for new claimants from October.

This is not the end of the problems Universal Credit will cause.

The Morning Star notes,

 Critics have warned the scheme threatens heavy sanctions for people who are already working.

Those in minimum-waged, part-time jobs of less than 35 hours a week risk losing their benefit unless they attend job interviews with as little as 48 hours’ notice.

The regulations can even compel a worker to quit the job they have for one with slightly more hours, on pain of freezing their benefit.

And the Minister in charge says he,

 would also freeze people’s benefits if they tried to secure higher wages through industrial action.

“Striking is a choice and in future benefit claimants will have to pay the price for that choice – as under universal credit, we no longer will,” he said.

There are plenty of critics,

TUC regional secretary Lynn Collins said the raft of sanctions and hoops would “only worsen the gap between the haves and have-nots.

“This is a crackpot scheme which is designed to cut payments to the most vulnerable people and the working poor,” she said.

85% of Claimants “On-Line” Says Ian Duncan Smith.

On BBC Breakfast this morning Ian Duncan Smith was interviewed about the Universal Credit pilot starting today.

One question came up: you have to apply for it on-line so how can everybody do this?

The Minister for Work and Pensions replied that 80% of claimants were on-line at home, and another 5% had access through their mobile devices.

As for the rest?

They all had ways of getting on-line, through local libraries or the Job Centre.

80%?

He might as well have said that 80% of claimants eat foie gras for breakfast and are willing to work on the mines of Pluto.

As for mobiles. Is he seriously suggesting that we fill in a complicated set of forms on a hand-held phone?

Apart from the cost, that is.

I would not like to have to do some serious form-filling in the Job Centre either.

The terminals in Ipswich, Silent Street, are where crowds assemble waiting to sign on.

There are frequent ‘incidents’ there.

Not to mention that, as people here have pointed out, not everybody is able to use computers, and even those who are familiar with them will find that giving long lists of their personal details and getting all the entries right, is not so easy ‘on-line’.

In a more sinister vein Ian Duncan Smith says the new system is about “changing people”.

“What we have to do is to start changing people, and that’s what this system is about.”

This engineer of the human soul wants to tell us what to do, and we will bloody well have to follow orders.

80% of claimants have the Internet at home… what a card you are Ian!

Dangers of Putting CVs on Job Sites.

I am registered with a well-known employment agency.

That is, they have my CV and a model covering letter.

I use this to apply for jobs .

You get notified of a job, press “Apply” and your CV and the covering letter (which you modify for each application) appears.

Yesterday I found that that another person’s CV and model letter came up when I did this.

It gave great personal details about this individual (JB) who lives in the same town.

Address, phone, work history, and the rest.

I immediately E-Mailed back to the well-known employment agency.

There is no reply this morning.

 

Committee to examine the role of Jobcentre Plus in the reformed welfare system

Work and Pensions Committee

Select Committee Press Notice

 

NEW INQUIRY

 

Committee to examine the role of Jobcentre Plus in the reformed welfare system

The Work and Pensions Committee is to begin an inquiry into Jobcentre Plus (JCP).

The inquiry will focus on the services JCP offers to benefit claimants, jobseekers and employers and its relationships with external providers and stakeholders such as local authorities, in the context of recent and ongoing welfare reforms,  including the introduction of  Universal Credit, and the resulting changes to JCP staff roles.

The Committee will consider the future of JCP as a public employment service, including its role as “gatekeeper” to contracted-out services such as the Work Programme and Work Choice. It will also assess the support which JCP currently provides to jobseekers in the early months of their unemployment benefit claim, before referral to external providers.

The inquiry will also assess whether the organisational changes in JCP since 2011 have produced efficiencies and streamlined management processes as intended.

 

Submissions of no more than 3,000 words are invited from interested organisations and individuals.

The Committee is particularly interested in the issues set out below. Submissions do not need to address all of these points.

 

• JCP’s employment services, including: approaches to identifying jobseekers’ needs and barriers to employment; the effectiveness of the “Get Britain Working” measures; JCP’s role as a gateway to contracted-out services such as Work Choice and the Work Programme, including processes for referral and handover; JCP’s use of the Flexible Support Fund, including how spending decisions are made and evaluated; and the effectiveness of JCP’s relationships with other key stakeholders, particularly local authorities.
• JCP’s role in relation to the rights and responsibilities of benefit claimants, including: the effectiveness of benefit conditionality, particularly job-seeking conditionality and the mandatory “work-focused interview”; and the level and appropriateness of JCP’s use of benefit sanctions, including differences of approach between JCP Districts.
• Supporting a flexible labour market, including: JCP’s effectiveness  in matching jobseekers to suitable job vacancies, including through the introduction of Universal Jobmatch; whether JCP is sufficiently focused on sustained job outcomes as well as off-benefit flows and how this is, or should be, measured; and employers’ assessment of the effectiveness of JCP as a recruitment partner.
• The impacts of benefit reforms, including: the implications for JCP staff roles of the implementation of Universal Credit, including the skills staff will need in order to offer effective in-work support; changes to staff roles brought about by the move to “digital by default”; and plans to support claimants affected by the benefit cap.
• The governance of JCP, including: whether ending the executive agency status of JCP, and bringing it under the central control of a single DWP Chief Operating Officer, has brought about efficiencies and streamlined management as intended; and the potential for more radical future changes to JCP.

The deadline for submitting evidence is Friday 24 May.

Why not give this a go?

Sanctioning the Jobless.

The truth behind ‘sanctioning’ the jobless.

This important article is from today’s Morning Star.

Extracts.

“As a former manager in Duncan Smith’s Jobcentre Plus I have first-hand experience of seeing how easily damn lies become statistics.

The Work and Pensions Secretary is no stranger to being economical with truth. In recent weeks he has made some pretty unbelievable statements.

Like anyone who has worked for Jobcentre Plus over the last few years, I was amused, if not surprised, by the recent denials from Duncan Smith that staff had been given targets for sanctioning claimants.

“Sanctioning” is one of those popular weasel words. For the claimant it means losing your benefit.

Over the last few years I attended many meetings where instructions from above were passed on and we managers had to order staff to sanction or disallow more claimants because the office stats didn’t look good.

Managers were usually careful not to use the word “target,” especially in an email. The thesaurus must have been consulted on many occasions before they finally settled on another weasel word – “expectation.”

They do say: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck the chances are it is a duck.” It doesn’t matter what terminology was used, everyone knew what these were. They were targets.

Staff were told that there was an expectation that they would refer more cases for dismissal or disallowance. Put simply it meant more folk would lose their benefits.

No targets? Oh no. But if staff failed to achieve a required percentage, they could find themselves in line for discipline.

I worked in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for the best part of 20 years and the vast majority of my colleagues were motivated by a desire to help people in the most difficult of situations.

People working in your local jobcentre will live in the same community as the claimants they try to help.

Many, like myself, would have been claiming benefit immediately prior to working for DWP and had first-hand experience of life the other side of the counter.

This government’s attempt to bully the most vulnerable in society is not confined only to those who have no job.

Jobcentre staff complete an annual anonymous survey. Over the last few years 13 per cent of them have stated that they have been subjected to bullying in the workplace.

this constant pressure on staff and claimants may be counterproductive for the government.

Nearly three-quarters of DWP staff are members of the Public and Commercial Services union and PCS members have taken more action in the last few years than almost any other group of workers.

Today they are also working alongside claimant organisations to provide a united fightback.

We all know bullies only get away with their bullying by isolating their victims.

Our present Con-Dem government knows all about bullying. They have proved themselves a gang of bullies, and none more so than Duncan Smith.

That fightback need to start on both sides of the jobcentre counter. Public servants and those on benefits have exactly the same enemy.

Only by us all working and fighting together can Cameron, Clegg and the despicable Duncan Smith be dumped on the dole queue of history where only they belong.

• John Andrews is a pseudonym to protect the author’s identity.

Last year this appeared in May.

Margaret Hodge, the chair of the public accounts committee, is to demand why a senior official at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) denied that staff at jobcentres were being given targets to enforce sanctions on benefit claimants’ money.

This comes as the Guardian publishes another set of evidence of a targets culture; internal documents show evidence of this at more than a dozen jobcentres around the country. Civil servants had said previous cases were isolated incidents.

But the mounting documentary evidence and reports from staff suggests that across the country, on the ground these “scorecards” result in targets and pressure on staff.

By October the 22nd sanctions were toughened up,

• Higher level sanctions (for example for leaving a job voluntarily) will lead to claimants losing all of their JSA for a fixed period of 13 weeks for a first failure, 26 weeks for a second failure and 156 weeks for a third and subsequent failure (within a 52 week period of their last failure).
• Intermediate level sanctions of four weeks for a first failure, rising to 13 weeks for a second or subsequent failures (within a 52 week period of their last failure) may be applied following a period of disallowance for not actively seeking employment or not being available for work.
• Lower level sanctions (for example for failing to attend an adviser interview) will lead to claimants losing all of their JSA for a fixed period of four weeks for the first failure, followed by 13 weeks for subsequent failures (within a 52 week period of their last failure

No surprise that in March this year we learn this,
 

The government has launched an inquiry after it was forced to admit that jobcentres have been setting targets and league tables to sanction benefit claimants despite assurances to parliament this week that no such targets were being set.

A leaked email shows staff being warned by managers that they will be disciplined unless they increase the number of claimants referred to a tougher benefit regime.

Ruth King, a jobcentre adviser manager, discloses in the email that she has received “the stricter benefit regime” figures for her area, adding: “As you can see Walthamstow are 95th in the league table out of only 109″ – the number of jobcentres in London and the home counties. The employment minister, Mark Hoban, had assured MPs on Tuesday: “There are no league tables in place. We do not set targets for sanctions. I have made that point in previous discussions.”

The league table could only have been drawn up through information provided by senior managers in the Department for Work and Pensions.

Hoban had told MPs that decisions on sanctioning claimants “need to be based on whether people have breached the agreements they have set out with the jobcentre, and there are no targets in place”.

Faced with the email, the DWP said: “We are urgently investigating what happened in this case. If a manager has set a local target for applying sanctions this is against DWP policy and we will be taking steps to ensure these targets are removed immediately.”

Labour claim they did not vote against the Jobseeker’s Bill because an independent review of sanctions will take place,

Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, responding to reports in the Guardian of a major scandal in the DWP’s sanction’s regime, said:

“This is why we took difficult decisions on the Jobseekers’ Bill to secure an independent review of sanctions. We knew there were sanctions targets and now we’ve secured an independent report to Parliament to put right a regime in Job Centres that’s running out of control.

It cannot have escaped anybody’s notice that the idea of forcing people to use the Universal Job Match site provides an opportunity not just to snoop on the unemployed, and harass them, but to give another pretext for sanctions.

I have asked, when signing on,  what the local targets for making people penniless were.

Denial, denial and flat denial, that these exist.

UK Unemployment Rise in “Tribute to Baroness Thatcher”.

In a fitting tribute to Baroness Thatcher this was announced on the day when her remains were consecrated for Sainthood,

Unemployment jumped by 70,000 in the three months to the end of February and pay rises registered the lowest increase since 2001, adding to the mounting pressure on George Osborne to adopt a more aggressive growth strategy.

The number of people unemployed reached 2.56 million, with 20,000 under 25-year-olds adding their name to the register, pushing the unemployment rate up from 7.8% to 7.9%.Here.

 

The BBC, ever eager to give the government side (especially as their just appointed News Editor, James Harding,  is a Murdoch hack, until very recently Editor of the right-wing Times) adds,

Employment Minister Mark Hoban acknowledged that there were “still tough challenges ahead”, but highlighted the importance of the fall in the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JA), and especially the drop among young people.

“We will continue to give jobseekers all the help and support they need to realise their aspirations,” he said.

Protests over Welfare Reform: Lord Freud Put Outside his Comfort Zone.

From the BBC,

 

The BBC’s Tom Symonds: “Protesters have taken over the road”Up to 300 anti-cuts protesters – some posing as removal men – blocked a road outside the north London home of welfare minister Lord Freud earlier.

More pictures from UK Uncut  on Facebook here.

 

Here at Ipswich Unemployed Action we are pleased to hear that our old friend Lord Freud got it in the neck.

 

Here is some of his background (adapted from Wikipedia).

 

“Freud was a Financial Times journalist. In 1983 he worked fir Rowe & Pitman. He oprated over 50 deals, raising more than £50bn in 19 countries. Many were high profile, including the flotations of Eurotunnel and EuroDisney.

 

His role in the deals earned him a great deal of publicity and criticism.

 

By 2003, Freud had become the vice-chairman of investing banking at the firm, now known as UBS AG.

 

He retired early at the age 53, claiming that he was bored with the City.In late 2006, Freud was appointed by the Tony Blair, to provide a nominally independent review of the British welfare to work system.

 

His subsequent recommendations called for expanded private sector involvement in the welfare system, for substantial resources to be found to help those on Incapacity Benefit back into “economic activity” and for single parents to be required to take paid employment earlier.

 

Although his recommendations on single parents were immediately adopted, when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007 other restructuring measures were soft-pedalled.(Note, oh no they weren’t).

 

He was later rehired as an adviser to the government when James Purnell was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2008.

 

He was involved in producing a white paper, published in December 2008.

 

This would require most people receiving benefits either to participate in some form of employment or prepare formally to find paid employment later.

 

He said, “We cannot have people simply loafing about, doing nothing and expecting the state to finance their lifestyles,”

 

“”That is the way to the destruction of our society.”

 

In February 2009, Freud joined the Conservative Party, which at that time was not in government. He was given a life peerage as Baron Freud, of Eastry in the county of Kent and became a shadow minister for welfare in the House of Lords.

 

As of 2012, Freud is in charge of reform of the benefits system.”

 

His lordship has never done an honest day’s work in his life.

 

He is now making our lives a misery.

 

The sooner he joins another Baron(ess) the better!

Universal Jobmatch: The Clamp Down Begins.

Universal Jobmatch is now being actively forced on people.

In Ipswich we have been spared this till now because the public computers accessible to most people – the Libraries – do not work properly.

That is, since being turned into a private Charity the Suffolk Library service has not upgraded its browsers for a long, a very long, time.

This week those signing on in Ipswich were told.

• There is no longer the form you filled in giving details of jobs you applied for and jobsearch.
• You must register with Universal Jobmatch.
• You must provide proof of any job search activity by print-outs, or by letting the DWP snoop on you Universal Job Match account.

These problems remain.

• There are not enough public computers with easy access to web sites.
• The Job Centre Silent Street Office has recently placed some computers at the front of the signing on desks. These are not in a safe environment - the number of screaming rows, heavy-handed interventions by Security guards that you see there has not stopped growing. Apart from that their terminals  appear to have no towers for you to upload your CV through
• Other computers, for those on the Work Programme, are woefully inadequate for the several thousand people affected by this decree.
• Getting print-outs costs money from other places.
• Not everyone is computer literate or feels at ease with them.
• If you do not live in the town centre you pay to pay high bus fares to get to these computers.

People do not universally like having their job seeking activity snooped on by a bunch of Nosey Parkers.

Not everyone likes having an American company making money out of public services.

Universal Jobmatch’s technical problems have not gone away.

Thatcher Dies.

No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.

Aneurin Bevan

The idea that filth like Thatcher should get a state funeral is beyond belief.

There is an E-Petition against Thatcher having a state funeral: details here.

No state funeral for Maggie Thatcher.

Springtime for Tories as they Glory in Philpott’s Conviction.

Ever keen to sink a new low the Tories are now blaming the welfare state for odious killer Mick Philpott (from here)

Mick Philpott’s benefits ‘lifestyle’ should be questioned, says Osborne

Chancellor says it is right to question ‘why we are subsidising lifestyles like’ that of Derby father convicted of killing six children

The chancellor, George Osborne, has taken the calculated risk of wading into the debate over the child killer Mick Philpott by asking whether the welfare state may have contributed to his lifestyle by being too generous.

The new Tory Campaign song:

England was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader to restore
Its former glory
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me!
LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:
And now it’s…
Springtime for Cameron and Tories
Britain  is happy and gay!
We’re marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
Springtime for Cameron and Tories!

The Bedroom Tax Song.

Words cannot express the misery that the Bedroom Tax is creating.

In Ipswich close friends are being ruined by it.

But here is a stab at giving some words to this,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bik9299kA0c&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1

Ipswich MP Ben Gummer (Con): Easter Message on the ‘Bedroom Tax’.

There are many rooms in my Father’s house, and I am going to prepare a place for you. I would not tell you this if it were not so. John 14.2 (New International Version).

“I am grateful to Ipswich Unemployed Action for the opportunity, on this special day, to write a guest post.

There has been much talk of the ‘Bedroom Tax’.

In reality this is a much needed structural adjustment allocation relocation of spare space subsidy measure.

As I said to the East Anglian Daily Times, on March the 20th,

The government is right to insist that local councils sort our benefits for local council taxes.

Suffolk County Council has taken the opportunity to improve the benefits it provides; I am only sad that – once again – the Borough has chosen to be political rather than imaginative about what it does.

Other councils – including Labour ones – elsewhere in the country are coming up with better solutions to helping vulnerable people.

“And on spare bedrooms – most people just do not understand why Housing Benefit is being paid for empty rooms which are desperately needed by families across Ipswich.

My Government is helping vulnerable people find new homes in the doorways of Ipswich shops all the time.

On this, the holiest time of the year, should we not think of the poor?

Beati pauperes spiritu!

Blessed are the poor! May they increase!!”

Bedroom Tax, Now Even Frank Field Joins Protests.

Today in the Independent.

Brick up your doors, knock down the walls’: Labour MP Frank Field makes dramatic call as ‘bedroom tax’ hits

The cut will reduce a claimant’s housing benefit payments if their home is deemed under-occupied

former welfare minister has delivered a dramatic appeal to landlords to take direct action against the “bedroom tax” by knocking down walls or bricking up windows in protest against housing benefit cuts.

Thousands of people will protest tomorrow against the changes, which come into force on Monday, in more than 50 demonstrations in all parts of Britain.

Further campaigns of civil disobedience are planned next month over the bedroom tax, under which people face losing up to one-quarter of their housing benefit if their home is judged to be under-occupied.

I can’t say I’d ever had thought that Frank Field would say something like this!

Job Centres: Let’s Try a Test Case on Scum Sanctions.

This article has not ceased creating waves.

 

Jobcentre staff have contacted the Guardian to say it is widespread practice for managers to set targets for removing benefits. PLabour responded to fresh evidence suggesting jobcentres around the country are being given targets to find reasons to take away jobseeker’s allowance from claimants by demanding that the government speed up and widen the remit of an independent review into the regime of benefit sanctions.

Liam Byrne, shadow work and pensions secretary, said his party would table amendments in the Lords on Monday to widen the terms of the proposed inquiry if ministers did not give an undertaking “to get to the bottom of every sanction issued by a jobcentre where targets were in operation”.

This bit stuck in me mind,

It was also reported that staff in a jobcentre in the West Midlands were this week told that the team who submitted the most Stricter Benefit Regime “Refusal of Employment” referrals would be rewarded with Easter eggs. The staff were told there was drive on this particular type of sanction.

 

To call the people doing this ‘bleedin’ filth’ is to be rude about filth.

We should be thinking about some serious legal – and why not more? – action.

BBC: Setting the People Against the ‘Undeserving Poor’.

This week the BBC has joined in a new sport: setting the “deserving” against the “undeserving” poor.

This is only one example (13th of March).

In the debate on welfare changes, the government has championed hard working families against those it says are “sleeping off a life on benefits”.

The BBC’s Graham Satchell reports from one of the most deprived parts of the UK, the Falinge estate in Rochdale, on whether its residents feel there are ”deserving” and ”undeserving” poor.

This by coincidence whatsoever ran parallel to the Daily Mail’s own campaign (13th of March),

Dole cheats who are convicted twice in three years face the prospect of having
their benefits withdrawn in a crackdown on the so-called “black economy”.

And the long-standing Daily Express campaign – samples,

Britain’s farcical benefits system was exposed yesterday after a cheating mother was told she can now claim twice as much rather than go to jail.

Are you fed up with taxpayers forking out for benefits cheats?

Is Britain’s benefits culture a shambles?Should workers be forced to provide for the unemployed?Are you fed up with taxpayers forking out for benefits cheats?

JOIN THE DEBATE AND HAVE YOUR SAY NOW… (Here)

As well as Porn Margate Desmond’s Daily Star,

BENEFITS CHEAT TAKES 41 HOLIDAY IN 13 YEARS!

The BBC seems to think that you can have a ‘debate’ between those peddling these stories and the truth – the utter poverty of those on benefits.

We imagine the BBC in Germany 1933 (just before Hitler comes to power).

Are there deserving or undeserving Jews?

We ask the public.

Herr Göring thinks that Jews are cheating the public. The daily Völkischer Beobachter is full of stories about abuses of our generous welfare state.

We visit the Berlin Estate of Prenzlauerberg to gauge opinion.

Meanwhile politicians are concerned that new immigration rules will allow migrants  from Eastern European Shtetls to come and take advantage of our German public services.

The BBC asked Aaron Goldfar how he defended Jews who are profiting from the system.

“Herr Goldfarb, what do you say to those who reveal cases fo Jews enjoying a luxurious life at honest folks’ expense? Is it true that there really is some kind of ‘conspiracy’ organised by your Elders from a Prague cemetery? When will you stop mixing gentile blood in your matzos for Passover?”

Let’s be clear on this.

The Liberal-Conservative Coalition is built on hate and fear.

Hate against the poor, and using fear to win support.

It’s up to us to get rid of them.

Workfare To Be Made Restrospectively Legal.

This is important.

Scheming ministers plot workfare scam

by Paddy McGuffin.

Shameless Department for Work and Pensions ministers admitted today they were considering new legislation to avoid paying out over its unlawful workfare scheme.

A Court of Appeal ruling last month found that the schemes – requiring claimants to do unpaid work experience or lose benefits – were unlawful due to the way the regulations were framed.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith insisted at the time that he had “no intention” of repaying benefits to anyone who lost out and he launched an appeal to the Supreme Court seeking to have the ruling overturned.

New regulations were set on the day of the court ruling to ensure that the DWP can continue threatening claimant’s benefits to coerce them to take part in schemes.

More here.

But the department confirmed it was considering its options in the case of defeat at the Supreme Court. It is believed defeat could prompt action from tens of thousands of claimants who have had their benefits docked, seeking millions of pounds in repayments.

Bedroom Tax Protests 14th March.

Protest against the Bedroom Tax and Defend Welfare Benefits on the 16th of March.

In more than 30 locations across Britain people opposed to the Bedroom Tax will be gathering in city centres to protest against the policy on March 16 at 1pm, reports Andy Richards. Foster parents, disabled persons, single parents and families with a recently bereaved member are the people whom this policy hurts the most.

The Bedroom Tax works by reducing the Housing Benefit (HB) of a household which is deemed to be “underoccupying” a council or housing association dwelling according to a draconian set of criteria. Two children of the same sex are expected to share a bedroom up to age 16, as are a couple, even where illness or disability makes this impossible. Two children of different sexes are expected to share up to age 10.

The reduction is 14% for one bedroom “too many” and 25% if it is two or more.

List of protests (being updated)Coalition of Resistance  here.

More from Labour Left here.

Labour Left is organising ‘Bedroom Tax’ protests on the 14th of March.

Protests have already taken place.

Here is Liverpool.

 

Hundreds of people protested in Liverpool yesterday about the government’s bedroom tax.

The protest was organised by Stand Up In Bootle, which is part of umbrella group Liverpool Against the Cuts. Protesters gathered outside the offices of One Vision Housing in Bootle before marching to a Sefton Council one stop shop.

BBC Documentary Asks For Our Opinions on Benefits.

Ipswich Unemployed Action  has been asked (really,…not made up, promise..)by the producers of this documentary to post this.

BENEFITS: HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK IS ENOUGH?

2013 is bringing big changes to the benefits system.

Many people will be receiving less than they currently get.

Is this an unfair attack on people in need?
Or has living on benefits become too comfortable?
Where do you stand?

A brand new BBC documentary is exploring the issue of Benefits and  we want to hear from you!

Whatever your opinion, if you are interested in finding out more,

Call/text Alex on 07581 503 695 or
Stef on 07581 503 615
or email: benefits@silverriver.tv

All information will be treated as confidential and there is no commitment at this stage.

Universal Jobmatch Mandatory (but not ‘Blanket’) from 4th March.

The PCS trade union has announced,

“The Secretary of State for DWP will make an announcement on 1st March 2013 that, with effect from 4th March 2013, FLAs can mandate claimants to register for UJ. This will be done via a Jobseeker Direction. Importantly, however, management have acknowledged that mandatory sign up to UJ will not be a blanket approach; instead, FLAs should encourage claimants to use UJ. Mandatory sign up will be on an individual basis, if the FLA feels that UJ would be beneficial to the claimant, and they have ‘unreasonably refused’. Management will be issuing guidance around this shortly.

Cookies Legislation

Currently, EU cookie legislation prevents mandatory sign up requiring customers to use their home computers to register for, or use UJ. This is because the choice to accept cookies on your computer has to be made ‘freely’, under the EU legislation. This means that if an FLA seeks to mandate a claimant to register on UJ, they will need to look at alternative methods of doing so – Internet Access Device (IAD) within a jobcentre, use of computer in local library, etc. Management refer to this as their ‘tactical solution’. PCS have raised doubts that there are sufficient resources within Jobcentres to enable this to be a realistic workaround.

However, the UJ project has indicated that they are seeking to make changes to the UJ site which will provide an option to remove the cookies from home computers. When these changes are made, FLAs will be able to mandate customers to sign up from home. This is what management are calling the ‘strategic’ solution, but they are unable to say when this ‘fix’ will be implemented.

Access to UJ Account

If, and when, a claimant signs up to UJ, they will be encouraged to give DWP access to their account. However, it is absolutely clear from a legal perspective that the claimant does not have to tick the box to give DWP access to their account, and can provide alternative proof of UJ sign up and use, e.g. screenprints

FLAs setting up UJ Accounts

It has been brought to the attention of PCS that some District Managers are encouraging FLAs to set up their own UJ account and then take claimants for a ‘walkthrough’ of the system. PCS has challenged the security aspect of this process and, as a result, management centrally, have issued clear instructions that this practice must stop. PCS has received assurances centrally that any advisor, following what they believed to be a ‘reasonable management request’, will face no disciplinary action as a result of their actions.

Robustness of UJ Site

PCS has raised serious concerns around the robustness of the UJ site. The UJ site has already attracted widespread media attention due to a number of rogue job adverts that have appeared and security concerns. Management have stated that they have increased the number of checks on the site to prevent ‘bogus’ adverts appearing, but are unable to offer any cast-iron guarantees that vacancies of this type will not appear in the future. PCS has also challenged management around employers offering jobs with salaries/wages below the national minimum wage level. Again, management state that they are constantly monitoring any misuse of the system. Although they admit that there a number of fixes to the site still to be made, for example around the geographical searches, management insist that the site popular and well used.

Summary

The view of PCS is that Universal Jobmatch is nothing more than a crude tool being used by DWP management to help deliver this government’s ‘scorched earth’ approach to the welfare reform agenda. Disgracefully, it is PCS members who are at the forefront of criticism from claimants and welfare groups alike when failings of the system are highlighted across the national media. FLAs should follow the guidance and use their own discretion when mandating claimants to sign up to UJ, and resist any local targets or blanket approaches at a local level.

The working processes outlined within this circular are absolute and not subject to any “interpretation” by district managers. Any attempt to amend these processes under the banner of ‘Freedoms and Flexibilities’ should be escalated to the Group Office as a matter of urgency.”

Comments.

• In Suffolk the public Library Computer system will not support Universal Jobmatch (just one of the problems this ‘privatised charity’ is causing). How can you get access to it if you do not have a home link to the Net? Johnny Void says that “  Jobcentres will be providing Internet Access Devices for those unable or unwilling to use a home PC.”. We are sceptical, very sceptical , that local Jobcentres will be able to cope with the demand. Ipswich Silent Street DWP and JC are straining to park their growing number of clients as it is.
• “Currently, EU cookie legislation prevents mandatory sign up requiring customers to use their home computers to register for, or use UJ.” So even if you have a link to the Net they can’t make you sign up through your home broadband etc.
• If you feel you would like to use Universal Jobmatch (and we would hardly recommend ignoring any way of getting proper work) you do not need to  give your ‘adviser’ access to your account. If you dislike Nosey-Parkers, do not mark the box which allows this.

On the Web we learn that security problems, the risk of identity theft, and bogus job announcements, continue.

This is no surprise: the system is created by some American company whose interests are far from public service.

It is likely that more difficulties will come to light in the coming weeks.

Poor Will Refuse to Pay Council Tax.

Eric Pickles: I want your Dole Money!

The Guardian covers this story today,

Local authorities have conceded that up to 84% of people on low incomes will refuse to pay council tax after being caught in the net by benefit changes this April, and admit there is little they can do about it.

Ministers have cut the support for means-tested council tax benefit by £500m, and told local authorities to decide where the axe should fall. The result is that 326 town halls in England have put forward “local” council tax schemes – with residents in neighbouring regions facing wildly different penalties.

Nationally the council tax benefit cuts will mean the poor face an average bill of £247 a year from April, a charge from which they are currently exempt.

But because the sums average less than £5 a week, councils are warning that it would “in many cases be uneconomic to recover, with the costs of collection, including legal recovery costs, being higher than the bill”.

The result is that councils are budgeting for large losses and potentially widespread non-payment. A series of freedom of information requests by False Economy, a campaigning group part-funded by trade unions, found more than 70 councils were resigned to seeing swaths of residents refusing to pay the tax.

Yes you read it correctly, we will have to find “an average” of £247 to fork out.

That’s from our JSA, already cut (not brought up to inflation levels).

Piggy Pickles, Eric Pickles the Minister  for Grinding the Faces of the Poor, is on the way to being the most hated man in Britain.

 

France: Unemployed in Same Dire Straits as in UK.

Things are not so different for the unemployed in France.

I was struck by this recent news.

An employee of Pôle Emploi (the French DWP that deals with the out-of-work) was found to have made up job ads for France’s Universal Jobmatch.

With a sense of humour not unlike the clever devils who’ve crept onto out beloved site he slipped in very special jobs (Story here).

“Cherche psychiatre ou magnétiseur pour aider les conseillers de Pôle Emploi. Public difficile, pathologies lourdes.”

“Looking for psychiatrist, or mesmerist,  to help the Advisers of Pôle Emploi. A challenging clientele with deep pathologies.”

Often it’s not so funny.

This got the headlines recently.

France : Second French jobless man sets himself on fire after losing unemployment benefits

15 February 2013

The self-immolation came two days after a man burned to death outside an employment office in Nantes.

ouest-france.fr/DR

A jobless man has set himself on fire in Paris after losing unemployment benefits, two days after another man died in a similar incident in the country’s west.

Local police in the northern Parisian district of Saint-Ouen say the 49-year old sprayed himself with inflammable liquid before stepping onto clothes he had set alight.

Passers-by called emergency services. He has been taken to hospital with first- and second-degree burns.A local official says the man linked his suicide attempt to the fact that he was taken off unemployment benefits, but added the man also suffered “personal and family problems”.

On Wednesday, a 42-year old unemployed man of Algerian origin, Djamal Chaab, set himself alight and died in front of the government employment agency in the western city of Nantes.

The number of unemployed people has risen steadily in France over the past 20 months, with more than three million people out of work.

There is a very good movement of the Unemployed in France.

Agir ensemble contre le chômage

There are, to say, the least, militant.

Perhaps we ought to link up with them.

Report Finds Work Programme Performance “Extremely Poor.”

Today’s news.

The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, today said:

“The Work Programme is absolutely crucial for helping people, especially the most vulnerable, get into and stay in work.

“However its performance so far has been extremely poor.

“The first set of data on job outcomes shows that between June 2011 and July 2012, only 3.6% of people referred to the Work Programme moved off benefit and into work, less than a third of the target of 11.9%.

“In fact, performance was so poor that it was actually worse than the Department’s own expectations of the number of people who would have found work if the Programme didn’t exist.

“None of the providers managed to meet their minimum performance targets. The best performing provider only moved 5% of people off benefit and into work, while the worst managed just 2%.”The Programme is particularly failing young people and the hardest-to-help.

“It is shocking that of the 9,500 former incapacity benefit claimants referred to providers, only 20 people have been placed in a job that has lasted three months, while the poorest performing provider did not manage to place a single person in the under 25 category into a job lasting six months.

“The Department must hold failing providers to account, as well as ensuring that good practice is identified and shared.

“Under the payment by results system, the Department has incentives in place which in theory are supposed to prevent providers concentrating on the easiest cases and ignoring those who are hardest to help. But these incentives are not working and there is increasing evidence of ‘creaming and parking’.

The statement continues

“A provider that continues to underperform could become financially unsustainable. The Department must identify cases where a provider is at risk of failing and ensure there are specific plans in place to deal with this.

“When the Department eventually published the first lot of performance data, 18 months into the Programme, it lacked context or explanation and was four months later than promised.

“The Department did, however, published unvalidated data from a trade body representing the providers. This is just not on. In future we expect data to be published in a much timelier manner, with a proper explanation if performance falls short.”

Report Conclusions:

The first set of data on the employment outcomes achieved by the Work Programme shows that it is performing well below expectations. From June 2011 to July 2012, only 3.6% of people referred to the Work Programme moved off benefit and into sustained employment, less than a third of the level the Department expected. None of the 18 providers met their minimum performance targets. Actual performance was even below the Department’s assessment of the non­intervention rate—the number of people that would have found sustained work had the Work Programme not been running. While we recognise that it is early days for the Work Programme, such poor performance undermines confidence in its long­term success. The Department needs a better understanding of the factors that led to early performance being well below expectations in order to assess whether the longer term targets for the Work Programme are still achievable.

2.  There is substantial variation in the performance of individual providers. The best performing provider moved 5% of people off benefit and into sustained employment, the lowest performing managed only 2.2%. The Department has dismissed local economic conditions as the reason for variation; instead it attributes it to the different approaches taken by providers and the competence of their management. The Department told us that it is working with providers to ascertain what approaches are working well and which are not. The Department should put in place mechanisms to share lessons learned and disseminate good practice across providers. It should also hold poor performing providers to proper account.

3.  The incentives for reaching the hardest to help claimants are not working. Early evidence suggests that the Work Programme is failing those claimants who are hardest to help, despite the differential payment arrangements intended to incentivise providers not to neglect this group. Results for these claimants (those claiming Employment Support Allowance) were worse than performance for the easier to help claimants (on Jobseeker’s Allowance). The Department’s own evaluation also suggests that the hardest to help are receiving a poor quality service, with providers focusing on the easiest to help. There is some emerging evidence that those who are hardest to help are being parked with minimum support, and therefore little prospect of moving into work. The Department should identify why the Work Programme’s financial incentives are not working as intended and, in its formal response to this report, set out what action it will take to address the problem.

4.  Poor performance to date increases the risk that one or more provider will fail. A provider that continues to underperform may become financially unsustainable and go out of business, or the Department may decide to cancel its contract. The Department will have a better idea of which providers are at risk of failure when performance data is available up to March 2013, and it can cancel contracts if necessary after June 2013, when providers will have had two years to help their first cohort of claimants. The Department told us it has procedures for identifying and dealing with provider failure and that it has in place a framework contract from which it could appoint a replacement provider. To facilitate swift and tailored interventions in the event of failure, the Department should, in the period up to June 2013, monitor contracts to identify those most at risk of failure and produce contract specific plans for the steps it will take should failure occur.

Welfare to Work Conference: Get Your Sponsorship in Now!

Welfare to Work UK Convention 2013

9th July 2013 – 10th July 2013

Manchester Central Convention Complex, Manchester.

 

Description – All fees subject to VAT		Early fee after 3/01/13	Late fee after 06/05/13
Private Sector both days		£450	£525
Private sector one day (please tick one)     Tues   Wed		£305	£355
Public Sector and Educational institutions both days		£390	£445
Public Sector and Educational institutions one day (please tick one)       Tues   Wed		£240	£280
Voluntary, charity and NfrP sector both days		£300	£345
Voluntary, charity and NfrP sector one day  (please tick one)             Tues   Wed		£190	£220

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Official sponsorship of the Welfare to Work Convention 2013 (9/10th July Manchester 2013) or exhibiting  at the event offers the perfect opportunity to highlight your organisation’s role within the Welfare to Work field, as well as positioning the organisation alongside Inclusion, a leading independent employment and  social research consultancy.

The Convention is the premier annual event for all those involved in delivering support and advice to people who are out of work. Each year up to 1,000 delegates from across the UK gather to hear the latest developments and best practice case studies.

This years Convention is supported by the Department for Work and Pensions, Employment Related Services Association the Association of Employment and Learning Providers and the Child Poverty Action Group.

With our variety of sponsorship opportunities and an exhibition hall over 1,800 sq metres this year’s Convention provides an opportunity for companies to get involved. The Convention is the annual meeting place for everyone involved in welfare to work and skills.

The Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion is an independent, not-for-profit   organisation dedicated to promoting social justice, social inclusion and tackling  disadvantage. We develop ideas, test evidence, frame strategy and help to design the delivery of services for people and communities that face disadvantage.

Sponsorship Opportunities
All packages include comprehensive branding exclusivity (where indicated) and promotion opportunities
along with complimentary registrations.
Inclusion offers numerous branding and signage sponsorship opportunities within Manchester Central.
Please contact the event department directly for prices and further details on 020 7582 7221.

: Guide to benefits Patron  sponsor Signature sponsor Networking dinner Welcome  reception Delegate bag
Media Sponsor Exhibition  reception LOUNGE Sponsor Directional Signage Lanyard Seminar room delegate badge  writing pads or pens Sponsorship guide priceSOLD  £10,000  SOLD  SOLD  £6,500  £6,000  £5,000 

And so it goes…

Mandatory Work Activity, Workfare and Sanctions.

Boycott Workfare states,

As things currently stand following the ruling by three judges in the Court of Appeal on 12th February, our understanding is that:

1) If people are currently under sanctions from the unlawful schemes, these sanctions should be lifted immediately and they should be put back to first tier sanctions. If you are currently under sanction from one of the unlawful schemes but it has not been lifted, please get in touch.

2) Unless people have been sent updated notices under reg 5 of the new regulations then there cannot be a requirement for them to attend any of the schemes they have been sent on (except Mandatory Work Activity). As Public Interest Lawyers put it:

“The DWP made it clear in submissions to the court that the immediate effect of the judgment was that they would be unable to require people to attend affected schemes and that must be the case. Until lawful Regulations are passed and new notifications are sent out I struggle to see how attendance can be required on the affected schemes.”

3) Unless the government wins the right to appeal to the Supreme Court and wins that appeal, then people who were sanctioned on any of the unlawful schemes should be paid the benefits that were withheld. However the government has indicated it will not consider paying this until the appeal decision has been made. We will make sure people know how to get their money back as soon as we find out.

So, for anyone say on a 6 month sanction that sanction should be immediately lifted, their benefits reinstated and they should then go back to the first tier of sanctions (they cannot impose the longer sanctions until there has been the repeated failure to participate).

Ipswich Unemployed Action adds,

Some people have tried to find ways out of Manadatory Work Activity (MWA)

This appears to be the position regarding MWA,

Freedom of Information request for MWA guidance dated 13 January 2013:
 http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mwa_guidance

“Claimant ceases to claim JSA between point of referral and start date of MWA placement
52. In this scenario the Advisory Team must ensure that the provider is aware of the claim closure reason and updates PRaP accordingly. The Advisory Team may also wish to record the circumstances of the case (e.g. as an LMS Conversation) so that should the claimant return to JSA, consideration can be given to returning them to MWA.

Jon Cruddas Loses Labour the Unemployed Vote.

On Newsnight yesterday Jon Cruddas, MP and head of Labour’s Policy Review praised Food Banks ..

He said “Food banks are here to stay”.

Labour would support them as part of the ‘self-help’, community organising politics that Cruddas sees as part of the party’ new agenda..

On the 13th of December Cruddas said,

in the early years of the twentieth century, the Labour movement was about creating a responsible society, driven by collective self-help. It was about nurturing a common life in the face of the dehumanising force of industrial capitalism

In fact the early 20th century was when the labour movement dropped the old, narrow ‘self-help’ of friendly societies, mutuals, and craft unions, and backed universal welfare provision, industrial and white-collar  unions for all.

Cruddas then referred to  this,

 (the) emerging debate about the relational state and about relational welfare and about self-regenerating communities.

Like the ‘Big Society’ this gibberish seems to mean: people doing things that public authorities should pay for, and do, and making  those on benefits dependent on the good will of “communities”.

This means more Charity, Food Banks included.

Or as one section of the Cruddas Blog  cites a Dagenham Church group, “Starting a Foodbank seemed the most obvious way to communicate God’s love in action.”

Jon Cruddas is MP for Dagenham and Rainham and is head of the Labour Party’s policy review.

The deserving poor of Dagenham got a tasty hamper this year (see here)

 

Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson: Court Rules Workfare Unlawful.

Workfare ruled illegal?

The Court of Appeal has ruled university graduate Cait Reilly’s claim that requiring her to work for free at a Poundland discount store was unlawful.

Three judges in London ruled that the regulations under which most of the Government’s back-to-work schemes were created are unlawful and quashed them.
24-year-old Cait Reilly has won her Court of Appeal claim in court. 24-year-old Cait Reilly has won her Court of Appeal claim in court.

Miss Reilly, 24, from Birmingham, and 40-year-old unemployed HGV driver Jamieson Wilson, from Nottingham, both succeeded in their claims that the unpaid schemes were legally flawed.

Their solicitors said later the ruling means “all those people who have been sanctioned by having their jobseekers’ allowance withdrawn for non-compliance with the back-to-work schemes affected will be entitled to reclaim their benefits”. More here.

Hat-tip  Gissajob

And – smashing a hole in plans to make Workfare (Community Action Programme) compulsory for the long-term unemployed -  this!

“A graduate who was forced to work at Poundland for free has won an appeal, in a major blow for the Government’s back-to-work schemes.

Cait Reilly, 24, from Birmingham, had argued that being made to work in the discount shop for nothing while she looked for a permanent job was illegal.

Jamieson Wilson, 40, an unemployed HGV driver from Nottingham who was stripped of jobseeker’s allowance for refusing an unpaid cleaning role, also won his legal challenge.

Lord Justice Pill, Lady Justice Black and Sir Stanley Burnton, sitting in London, agreed the regulations behind most of the back-to-work schemes were unlawful and quashed them.

The pair’s solicitors said the ruling meant anyone docked jobseekers’ allowance for not complying with the schemes could demand the money back.

Miss Reilly was forced to leave her voluntary post at a museum to work unpaid at Poundland in Kings Heath, Birmingham, in November 2011 under a scheme known as the “sector-based work academy”.

She was told she would lose jobseekers’ allowance if she refused and spent two weeks stacking shelves and cleaning floors.

Mr Wilson, a qualified mechanic, was told that he had to work unpaid, cleaning furniture for 30 hours a week for six months, under a scheme called the community action programme.

He objected to doing unpaid work that would not help him re-enter the jobs market and refused, leading to him losing jobseekers’ allowance for six months.

Following the ruling, Miss Reilly said: “I don’t think I am above working in shops like Poundland. I now work part time in a supermarket. It is just that I expect to get paid for working.

“I hope the Government will now take this opportunity to rethink its strategy and do something which actually builds on young unemployed people’s skills and tackles the causes of long-term unemployment.

“I agree we need to get people back to work but the best way of doing that is by helping them, not punishing them.”

Law firm Public Interest Lawyers, which represented both claimants, said the decision was a “huge setback” for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

Solicitor Tessa Gregory said the judgment had sent Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith “back to the drawing board” to come up with new regulations.

“Until that time, nobody can be lawfully forced to participate in schemes affected such as the work programme and the community action programme,” she said.

She claimed the case had shown that the DWP was “going behind Parliament’s back” and failing to seek proper approval for mandatory work schemes.

Employment minister Mark Hoban pointed out that judges had agreed requiring people to join the schemes was legal, meaning they could continue.

He said there would be an appeal against the ruling of unlawful regulations, but new regulations will be tabled “to avoid any uncertainty”.

“Ultimately the judgment confirms that it is right that we expect people to take getting into work seriously if they want to claim benefits,” Mr Hoban added.

Comment.

It is to be noted that the reason the appeals won is because of a “lack of information” given to the people forced onto these schemes.

The principle of workfare – work for benefits – itself was not ruled unlawful. 

Mandatory Work Activity continues unaffected by this judgement.

MPs Attack ATOS: DWP and Government to Blame.

The BBC today,

MPs have criticised the test being used to see whether people claiming disability benefits are fit to work.

The Public Accounts Committee said the Work Capability Assessment had resulted in too many wrong decisions which were overturned on appeal.

Its chair Margaret Hodge accused the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of being “unduly complacent” and of hurting the “most vulnerable”.

This is relevant to us all.

The committee found 38% of appeals against the DWP’s decisions had been successful.

Ms Hodge, a Labour MP, accused the government of “poor decision-making”, which was “damaging public confidence” in the system.

Although Atos has faced criticism, “most of the problems lie firmly within the Department for Work and Pensions“, she said.

“The department’s view that appeals against decisions are an inherent part of the process is unduly complacent,” she said.

“The work capability assessment process hits the most vulnerable claimants hardest.

“The one-size-fits-all approach fails to account adequately for mental health conditions or those which are rare or fluctuating.”

Although the department had “started to improve”, she said, claimants “too often” found the assessment process so stressful that their health deteriorated.

“A key problem is that the department has been unable to create a competitive market for medical assessment providers, leaving Atos in the position of being a near monopoly supplier,” she said.

“The department is too often just accepting what Atos tells it. It seems reluctant to challenge the contractor. It has failed to withhold payment for poor performance and rarely checked that it is being correctly charged.”

Not surprisingly the Guardian is more forthright,

The government should accept much of the blame for distressing and expensive fitness-to-work tests that have caused “misery and hardship” to thousands of benefit claimants, according to a report by MPs released on Friday.

The public accounts committee said there had been much criticism of Atos, the firm contracted to conduct so-called work capability assessments (WCA), but it warned that most of the problems lay with the Department for Work and Pensions.

The tests on claimants were introduced in 2008 to assess entitlement to employment and support allowance. Atos was paid £112.4m to carry out 738,000 assessments in 2011-12.

The MPs’ report said: “The Work Capability Assessment process is designed to support a fair and objective decision by the department about whether a claimant is fit for work, but in far too many cases the department is getting these decisions wrong at considerable cost to both the taxpayer and the claimant.

“The department’s decisions were overturned in 38% of appeals, casting doubt on the accuracy of its decision-making.

“Poor decision-making causes claimants considerable distress, and the position appears to be getting worse, with Citizens Advice reporting an 83% increase in the number of people asking for support on appeals in the last year alone.

“We found the department to be unduly complacent about the number of decisions upheld by the tribunal and believe that the department should ensure that its processes are delivering accurate decision-making and minimising distress to claimants,” the report said.

Charities have expressed anger at the number of people with long-term, incurable conditions who are being forced on repeated occasions to prove that they are not able to work, despite supplying medical evidence that indicates that their condition is permanent and will not improve.

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said the DWP was getting “far too many” decisions wrong on claimants’ ability to work.

“This poor decision-making is damaging public confidence and generating a lot of criticism of the department’s contractor for medical assessments, Atos Healthcare – but most of the problems lie firmly within the DWP.

“The department is too often just accepting what Atos tells it. It seems reluctant to challenge the contractor,” she said.

“It has failed to withhold payment for poor performance and rarely checked that it is being correctly charged. The department also cannot explain how the profits being made by Atos reflect the limited risk that it bears.

“There needs to be a substantial shake-up in how the department manages this contract and in its processes for improving the quality of decision-making,” she added.

The committee said the DWP’s evidence during its hearings was not always consistent with views of other witnesses, with different interpretations of statistics.

The MPs said they could not arrive at a clear conclusion about whether performance was improving and recommended that the National Audit Office should provide up-to-date data on the department.

This not all we could say.

With Sanctions, the Bedroom Tax, and us having to pay steep Council Tax bills even when we’re on the Dole, the Government is hell-bent on creating a lot of “misery and hardship”.

To cap it all the Void reports on those on benefits facing destitution or emergencies will no longer be able to get full automatic help from the ‘localised’ Social Fund

Work Programme: Work and Pensions Committee Inquiry.

Work Programme: the experience of different user groups.

Work and Pensions Committee.

Written evidence published online, oral evidence sessions to begin on Wednesday 30 January.

The Work Programme has replaced a number of Government-funded schemes designed to help long-term unemployed people get into work and come off benefits, consolidating support into a single programme which aims to help a wide range of unemployed people. It is delivered through a prime contractor model in which large, often private sector, companies deliver services through supply chains including private, public and voluntary sector specialist organisations.

Providers are paid on a payment-by-results basis, with larger payments available for finding sustainable employment for people who are considered harder to help. Providers are free to decide how best to help Work Programme participants, without prescription from the Government—the so-called “black box” approach.

The inquiry will consider how well this model is working for different categories of unemployed people.

*********

Ipswich Unemployed Action has yet to receive our invitation to this Inquiry.

In the meantime perhaps people here would like to contribute.

New Poll Tax for the Working Poor and Unemployed as Council Tax Blow Approaches.

Tories and Liberals Introduce New Poll Tax: Will We Fight Back?

A little later than Ipswich Unemployed Action (our first major post on this was in September last year) , the BBC reports today on the new Poll Tax,

Millions of the poorest households face council tax rises because most councils in England will pass on a 10% benefit funding cut, research suggests.

A typical bill will rise from April by between £100 and £250 a year, but some could rise as much as £600, the Resolution Foundation think tank says.

And,

Millions of England’s poorest households, both in and out of work, are already very close to the edge,” said Gavin Kelly of the Resolution Foundation. “They are going to find it very hard to cope.”

Some campaigners have likened the change to the “poll tax“, in that people are asked for a contribution regardless of their ability to pay.

‘Low priority’

The Labour Party says the policy is deeply unfair, and will cause havoc with hundreds of thousands of people unable to pay the bills.

Many in local government fear that councils will be left with a financial black hole, as the cost of pursuing those who do not pay through the courts could be higher than the revenue the authorities will raise from them in tax.

The Resolution Foundation says,

Low-income families will see their council tax bills rise by up to £600 a year from April.

As a result of council tax benefit reform, No Clear Benefit shows that three-quarters of local authorities are set to demand increased payments from the 3.2 million poorest working-age households who currently pay either no council tax or a reduced charge. Families are facing a hike of more than 330 per cent in the most severe cases.

It comes as the government hands responsibility for council tax support to England’s 326 local authorities, along with a 10 per cent cut in funding for it. The government has insisted that pensioners are fully protected from any rise under the new localised system, known as council tax support, meaning that working-age households will bear the full brunt of the changes.

This is an addition to the new ‘bedroom tax’ which will hit those on Housing Benefit.

Guardian columnist Penny Anderson  says (here),

Anger about the distressing impact of coalition austerity is gaining expression, focus and pace in the UK. There have been some marches, but NHS and welfare cuts were not met with mobs surrounding Downing Street brandishing pitchforks and flaming torches. I suspect the catalyst for mass protest might be the so-called “bedroom tax“.

Do you remember the poll tax? It was a turning point in public anger at Thatcher’s Tories. The hated community charge forced the unemployed to pay a contribution, and was based on the electoral register, but met with boycotts and riots. Resistance was so strong that it turned even Margaret Thatcher’s mindset: the poll tax was replaced by the current council tax.

The bedroom tax bomb hits in April, and tenants in social housing with so-called “spare rooms” are living in fear. Despite the fact that a three-bedroom housing association flat can be cheaper than a one-bed in the private sector, the architect of this fresh misery, welfare minister, Lord Freud – who lives with his wife in an eight-bedroom country mansion – decided tenants must move, or have money deducted from their housing benefit. One-bedroom flats are rare in the social sector, and claimants, especially those with children, never top a private landlord’s wishlist.

And there is the  effective cut in benefits,

“Key benefits, including jobseekers’ allowance, will rise by just 1% for the next three years, meaning a reduction in real terms.”

Let’s have a new Anti-Poll Tax Movement!

Lying, thieving bastards, How the Unemployment Business Sees Us.

“Lying, thieving bastards“,  or LTBs is how the Unemployment Industry sees the out-of-work and claimants.

The BBC Panorama documentary last night, The Great Disability Scam? ,was about a lot more than ATOS.

It went to the heart of the government’s Work Programme.

So who coined LTB?

The unflattering acronym was coined by staff as a code to describe customers, many of whom were disabled, during staff training sessions.

There are currently 2.5m people in the UK on long-term sickness benefits some of whom are believed to be bogus, hitting the UK purse to the tune of £13bn a year.

As part of a welfare reform bill the government has identified 68,000 of these claimants which it believes can work.

Speaking to the BBC whistle-blower Linda Smith, a former employee of the firm, said: “These people were probably more difficult to place in employment for us as employment workers, but for them (the company) these people were bigger money… these people were the bucks, the ker-ching.”

However Smith contends that little effort was made to find employment for these people once they were on their books, with people simply ‘parked’ instead.

“They would be put on telephone interviews… just to make sure that there was this contact made so they could tick a box to say, ‘Yeah, they’re still on the Work Programme”, Smith revealed.

In a statement rebutting the allegations Triage said that so-called parking was ‘not an option’ for it and that use of the LTB terminology had been an isolated incident and was not ’used or accepted by Triage’. From here.

We know that this is very far from an “isolated incident”.

Talking to a former SEETEC employee we learnt that the Ipswich staff think that the unemployed are drug users, likely to turn up drunk in the morning, and out to thieve and…..lie.

The Panorama programme also got people on who described the Work programme as designed to make money for companies, not to help the out-of-work or other claimants, such as the disabled.

There was a section on the way these firms cream off those they think are likely to get a job, and ‘park’ everyone else. The difficult to ‘help’ had quickly found they got ignored.

Tell us something we didn’t know!

To get their contracts they had pretended to involve charities, such as one dealing with the blind.

When they got the contracts these companies dropped all the ‘nice’ third sector.

Mind you when we see what a ‘third sector’ group like our old friends the YMCA are doing at the moment – sending people on forced labour (aka Mandatory Work Activity) – we can’t shed too many tears there.

For more on the YMCA see the Void.

Claimants to Pay Council Tax: Will this be the Coalition’s Poll Tax Moment?

A few weeks ago the New Statesman asked if plans to make those on benefits pay a proportion of Council tax will become the Coalition’s ‘Poll Tax’ moment.

“At present, those households deemed too poor to meet the monthly charge receive Council Tax Benefit to cover all or part of their bill. With 5.9 million recipients, it is claimed by more families than any other means-tested benefit or tax credit. Now, in its quest to roll back the welfare state, the coalition has cut the fund for Council Tax Benefit by 10 per cent. At the same time, it has localised the system, transferring responsibility for the new regime from central government to local councils.

From this April, councils must either maintain current levels of support and impose greater cuts elsewhere, remove other exemptions (such as those for second homes and empty properties), or ask those who receive a full or partial rebate at present to make a minimum payment. Early signs suggest that most will opt for the latter. An analysis by the Resolution Foundation and the New Policy Institute found that, of the 86 councils that have published their plans, 57 intend to introduce a minimum payment of between 6 and 30 per cent of a full council-tax bill.

On 8 January, Birmingham City Council announced it would impose a 20 per cent charge on the unemployed. That will mean a minimum payment of £200 a year for households affected.

A letter in the Guardian has since revealed,

The council has decided to charge people on benefits 20% council tax. Its analysis shows that 73 individuals will have to pay between £41.43 and £158.01 a week out of their £71 weekly jobseeker’s allowance (JSA), due to the cumulative impact of the council tax and the overall benefit cap from April. Also 49 couples with two children will have to pay between £72.40 and £255.24 out of their JSA plus children’s benefits of £258 a week.

We now see that the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Defend Council Tax Benefits Campaign has been more and more active.

“Heed your own warning on “chaos” of Council Tax Benefit changes: Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Defend Council Tax Benefit Campaign urges Nottingham City Council

The campaign group have written to the Council asking them to take seriously their own criticism of their latest proposals for a Council Tax Benefit Support Scheme for 2013/14. Instead of going ahead with an 8.5% cut to all Council Tax Benefit recipients of working age, they say the Council should delay passing on the cuts. The Council are permitted to pass a scheme with zero cuts to Council Tax Benefit for 2013/14 and still be entitled to transitional funding. If they did this, they would have a year to build a campaign with local residents and other groups across the country to demand a sustainable and fair alternative and prevent the introduction of a minimum 20% cuts in 2014/15.

JOIN THE LOBBY ON MONDAY 28TH JANUARY AT 1.00PM OUTSIDE THE COUNCIL HOUSE”

Ipswich will see a charge for the unemployed introduced, forced by Eric Pickles the Tory Minister in charge to be at a higher rate than the Council wanted (probably at around 8%).

But in some parts of London it’s going to be higher than Haringey: at 25%!

Universal Jobmatch Worse than We Thought.

The Void publishes the Trade Union, PCS, advice that the Universal JobMatch is not compulsory.

We understand that the security of the information given to this site remains insecure.

There are background issues which raise even more worries about this ‘service’ set up by an American company for the UK government.

The PCS has sent out this circular on Universal Jobmatch,

On its introduction, members of staff were encouraged to set up their own accounts to demonstrate the use of UJ to claimants. It has came to light recently that accessing your own records (or that of friends or family) using the UJ icon on your desktop is subject to the same security restrictions as other departmental system such as JSAPS or LMS. Staff are permitted to set up and access their own UJ account, but it must be done through the internet browser and jobsearch activity must be done in their own time.

PCS has asked that DWP provide clarification to their managers, in addition to the ‘implementation updates’ they have issued already. They have stated that the advice to set up an account and demonstrate its use to the claimant was local and not from the UJ project. Clearly, we believe that no action should be taken against a member of staff where they have been misadvised by their manager.

And,

PCS remains concerned with many security and checking aspects of UJ, including:

• How claimants data is protected in terms of reported data-fishing by bogus employers
• The recent high profile bogus and unsavoury adverts placed and the checks are in place to ensure that these are not placed on the system again.
• Compliance with minimum wage and the terms and conditions of the use of the site
• Process of ‘accepting cookies’ and EU data protection principles

As yet, DWP have refused to meet with PCS again on UJ and have stated they will respond in writing to our concerns. We believe this to be unacceptable, as problems with UJ impact daily on PCS members, with some claimants becoming frustrated and even abusive due to difficulties they experience using the system. PCS will continue to push management further on this and request that any further issues are reported to your PCS rep or to DWP Group Office at leeds@pcs.org.uk. 

An excellent introductory  guide to the Universal Jobmatch is published by the Solidarity Federation, well-worth reading at, here.

SEETEC Serious Concerns.

A4E gets all the flack about the work programme.

BUT SEETC is another villain of the piece.

“Seetec, which has Work Programme contracts for the north-west, east of England and east London, paid its owner-boss Peter Cooper around £1.7m in dividends and salaries last year. Seetec’s turnover has increased over 30 times to around £50m a year in the past five years, thanks almost entirely to public welfare contracts.”

Seetec Ipswich is run from  Princes Street.

We hear reports that they are more than happy to dish out dole punishments, that is ‘sanctions’.*

People get no money for some weeks and have to rely on food parcels for reasons – often false- given by this little crew.

Some cases we have heard of are truly appalling.

Seems like some little ‘itlers are at ‘work’ here.

* Sanctions:

• Higher level sanctions (for example for leaving a job voluntarily) will lead to claimants losing all of their JSA for a fixed period of 13 weeks for a first failure, 26 weeks for a second failure and 156 weeks for a third and subsequent failure (within a 52 week period of their last failure).
• Intermediate level sanctions of four weeks for a first failure, rising to 13 weeks for a second or subsequent failures (within a 52 week period of their last failure) may be applied following a period of disallowance for not actively seeking employment or not being available for work.
• Lower level sanctions (for example for failing to attend an adviser interview) will lead to claimants losing all of their JSA for a fixed period of four weeks for the first failure, followed by 13 weeks for subsequent failures (within a 52 week period of their last failure)

 

More Statistics, More Lies.

The Guardian reports today.

Government claims to have created an additional 500,000 jobs in the past year have been called into question after it was revealed that one in five of the people involved are on government work schemes, including tens of thousands still claiming unemploymentbenefits.

But figures obtained by the Guardian from the Office for National Statistics show that just over 20% of this total (105,000) involves those on largely unpaid government back-to-work schemes, the majority of whom are still claiming jobseeker’s allowance.

They include unpaid workers doing voluntary and mandatory work experience in supermarkets and charity shops.

Many more tens of thousands with no jobs, training or pay, who simply attend regular job hunt workshops as part of the work programme run by the Department for Work and Pensions, are also being counted as employed.

So now we know: when we’re on the Work Programme ‘job searching’ we’re ‘working’.

Let’s here no more about skivers on the dole!

Labour’s Job Plans, Concerns After Some Serious Thought.

“Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls unveiled the scheme, saying that there would be pension tax relief cuts to raise the £1bn to pay for the initiative, which would help just under 130,000 people.

Plans would involve the government subsidising companies to take on staff from those enrolled in the scheme for six month periods, which would help claimants find permanent work or fall back on jobseeker’s benefits.

Initially the scheme would be for the long-term unemployed but, if it proved a success, would then be extended for those out of work for a year.

Mr Balls said in a statement, “A One Nation approach to welfare reform means government has a responsibility to help people into work and support those who cannot.

“But those who can work must be required to take up jobs or lose benefits as a result – no ifs nor buts. Britain needs real welfare reform that it tough, fair and that works.” “From here.

Now we have consistently demanded real jobs for the unemployed. *

Indeed it is one of our demands.

But as Chris Dillow says,

You can rely on the Labour party to live down to its reputation as a party of capitalism.

Its “compulsory  jobs guarantee” does so in two ways.

First, the fact that it will be compulsory for the long-term unemployed to take up the jobs panders to a mistaken “divide and rule” rhetoric that distinguishes between skivers and strivers. As Neil says, the party is – yet again – “running scared of the Daily Mail”.

Secondly, the policy will, as Liam Byrne says, “provide subsidy” to private sector employers to hire the long-term unemployed.Labour will, in effect, give taxpayers’ money to Tesco so it can employ more shelf-stackers.

And herein lies the economic problem with the scheme. At the margin, employers will prefer to hire a subsidized long-term unemployed person rather than an unsubsidized short-term unemployed one. In this sense, Labour’s plan improves job prospects for the long-term unemployed, at the expense of the short-term unemployed, and has a deadweight cost of paying companies to do what they would have done anyway*.

Labour’s plan thus falls far short of more sensible “employer of last resort”-style policies to combat unemployment. It accepts capitalism as it is, and fails to confront the fact that capitalism is unable to provide work for all.

We could not agree more.

The plans also avoid a number of other issues.

• Will it be the existing set of companies running the ‘Work Programme’ who decide on the fate of the out-of-work required to take  up these jobs?
• What exactly be these posts?
• What guarantees will the unemployed have if their work turns out to exploitative and they want to complain?
• How  will labour change the Universal credit scheme will is already going to condemn many low-paid workers to deeper and and deeper poverty?
• What will happen to those who refuse to take up a job? Starve in the streets?

The scheme is one step in the right direction – talking our real work,.

We have to remember that the Liberal-Tory Coalition want the long-term unemployed to work for free, to the benefit of private companies and, oops, the ‘social sector’.

But there is a step in the wrong direction  putting the unemployed again at the mercy of the ‘Unemployment Business.”

* These are the demands of Ipswich Unemployed Action (from ‘About’ section above).

• Raise our Benefits to a living level.
• We want the minimum wage for any ‘voluntary’ work they make us do.
• There should be an independent appeal and monitoring system – open to all – for anyone on the Work Programme,
• We want real training, not the sham courses we have now.
• No to Workfare.
• Above all we want to be treated as human beings – not things the DWP, Providers, and Government Ministers can claim rights over. We should have rights, and we want them now!
• We want real jobs, not endless ‘job-searching’.
• And now, we want the Work Programme  closed down!

Welfare Cuts Row, Lies and ‘Statistics’.

“The political row over welfare cuts has continued as the Tories and Labour traded statistics a week ahead of a Commons vote on plans to impose a real-terms benefits cut.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith hailed figures showing that “many working-age benefits” had risen by 20% since 2007, easily outstripping a 12% rise in private sector pay. Increases had cost the taxpayer £6.3 billion since the start of the 2008 recession, he said in a defence of the squeeze announced by Chancellor George Osborne last month.

But the Opposition, which has pledged to oppose the move, produced its own analysis suggesting that Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) had risen by less than earnings over the past decade.

Legislation will break the traditional link between benefit rises and inflation. Instead there will be a three-year cap of 1%, well below the expected rise in the cost of living, on most working-age benefits and tax credits for three years from 2013/14. Child benefit, housing benefit and Universal Credit will be capped for two years from 2014/15. The restriction is predicted to save the Government almost £2.4 billion by the 2015 general election and a further £11.8 billion in the three years after it. More here.

The following points should be borne in mind.

• The Benefit rates, for, say, JSA, are not comparable to wages. They are the absolute minimum you are designated necessary to live on.  Anybody on benefits knows that the claim that they have been ‘outstripping’ private pay is a piffle. Or put more directly, a lie. When people have to think twice about taking a bus, when they are unable to eat properly, when they have a hard time paying utility bills (and many default), they are not in some kind of privileged position. Many low-paid workers also rely on benefits to top up their wages. They will be hit with these changes as well.
• The Liberal-Tory Coalition has introduced a scheme to make people on benefits pay a part of the Council Tax. Every council is, now, having to find ways of implementing this, setting the rate, and how to find the extra money to collect widows’ mites and paupers’ coins. This could mean claimants having to fork out an extra couple of hundred a year. Councils trying to reduce this impact have been told by Eric Pickles to redesign their schemes to make the poor pay more.

Here is what the far-from left-wing Public Finance journal says of Localised Council Tax Support,

The change to locally run council tax benefit schemes could ‘seriously undermine’ the government’s welfare reforms, MPs have warned.

It is one of several flaws and contradictions in the plan to simplify the benefits system through a single Universal Credit, the Commons work and pensions select committee said today.

‘The decision to localise council tax schemes under a proliferation of local schemes, rather than including it in Universal Credit’, would ‘work against the objective of simplification’, the MPs said. It would introduce local variation, add complexity and otherwise undermine the objectives of the single benefit.

In a detailed and wide-ranging report, the MPs said they were also concerned that the shift to an online claims system and a single monthly payment for the Universal Credit would harm some vulnerable claimants.

Committee chair Anne Begg said: ‘The measures the government plans to put in place to help these claimants may be difficult to access and too slow in identifying who these people are, with the risk that they will fall into debt and hardship before extra support can be provided.’

Ian Duncan Smith is very fond of talking about making the out-of-work look for jobs.

His mate George Osborne talked of the  unemployed, “with their curtains closed, sleeping off a life on benefits.”

The true test of being reluctant to work is, as William Beveridge is reported to have said, is to offer someone a waged job.

We note that all these ‘make the workshy get a job’ schemes, from the Work programme onwards, do not in fact offer people paid work.

They make you ‘job search’.

But where’s the jobs?

benefit Cap Delay as Computer Software Runs – Again – into Problems.

Ministers are facing accusations of chaos over welfare reform after announcing that the introduction of the government’s flagship benefits cap of £500 a week will be delayed across most of the country for up to six months.

The hold-up – believed to be the result of concerns over computer software – took councils, job centres and MPs by surprise and raised questions about the timetable for wider changes being planned to the entire benefits system.

What is going on?

The Observer revealed last year that there were internal government concerns over the benefits cap. A leaked letter written by the office of the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, warned that it risked making 40,000 families homeless and costing more than it saved because the homeless would have to be found emergency accommodation.

There have been signs that the government is experiencing difficulties with the computer software being used to implement its wider welfare reforms, including the planned switch to universal credit, which will replace several benefits with a single payment over four years starting next year.

More in the Observer.

In a nasty twist however we note that the cut (not ‘cap’) which principally affects Housing Benefit,  will affect “four London boroughs: Bromley, Croydon, Enfield and Haringey.”

The latter contains Tottenham, which has the highest unemployment rates in London and one of the worst  in the country.

As somebody who comes originally from North London I can also add that house prices there are sky-high.

These are also the same people with such confidence in the computer Software used in the Jobsearch system.

Universal Job Search IS to be Made Compulsory.

Jobseekers in England, Scotland and Wales will have to use a new government website that can automatically tell jobcentres about their applications – or risk losing their benefit payments.

The Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith told political correspondent Ross Hawkins on Radio 4′s The World at One programme, that the new site can automatically send people vacancies – and demand explanations from them if they do not apply.

Iain Duncan Smith explained that if a job adviser thinks the reasons that you have given for not applying for a job are “specious” then “he may call you in and say I really think that you ought to be applying for these jobs.”

When asked about issuing electronic cards that would restrict claimants in spending their benefits payments, he said that “giving people cash sometimes can actually lead to further problems”.

He stressed that the scheme would only affect specific claimants.

From The BBC.

Hearing this there was a brief report on the ‘problems’ the site had faced, fake job ads and phone-sex jobs.

There was nothing about concerns about privacy and surveillance.

That in many parts of the country there is no easy access to the Internet, or if there is public access it is often (as in Suffolk) unable to work with the DWP’s site.

Nor indeed about the simple fact that many many unemployed people cannot access the site, or even if they could, would not know how to use computers well enough to use it properly.

His comments on the ‘Cash Card’ were said to apply only to specific groups, such as drug addicts.

How specific this could be was not elaborated.

Those who hold the ‘technology’ in this area have been lobbying for this.

There’s little doubt the Government  are working on something that will reward companies who live off the unemployed.

 

 

Tory MP to Control Spending of Poor, Unemployed AND in-Work.

Alec Shelbrooke’s bill, for a Welfare ‘Cash Card’ has got the attention its non-entity proposer has wished for.

But the proposal to set a spy on every poor person’s shoulder is even madder than other esteemed bloggers have so far noticed.

As his Tory friends note:

This morning in the Commons, Alec Shelbrooke, the Member of Parliament for Elmet and Rothwell introduced a Bill calling for the introduction of a Welfare Cash Card to prevent welfare claimants from buying what Mr Shelbrooke called “NEDD” (Non-Essential, Desirable and often Damaging) items, including cigarettes, alcohol, paid television and gambling. This would apply to all claimants in work and out of work, and would cover all benefits other than disability payments and the basic state pension.

One imagines that those on tax credits will be mightily pleased at having the state tell them how to spend their hard-earned cash.

As for us idlers, we say: fuck off Alec Shelbrooke!

You can contact the man himself here and tell him what you think on this here.

Ipswich Charity Food Parcel Demand Swells: Ben Gummer MP Blames People who ‘Use’ System.

Ben Gummer with Friend: Makes Spiteful Comments about Unemployed.

The Ipswich  Evening Star carries this story today.

MORE than three times the number of emergency food parcels have been handed out so far this year compared to 2011, a charity has revealed.

The blame has been put on escalating food and heating prices which have taken their toll on families, with more having to rely on charity donations to get by.

Ipswich-based Families in Need (FIND) has given out 1,784 parcels so far this year which is in stark comparison to 542 in 2011 and just 378 the previous year.

Chair Maureen Reynel claims it is because of ever-rising living costs, people losing their jobs and money not stretching far enough.

She said: “Money just doesn’t go far enough with the terrific rise in the cost of food, heating and everything and the cut in benefits.”

FIND’s food parcels contain the basics including dried pasta, potatoes and tinned foods that can be used to make balanced meals and are designed to last families for a week.

Maureen Reed (MBE)  in a controversial figures in Ipswich.

She is an Evangelical Christian with strong opinions  who vets anybody receiving her charity.

As she says, “Find is based on faith, hope and love and without that I couldn’t do what I do, because it takes a lot of energy,” she said.

“I need lots of miracles, and they do happen.” BBC

One miracle that didn’t happen is a change in  the sour attitude of Ipswich Tory MP Benedict Gummer.

He thinks that the poverty of people on benefits is caused by administrative delays – and not, for  example, the low amount of money we get, or the suspensions that are rained down on claimants.

He has an obsession with ‘fraud’.

Well-off public school educated Gummer even that the cheek to make spiteful comments about those who know how to “use the system”.

We assume he would prefer everybody not to know how to use it.

Ipswich MP Ben Gummer said the fact there is a need for the parcels shows the benefits system still needs reform.

He said: “There are still real problems for those needing the safety net when they lose their job or when their circumstances change.

“There are too many forms to fill in and the administration simply takes far too long.

“We have cut the benefit bill by £10 million by tackling fraud, but we know there are people who have been on benefit for years who know how to use the system – while those who really need urgent help,  the kind of people that Beveridge was thinking of when he set it up are left struggling.”

More on the Travel Discount Card Which Most Unemployed Cannot Get.

Crossposted from stevenplrose.

Have you seen this card before? I’d be very surprised if you had because the DWP have made almost no effort to tell you it exists.  You are able to claim if you have been unemployed for six months or more without referral to the catastrophic work programme (9 months for 18-24 year olds and 12 months for over 25s). It also extends to those claiming incapacity benefit, ESA or income support (provided you are found fit for work). In November last year, the New Deal railcard was quietly re-named the Jobcentre Plus Travel Discount Card.

This lovely piece of green plastic entitles you to 50% Off Anytime Day and Off-Peak Day tickets (including Off-Peak Day Travelcards for travel starting outside London Zones 1-9).  Including weekly, monthly and longer period Season Tickets and Travelcards (up to 3 months in length)

You can link it to your Oyster Card and get the same amount off (PAYG) fares in zones 1-6. Brilliant! Where do I sign up? You simply visit your local Job Centre Plus, assuming of course that staff will know of this scheme. My personal adviser certainly did not.

One of the many stipulations for claiming JSA involves you searching for work with ninety minutes of your home.  Within this three-month gap, I had interviews that proved rather expensive in places like Poole and London. Whilst I had a 16-25 railcard, I could have saved more had I been made aware I was eligible for it.

I challenge you to visit your local job centre, ask a member of staff, and find a leaflet inside that explains this scheme. There was never anything in my local centre. Maybe I looked in the wrong direction or asked the wrong question. Should we be expected to know this? I fear many like me now on the work programme (or yet to be referred) do not know about this card.

It was recently announced that some of the biggest bus companies (Arriva, First, Go-Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach) and some local operators will offer free bus fare to the unemployed.  This scheme will cover 70% of the country. However, according to this Stagecoach press release, you need to fall within the remit of the discount card to apply. Therefore, those, like me, on the work programme, once again miss discounted travel.  

Comment: There are signs that the Community Action Programme is in difficulty.

But it’s still officially going ahead.

We wonder if there is any scheme for those forced to work for nothing to get travel expenses back.

Free Bus Travel for Unemployed – Where’s the Catch?

Unemployed to be offered Free Bus Travel?

The EADT says,

Bus companies taking part in the scheme include Chambers Coaches, Anglian Buses, First, TGM and Arriva The Shires & Essex.

Claire Haigh, chief executive of Greener Journeys, said: “In difficult economic times, this new scheme from Greener Journeys will provide a helpful start to the new year, enabling job hunters to travel around more easily in search of employment, to job interviews with prospective employers, and to training courses which will help them find work.

“This scheme will give people looking for employment access to free bus travel for one month. This will help many of them secure their first job, or a place on a relevant training course.”

Where’s the catch ?

One here:

The Bus for Jobs scheme will provide free travel on the bus services for the month of January and job- seekers who have been unemployed for between three months and one year will be eligible.

Next one here.

The scheme will cover holders of a JobCentre Plus Travel Discount Card. Those who are eligible for the card, which is available through JobCentre Plus, include people claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Employment and Support Allowance or Income Support and actively engaged with a Jobcentre Plus adviser in returning to employment.

The JobCentre Plus Travel Discount Card is one of those magical things you hear about but do not know anybody who actually has one.

In any case that it is only available to those on JSA and not also on the Work Programme.

If you  want to enter this  merry world, for a month’s bus travel, and find that this scheme is unlikely to help you, first see this: Jobcentre Plus Travel Discount Card Eligibility by Andy Woolford Here.

Still, nice free publicity for the bus companies.

Miliband Attacks Welfare Cuts: Will he Oppose the Unemployment Business and Workfare?

In the Sunday Mirror  Ed Miliband has attacked the Liberal-Conservative Coalition’s welfare cuts.

After some well-worth not saying stuff about the usual suspects, “We should be tough on the minority who can work and try to avoid ­responsibility. he says,

They showed they are not fit to govern because they played political games with people’s livelihoods.

They said they were cutting benefits for the next three years and the mood music was that it was a way to punish the “shirkers and scroungers”. But the truth turned out to be so different.

Six out of 10 people hit by these cuts are people who get up every morning and go to work. The lowest paid ­families ­getting tax credits. The new mum who will lose £180 in maternity pay.

And it will also hit the people doing the right thing, trying to find work, like the trained professional I met in my constituency, unemployed for about a year, desperate to find it.

This important letter (signed by a variety of Campaigning groups, trade union leaders – such as Len McCluskey, and…Bob Crow! – Charities and Churches) appears in the Observer today.

Last week’s autumn statement marks a watershed in our welfare system, breaking the long-standing link between benefits and either earnings or prices. The policies announced are a bitter blow for hundreds of thousands of low-income families struggling to make ends meet in the face of overwhelming austerity.

Economic analysis of the government’s announcements shows clearly that the poorest have been hit hardest. Plans to cap increases in benefits and tax credits at a meagre 1% for the next three years will far outweigh any gains from increasing the personal tax allowance. This will hurt children, leaving a damaging legacy.

While the chancellor paints a picture of so-called “strivers” and “skivers”, our organisations see the reality: families scraping by in low-paid work, or being bounced from insecure jobs to benefits and back again.

The truth is that the vast majority of those who rely on benefits and tax credits are either in work, have worked, or will be in work in the near future. They and their families are making their contribution to society and are entitled to genuine security, as Beveridge intended.

As we mark the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge report, which laid the foundations of the welfare state, we risk losing the very safety net that he intended. It is a punitive, unfair policy and must not happen.

I don’t know whether our Chancellor and Prime Minister ever meet people like this. If they do, they show no sign of it in the way they divide Britain.Next April, each person earning over £1million a year will be getting on­ ­average a tax cut of £107,000 each, not just for one year, but every year

But they show all the signs of ­understanding the needs of a different group: the richest in society.

To ram the point home the Mirror has this story,

Sunday Mirror

A QUARTER of a million ­hungry Britons will have used emergency food banks by the end of the year.

The latest figures, FOUR TIMES higher than two years ago, include parents too poor to feed children and desperate householders forced to choose between eating and heating.

Government austerity cuts and squeezed incomes are even forcing people with jobs to regularly queue up for free food parcels as well as ­benefit claimants.

Britain’s biggest food bank operator, the Trussell Trust, fed 110,000 people in the first half of this year… just 18,000 fewer than the whole of 2011. And its bosses expect the final 2012 figure to top 250,000 for the first time.

A Sunday Mirror investigation reveals delays in the processing of benefit claims top the list of reasons why people have to resort to free food. Next is low pay ­followed by debt.

In one case we found that a desperate woman who hadn’t eaten for two days was referred to a food bank after walking 16 miles to a Jobcentre. She hadn’t enough money to catch a bus because her benefit payments had not come through. In another case, a man living in a tunnel told us how a food bank saved his life.

We add some further points from the unemployed.

• The Work Programme has been shown to be a failure. But millions are wasted on shoring up welfare-to-work companies and their overpaid bosses. With its use of suspensions from the dole and diversion of pulic money into its own pockets the ‘unemployment business’ is as much a cause of poverty as low benefits.
• Workfare, in the shape of Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) has been put into practcie. People are working for at least 5 weeks for nothing, often for Charities.
• The Government intends to make all long-term unemployed work for nothing on the Community Action programme. That is, for 26 weeks. The individual would work for 30 hours and carry out up to 10 additional hours of ‘supported job search’.
• A Pilot Scheme for this workfare, by Enable, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Voluntary and Community Sector Learning and Skills Consortium, which “promotes equality and diversity”  ended on 31st August 2012. It had this result: Referrals 115
  Entered employment 28
  Sustained employment (i.e. In employment for 26 weeks) 5.

The Work Programme should be abolished.

Given the above results the same failures will happen with the ‘work for nothing’ Community Action Programme.

Ed Miliband should start speaking out now against both.

Benefit Cut in Real Terms, and Rising Housing Costs Squeeze to Hit Hard.

Working-age benefits including Jobseeker’s Allowance, employment and support allowance and income support are to go up by a mere 1% for  each of the next three years, from April 2013.

This is lower  than the 2.2% that might have been expected – the BBC states.

This ‘rise’ is a cut – that is benefits will be lose their value as inflation, – above all price rises in essentials, food and utilities –  rises.

The latest figures on inflation:

The rate of inflation in the UK rose sharply last month. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) was up from 2.2% in September from 2.7% in October.

Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation also rose from 2.6% in August, to 3.2% last month, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Worse will be that “Payment increases to landlords to be capped at 1% from 2014, while plan to end housing benefits for under-25s is dropped”

While welcoming the latter nobody can miss the effect the former will have.

The Guardian reports,

The chancellor has signalled the breaking of the historic link between the cost of renting and housing benefit payments by announcing that welfare for housing would rise at less than the rate of inflation.

With charities already warning that “deepening benefit cuts” will have a “dramatic impact on homelessness”, George Osborne said local housing allowance, the benefit paid to landlords for poor people’s homes, would be increased by 2.2% next April but “then we will cap increases at 1% in the two years after that”.

The saving to the taxpayer is £105m in 2014, rising to £260m a year in 2018. But the move will mean that the gap between rents – which has been rise at a faster rate than inflation – and the cash benefits to the poor will grow.

Stung by criticism that already in central London councils are placing people outside of the capital because cuts have made local housing unaffordable, the government attempted to soften the blow by saying that “30% of the savings will be used to exempt from the new cap those areas with the highest rent increases”.

This will mean that high-cost areas in London are spared some of deepest cuts to housing benefits but it is unlikely to stop the poor being forced to leave.

Looking at the inflation for rents we find (from here)

According to the new five-year forecast from global real estate service provider Savills average rents are expected to rise by 2.5% in 2013 and 18.2% over the next five years.

Still not only will ‘Providers’ for the Unemployment be well cared for under plans to make the long-term unemployed work for no wages.

The Void uncovers the latest scam to profit out of those on benefits.

Up to 2.5 million claimants are estimated to need some support when the new welfare and Tax Credit system is introduced next year,  which will make benefit payments monthly for the first time.  Claimants will also no longer have the option to have rent payments sent direct to landlords.

The DWP has invited banks, mobile phone companies, smart card companies (ominously) and any other private sector shark who’d like a slice of the benefit bill,to bid for a whopping £145 million worth of contracts to design budgeting support.  Despite this huge sum claimants are expected to be charged for any continuing support once they have been on the new benefit over 12 months. 

Universal Jobmatch for Jobseekers Part 2!

This is Ipswich Unemployed Action’s guide to Universal Jobmatch.

Universal Jobmatch Guide for Jobseekers Part 2

Continued from Part 1 …

1. …
2. …
3. …
4. …
5. …
6. …
7. …
8. …
9. Jobs – The truth: there isn’t any
10. CV Data Storage
11. Anti-Competitiveness Monopoly – give Monster the market
12. Government Gateway – new ID card scheme anyone?
13. Universal Credit - Nice If you can get it
14. Delegated Word of Mouth
15. No10 Corruption
16. Employment Programmes
17. Workfare – why there is no jobs
18. Riots!!!

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9. Jobs

No real jobs

Universal Jobmatch is full of “Test Data”, agency mass-postings (the rest of the world calls it spam) and old job data being reposted as new vacancies under “Company Confidential”.

The scandal of the Government getting people to apply for fake positions which may result to identity theft is shocking. I wont lie. I was impressed… some of the terms and privacy policy was awful… but at the start it appears the Government grew a backbone and was banning the agency spammings and fake employers… the site was new, appears most jobs seemed genuine… a day later… full of more spam than the old site, and there is zero entry requirements to be an employer… someone was as kind enough to take the effort of registering a hotmail account and a Government Gateway account, before posting job details of the latest Secret Intelligence Service vacancy (i.e. MI6). The fact someone posted a job using a hotmail account is neither here or there… directjov job search was full of free email accounts with a small percentage being genuine employers, but being able to emulate one of the security services… raises questions as well as eyebrows.

I used the new “reporting information” tool… for the date range of since the site started, I got the exact figure of 4,200 job vacancies that requesting 100 people (i.e. 420,000 positions). This ends up this section quite nicely. Absolute bullshit. (The concept is if you need 3 cleaners doing different shifts… you post one vacancy for 3 different positions.) Who recruits 50 people let alone 100 people in one location at a time? A new employer you might say? Large employer opening up a new store or office? Who needs 100 administrators, labourers, cleaners, sales assistants? You might need 100 people but they are going to be different job roles… or maybe the economy is making a recovery… talking of the largest 50 urban centres in the UK (i.e. large cities and big towns) that makes an average of 84 employers recruiting 100 new staff in each one… I can tell you this for nothing, being in Ipswich (the 49th largest place in the UK) there were no 8400 jobs in the 3rd week of November… simple maths… that would solve unemployment here a few times over, without considering other employers advertising for work.

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10. CV Data Storage

London? Glasgow? Ireland? No… USA!

A reliable source confirms that your uploaded CV will be hosted in Utah… in the USA – outside the European Union and European Economic Area.

Ironically enough it also appears that its mandatory to provide personal demographics about yourself… all this information can be obtained by the US Government (who, somewhat maybe a coincidence is building a $2 billion super-cyber-hosting centre in Utah, storing approx 20 times the current global storage capacity on US residents data) which brings similar concerns as the most recent Census – but the main difference being not only is it an American firm but the data is to be stored on US soil also.

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11. Labour Market Monopoly

Government U-turns “open data”: sues small job sites

The Cabinet Office has instructed TSol to bring criminal prosecution and civil proceedings against potentially hundreds of individuals running or being connected with small job search websites using directgov job data, as it does a major U-turn on “open data” to protect its multi-million investment contract with Monster Worldwide.

Not only have they banned “scrapping” on the new (use the term loosely, most of it is recycled from the old site) Universal Jobmatch website, little known as not reported in the press… a few months prior to launching the “polished turd” (sorry, …Universal Jobmatch) the Cabinet Office, got TSol (Treasury Solicitor department) to threaten legal action under copyright legislation. Despite the obvious realisation that they will soon no longer being able to access the job data… (so the sites are either going to 1) close down, or 2) get jobs from other sources) … they decided the bullying was enough to discourage competition in the job board arena (even without their job data).

It also appears they are restricting use of such data on the European job portal (EURES).

What have they got to hide? Why would a Government that is desperately trying to reduce the unemployment count to lower the welfare budget… hinder others attempting to achieve the same aim? It seems they have another spare £20 million of taxpayers money lying about to finance long civil/criminal trials and prison spaces. It is almost like they want to keep the job data exclusive. It is clearly obvious, they want to prevent jobseekers bypassing Universal Jobmatch – which would enable those jobseekers to keep their benefits (i.e. no sanctions) and prevent such jobseekers being tracked.

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12. Government Gateway

Nanny state – Rich Vs Poor

Monster (Monster Worldwide Inc and its internationally subsidies) is a commercial “job search engine” with just over $1 billion of revenue in 2011.

It may initially sound a safe bet and sensible to choose Monster… after all they are a large business with vast experience, however, in 2007 in less than 2 weeks Monster lost millions of customer data due to numerous data leaks. In 2009, the UK based site monster.co.uk was hacked and 4.5 million peoples data was stolen. These led to tens of thousands of cases of ID theft and phishing attacks to fraudulently obtain bank details for the purpose of stealing money. (Maybe this is what really caused the double-dip recession…)

I don’t know about you, but I would say that the next data leak/hack is overdue… now the Government owned website… is more of a political target for hackers to do the same.

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13. Universal Credit

Monthly paydays (be grateful, more likely to be sanctioned)

Universal Jobmatch is one of the first elements of the Universal Credit. You probably have heard of it. You might not know, however, its primarily designed to pay out less (“make work pay” springs to mind… followed by a few other workhouse phrases) and only once a month. (Compared to Jobseekers Allowance being paid forthnightly)

This might not be too alarming – once upon a time most workers were paid weekly… now the majority is paid monthly… the difference is, the amount of benefit is so low, it will be very tricky to budget from one month to the next. Okay, holding benefits another 2 weeks give a greater chance of withholding benefits of that period indefinitely (i.e. enough time to sanction you, so the treasury never needs to pay you. Solves the big welfare budget crisis, right?)

Where does Universal Jobmatch come into this?

Where does Universal Jobmatch come into this? The Universal Jobmatch is the main weapon in the DWP’s arsenal to reduce the welfare budget (well other than state-sponsored mass-manslaughter – more on that later). At current Jobcentre Plus has been tripping up jobseekers (i.e. forcing them into sanctions) and getting its partners (Welfare to Work companies on New Deal, Flexible New Deal, Work Programme, Mandatory Work Activity etc) to do so too; and DWP employing the marvellous (…we don’t give…) ATOS that has been so successful in curing people with disabilities into work, resulting in less monies paid out of the welfare budget (JSA is lower amount).

Except, primarily the reason of such reduction is these neglected disabled persons, in some cases, have been killed in the process. You might have not heard about it, the Government of past and current, have been keeping this underwraps and sub-secret. Please feel free to Google it. In these circumstances sanctions seem a little insignificant, for the loss of numerous human lives in this process of a cost-cutting exercise. The real problem is Government wastage – such as despite cut backs… a £5 billion Work Programme, £20m+ rebrand of their job portal… and despite families all over the country being told to tighten their belts… no reduction in MP salaries or expenses.

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14. Delegated ‘Work of Mouth’ promotion

Government forces brand saturation within social circles

The Government has been very clever relying on “Word of Mouth” through face-2-face conversation, twitter and facebook. Whereas a good half of the comments on twitter etc. initially were regarding being unable to register or use the site (i.e. in summary: “Please don’t take my benefits… I am trying… but your new site doesn’t work”) this has worked favourably in the Government’s marketing plan of the new service.

The Government want to force segregation of the “working class” – i.e. those with jobs paying in a lot of taxes (with little tax breaks etc compared to the middle class) Vs those unemployed. (As long as the working class in jobs fool for this, the more the middle class politicians get away with it) Highlight and humiliate the “scroungers” (it means anyone claiming benefits regardless of their rights to do so) whilst creating brand awareness.

The DWP are fully aware that jobseekers like to switch off once they have done their job search and when they come back from signing on, living a basic life as you could reasonably expect any human being to do so as a minimum standard. This means to a lot of people these days, that mandatory communication on facebook and twitter, from mobile phones, tablets and personal computers.

For this Universal Credit to work (using Universal Jobmatch) they need to slowly change habits and remove the right to a personal life. The concept is, if you will be claiming this new benefit then you will indeed be a burden to the state, and must do as the Government says 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. People currently wont be that submissive… but they need to be in order to undertake 35 hours of jobsearch each week.

The Government started this years ago when trying to reach out with Twitter accounts for each Jobcentre Plus office and for the press office. No big changes will be noticed until 2013 when Universal Jobmatch will be forced upon everyone. Hoping employers will boycott the site isn’t the answer… DWP have been importing old jobs to make up the numbers and never a shortage of agencies looking for groups of sales people for a non-existing cause.

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15. No10 Corruption

Corrupt middle-classes pulling strings, getting departments aligned

This would be a bombshell… except we all know about David “Just call me Dave, I am an approachable down-to-earth guy, who wouldn’t think twice about being photographed under a Peacocks sign, to express my true sexuality; but have to have a wife to get into politics and have children, who I would rather just leave behind in a pub“ Cameron links with News of the World.

This is one of many favourable relationship – and its not limited to the PM or the Conservative Party, Labour had just as many… and we all know where and how A4e got its contracts!

Anyhow, it appears there will be:

• No investigation, prosecution or revoking of the Atos contract in regards to the deaths and poor treatment of disabled people
• No u-turn or ECJ/Human Rights case (i.e. legal aid to exhaust our own legal system first) in regards to conditions, welfare and sanctions of such schemes
• No ICO (Information Commissioner) interference in regards to Universal Jobmatch contracts under duress, the vast scale of tracking and sensitive data stored in the US
• The independent court system will be favourable to the Government’s aims under common purpose

How can the UK Government criticise China for Human Rights violations? Or Russia for that matter. Getting a bit long in the tooth with the double standards.

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16. Employment Programmes

Social Security Law: Your provider is your employer

Since New Deal, jobseekers have been forced on numerous “employment programmes“. When people are placed on these they are shifted away from being “unemployed” to “employed” under social security legislation… and guess what? That greedy welfare to work provider is treated as your employer. Despite being unemployed and claiming unemployment benefits, if you went to a social security tribunal, this provider will be named as your employer. This mechanism allows you to be sanctioned.

This is why unemployment drops but claimaint count rises. This type of trick skews statistics up to 2 million people at a time. All above board, fully legal…paying hundreds of thousands of people unemployment benefit while they are “employed” is not false accounting under the Fraud Act or even an offence under Social Security legislation.

The fulltime job search (35 hours per week) on Universal Jobmatch… will lose everyone their benefit. Being logged in for 35 hours wont be “actively seeking employment”.. you wont be able to cope beyond 90 minutes with the number of jobs on there. This is all tracked.

Yes… when you are signed up to the Work Programme, on monthly appointments… for the whole month (all up until you sign off) you are treated as being employed. This is criminal yet legal?!

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17. Workfare

Why there is no jobs

Honestly, one of the biggest reasons little or few job vacancies are around these days is the hunger for cost-cutting to increase profits. The recession was an excuse for almost every employer to get 2 employees to do 3 or 4 jobs – with the simple response if you don’t like it: “consider yourself lucky you have a job; if you don’t want it there are hundreds of others…“. Believe it or not, it was hardly the case of by employing less people the business survives… this whole recession myth (ooh, that was a bit bold – indeed there was a recession but not everyone was broke) gave the average member of the public the express impression that no-one… no person, business or Government department has any money… I wonder how many employees who were forced to take on extra work in the last few years knew how much profit the business was actually making. Some break-even or posted a loss… but the majority? I am sure most suffered in percentage but still succeeded.

The Government is partly to blame, typically Conservative-supporting middle class business owners, clocking on to the fact that its the fault of the “working class” and as a result people should be grateful of having a job and undertake it regardless of conditions and pay.

The other is workfare.

The other is workfare. Getting unemployed persons “work” and benefit employers of “free work” (i.e. less real jobs).

Unemployed people do NOT need (unpaid) “work” … they need paid work. The readers of this article will be very conscious of this fact.

Workfare “benefits” the economy as it help employers find staff without them needing to pay any wages. It helps the Government as underperformance, lateness, or failure to turn up can result in the workfare participant losing their benefits… for up to 3 years.

Universal Credit will rely solely on Universal Jobmatch and Workfare to reduce the payments made. They will probably manage a 40% saving on welfare expenditure.

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18. Class War

More riots to come

Why the punishment of the poor? Why do we let the middle-class politicians do us over like this? Let me put the events into perspective… (rough timescale – probably not 100% accurate)

1. Register as unemployed to receive Unemployment Benefit – attend when requested to sign on
2. Jobseekers Act comes into play (to Labour disgust) requiring the unemployed to look for work (fair enough), sign an agreement in order to claim, and be sanctioned up to 6 months – cant leave a job voluntary or lose due to misconduct
3. Employment Programmes created under Labour (New Deal) where the unemployed vanish from the unemployment figures – up to 13 weeks every year of unemployment (optional 26 weeks) – placements at local businesses and charity shops with a day of job search – lose first £4 of travel each week – providers report jobseekers by form to JCP for sanctions
4. New Deal was too time consuming (13 weeks fulltime – 4 times a year) so Labour reworked this so providers can choose how often to meet with jobseekers – whilst being on the scheme for 12 months the person is treated as “employed” and not “unemployed”. Unemployed were assigned (‘sold’ as leads) to providers and were then unable to access Jobcentre Plus support (i.e. other schemes, Travel to Interview, etc) and certain job titles at the providers were assigned the ability to directly sanction jobseekers (jobcentre process the benefit aspects) despite the providers saying its jobcentre plus who do it automatically etc “Flexible New Deal” – providers were required to organise a month of work experience but most failed to meet this
5. New 2 week sanctions for being late or failing to attend
6. Work for Your Benefit (workfare) scheme was planned – controversial as not only workfare but had verbal jobseeker directions – Conservatives scrapped it
7. Pilot where certain claimants had to attend jobcentre on a daily basis without right of travel expenses reimbursed (as was a signing on appointment)
8. Mandatory Work Activity was introduced… 4 weeks of workfare, participants can be placed on it unlimited times and at any stage of their claim (day 1 possible) – be late or fail to show, or fail to actively participate (i.e. work hard enough)… first offence 3 month sanction (you are not excused) … second (etc) 6 month sanction.
9. Work Programme… unemployed parked for 2 years (perhaps longer) – provider supports continue even once you have signed off – sanctions sanctions sanctions
10. Sanctions raised to 2 weeks, 6 months and 3 years
11. Community Action Programme etc
12. Universal Jobmatch – give data to USA, set yourself up for sanctions, give data unwillingly to fake employers
13. Universal Credit – paid only monthly, 35 hours job search

So in about 20 years the jobseeker has gone from money for nothing to workfare slave.

To recap:-

• Money for nothing (20 years ago)
• Must search for work, keep in employment regardless and avoid sanctions
• Now no longer “unemployed” in statistics when put on schemes
• Now “employed” for longer whilst jobsearching and sanctionable by providers
• Lose 2 weeks money because bus was late
• Both major parties were drawing up workfare plans
• Randomly chosen jobseekers had to attend daily at their cost (~£15-20)
• Revolving unlimited workfare, can be sanctioned for six times longer than duration
• Statistics fixing as doubled on the new scheme
• Sanction gone from maximum of 6 months to 3 years
• Forced to upload CV and apply for fake jobs (present day)
• Waiting longer to get paid, more chance of sanctions, fulltime job search of very few jobs (future: confirmed plans)

How much longer are we going to wait around to be dictated to of what to do? The next place is a white padded cell. 35 hours of job search a week… People got sick notes for stress when they did the mandatory 30 hours weekly job search on New Deal. Or failing that no money for 3 years.

Even the likes of Tesco are exploiting free labour from the unemployed. They have enough profits to pay these people a decent wage quite comfortably. Technically speaking their wages would come off their tax bill anyhow. This is despite being in a recession. Employers are just not recruiting much these days. Why would they? Welfare to Work providers contacting them for placements.

I hope the unemployed can get their act together for mass peaceful protests rather than waiting for a triple dip recession, with widespread riots. Its time to reject the lip service from Jobcentre Plus. Don’t take no 35 hours job search when there is no jobs to look for, monthly benefit payments if you aren’t sanctioned for 3 years and workfare schemes for profitable businesses whilst statistically being employed. What do you want from the Government? Real training? Job opportunities? A future? Stick the politicians under pressure… they fudge their way from pillar to post to keep their gold-plated salaries and expenses… the problem is you will be no longer able to fudge your CV without being reported to the benefit fraud hotline… and you will need to fudge it… the huge unemployment period unaccounted for or details of the workfare scheme you are on… neither will result in a job. So many people made redundant in the recession thought it would be a couple of months on the dole… the vast majority are still claiming.

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