Welfare-To-Work Firms call for more Unemployed to have Benefits Sanctioned.
Cut Your Benefits So I Can Keep This.
As Emma Harrison (still owner of A4E) and other Welfare-to-Work millionaires rake in profits, and get around 3,5% of their clients jobs, they demand the government take benefits away from the unemployed, the Observer reports,
Private firms awarded multimillion-pound contracts to run the Work Programme have advised that there should be many more cases where claimants have their benefits stripped as punishment for failing to seek work.
As part of its crackdown on welfare dependency, David Cameron’s government has more than tripled the number of punishments enforced against failing jobseekers across all its schemes. The number of cases has risen from 139,000 benefit cuts under Labour in 2009 to more than 500,000 in 2011.
Corporate Watch, publishing in tandem with the Observer, has the details behind the figures,
Sanctioning – stopping someone’s benefits after a perceived infringement of the terms of their claim for between one week and six months – was a favourite policy of the previous government but figures revealed by Corporate Watch and the Observer today show the coalition, together with sub-contracted private ‘provider’ companies, has massively increased the amount of sanctions imposed.
To download as a pdf click here.
Read a personal experience of being sanctioned here.
139,000 sanctions were handed out to Jobseeker’s Allowance* claimants in 2009 but this more than tripled to 508,000 in 2011, the coalition’s first full calendar year in government.** There was little change in the number of people signing on in this period, meaning a much higher proportion of people have had their benefits cut.*** In February 2011 for example, 1.44 million people were claiming JSA compared to 1.42 million in 2009. 51,000 sanctions were imposed in the former month, compared to 9,000 in the latter.Many of these sanctions are initially suggested, or ‘referred’, to the Department of Work and Pensions by the private companies the government has sub-contracted to run many of its welfare schemes, such as the flagship Work Programme, for people who have been signing on for a year or more. DWP statistics, obtained by a Corporate Watch freedom of information request (download the disclosure here), show companies such as Serco, Seetec, Working Links and A4E have been even more eager to sanction people than the government.
The article notes,
A spokesperson for claimants’ group Ipswich Unemployed Action said: “This shows that the Government is using the DWP to punish unemployed people instead of helping them get jobs.”
This is our (Work Programme’s) original investigation New Deal Sanctions Exposed.
Worth noting are some of the companies baying for punishing the out-of-work.
These include:
The public-private partnership giant, Working Links, which boasts a turn-over of £123m and whose shareholders include Capgemini, referred the most cases for sanctions (11,910) between June 2011 and January this year. The jobcentres accepted the argument for cuts in 6,210 of those cases.
A4e, which paid its former chairman Emma Harrison an £8.6m dividend in 2010, referred the second largest number of cases for punishment. The firm, which has been at the centre of a series of fraud allegations, requested sanctions in 10,120 cases. Jobcentres agreed to withhold benefits in 3,000 of those cases.
Other large contract holders leading the way in demanding punishment for benefit claimants included Serco, which has an annual turnover of £4bn a year. The outsourcing giant recommended punishment in 9,090 benefit claimant cases, but only 2,230 were approved.
Who are these people? Wikipedia is a good place to start.
Working LinksIn May 2011 a former auditor of Working Links claimed that the level of fraud at Working Links escalated to “a farcical situation” and was “endemic” but that he faced a “stonewall” from managers. Mr Hutchinson said he had encountered “a multi-billion-pound scandal”, after working for Working Links and A4e in the welfare-to-work industry. Working Links said: “We firmly reject any assertion of widespread fraud within our business.”
A4E needs no introduction.
SERCO is indeed a giant living of the public purse. Amongst its many activities are:
- Detention: Serco supplies electronic tagging devices for offenders and asylum seekers.[21] In Britain, Serco runs four prisons, a Young Offenders Institution and a Secure Training Centre.[22] It also operates two Immigration Removal Centres.[23][24] Serco is also responsible for the contracted-out court escort services in the south-east area (formerly a role undertaken by HM Prison Service).[25] In addition, Serco runs partly privatised Hünfeld Prison in Hesse, Germany.[26] In Australia Serco runs Acacia Prison in Western Australia[27] and Borallon Correctional Facility in Queensland[28] as well as the national contract for immigration detention centres, including Christmas Island and the Villawood detention centre in Sydney.[29][30] In Auckland, New Zealand Serco runs the Mt Eden remand prison [31] and in March 2012 was awarded the contract to build an operate a 960 bed prison at Wiri.[32]
- Defence: Serco holds defence contracts worldwide including the UK Government’s first modern outsourced contract for the maintenance of the UK Ballistic Missile Early Warning System at RAF Fylingdales;[33] contracts are also held for the operation and maintenance of RAF Brize Norton,[34]RAF Halton[35] and RAF Northolt[35] in the UK and RAF Ascension Island in the mid-Atlantic.[35] Serco also provides support services to garrisons in Australia.[36] Serco also manages many aspects of operations at the Defence College of Management and Technology in Shrivenham.[37] Serco is one of three partners in the consortium which manages the Atomic Weapons Establishment.[38] Serco also has a 15 year contract worth £400 million to provide facilities management services to Dstl.[39]
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Brutal, aggressive , violent bastards
These c*unts are he lowest of the low
Corporate Watch contacted us a few days ago, and even we were surprised at just how many people are now being sanctioned. Work Programme was astonished at how it’s grown.
Now these corporate criminals running the Welfare-to-Work Business want to sanction and drive to the gutter even more people!
Andy, you do know that this region is the highest in the UK for sanctions?!
Scotland area had more but as you could probably guess its a country lol… how can so many sanctions be raised in this area?
The Void reports,
“10,000 sanctions were also handed out to those on sickness or disability benefits last year. This figure is almost certain to soar as more and more sick and disabled people are referred onto the mandatory Work Programme. To the utter shame of the so called ‘Third Sector’, many of these claimants will be sanctioned by the disability, homelessness, substance misuse or anti-poverty charities who have signed up to lucrative Work Programme sub-contracts.”
Amd there’s worse to come:
“In news which will terrify most claimants, Universal Credit, the new benefit regime which begins being trialled next year, will feature far more punitive sanctions than even now. The minimum sanction for most ‘offences’ will be increased from one week to 13 weeks, whilst the maximum length of sanction is to be extended to three years. Those in receipt of sickness and disability benefit, Employment Support Allowance, will face an unprecedented regime of enforced job seeking, similar to that currently faced by Job Seekers Allowance Claimants. And perhaps most brutally of all, those with children over the age of 5 will be subject to the same sanctions and conditionality as those with no children at all.”
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/benefit-sanctions-treble-in-just-two-years-and-theres-far-worse-to-come/
“
My daughter and her fiancee ‘signed on’ the other day. The advisor told her there are ‘targets’ and she had to sanction so many people a week to meet her quota or she would be in trouble with the JSP manager.
On the scrap heap at 21 with people being paid to line up to kick her down. What a world.
Yes, they frighten DWP staff, they make claimants’ lives a misery and all the while the Welfare-to-Work companies, accused of fraud, make a mint and want to make more by pushing people into the gutter!
What are the influencing factors behind ‘sanctioning’ claimants?
• Performance targets for sanctioning within the Work Programme – Last year it was reported that a number of Jobcentres issued weekly targets for staff to sanction claimants. I believe this was and still is more wide spread than people might think.
• Quality of staff – Poor understanding at all levels in terms of understanding the regulations relating to applying sanctions. I have found this aspect appalling throughout my work involving both the DWP and Work Programme.
• Blatant abuse of a perceived ‘power’ that some of these people seem to think they have who are employed by these Work Programme companies (an addition to the existing benefit denial factory contracted to carry out the Work Capability Assessment).
• A developing culture of delay, deny, defend to (save money) improve profit – a strategy which aims to subject people to actions which create feelings of helplessness and defeat to the point where they give up, and sadly and worryingly to the point where some have taken there own life.
• Payment by Results contracts that promote and create perverse actions in order to achieve targets (make profit) through cherry picking and selective monitoring and reporting. They say there is no financial incentive for these companies to sanction. I’m not so sure. I suggest taking a more in depth look at how sanctions affect these companies’ performance figures and the impact on overall outcomes for payment by results. Where claimants lose there entitlement, who gets this money (it’s reported the Work Programme don’t?). Are there incentives that are not immediately clear, hidden behind the methods of monitoring and reporting?
Does anyone have an insight into the management, monitoring and reporting for these contracts which might reveal possible hidden truths behind sanctioning claimants?
Nik, this is a really good analysis.
I also suspect that the new form you have to fill in recording you efforts to find work is an instrument in this campaign against the unemployed.
Many people will not fill it in properly (even without literacy problems), and it can be used as a pretext for making them penniless.
One clear result will be an increase in shop-lifting and petty crime by those sanctioned.
“Private firms awarded multimillion-pound contracts to run the Work Programme have advised that there should be many more cases where claimants have their benefits stripped as punishment for failing to seek work.”
all this proves is that there is a bullying culture in these companies as highlighted in recent tv reports’.
it also suggests that some of these sanction attempts are off the moment reactions to situations rather what someone thinks regardless of the law then the law.they must very bad judgements.
they have to pay people when they attend these sessions as they are regarded as taking steps to find employment.
Minimum child maintenance payments to double to £10 a week
Absent parents on benefits will see the amount they are expected to pay in child maintenance double from £5 to £10, the government has announced.
Work and pensions minister Maria Miller said it was time to “reflect the costs of bringing up a child” and “reduce the gap” in funding obtained from working and non-working parents.
The flat rate of £10 will apply for people on benefits and those earning less than £100 a week.
The change will come in next year.
The government also said it would create a single scheme for setting and collecting child maintenance, replacing two differently formulated schemes set up in 1993 and 2003.
The payments are only for those parents who have not come to their own agreement and have taken their case to the child maintenance scheme replacing the Child Support Agency.
In a written parliamentary statement, Mrs Miller said the system was “failing”.
She added: “I am announcing today that we will increase the flat rate to £10 when we open the new scheme to all new applicants, in order better to reflect the costs of bringing up a child and reduce the gap between child maintenance paid by employed and unemployed non-resident parents.”
The new scheme will also see maintenance payments no longer required in cases where parents share care of their children equally.
Mrs Miller added: “Parents’ responsibility continues post-separation, particularly when it comes to financial support.
“We are determined to support, encourage and – if necessary – enforce parental financial responsibility.”
She said the new scheme would be “faster and simpler than the two Child Support Agency schemes now in operation”.
“And most importantly it will be fairer for both mums and dads,” she added.
Other changes will see a small decrease in the percentage reduction in payments by absent parents who may have other children living with them.
Article here.
DWP solicitors: “The threat of removing benefits for non-compliance is not the same as forcing someone to work against their will.” Er?!
Nobody is being “forced” to sign-on, are they?
They are when the alternative is penury due to lack of decent, well paid employment, but you would know nothing about that as you represent a parasitical industry that employs failed used car salesmen and dubs them ‘advisors’.
UNDER MENACE OF A PENALTY
Very relevant comments about the DWPs defence over forced labour.
Yes, it’s not untrue to say no one is forced to claim (conditional) Jobseekers allowance, and therefore no one is forcing you to work.
Of course, it’s also not very realistic, given the bodies – dead AND alive – that would pile up on the streets of cardboard city as a consequence of failing to participate in the Government’s “mandatory” work schemes!
The major error of the DWPs defence on the subject of forced labour is the focus put on the Jobseeker. Under the recent legisaltion which makes “forced or compulsory labour” a criminal offence in the UK, the person who commits the offence is not the unemployed person but the person who “REQUIRES ANOTHER PERSON TO PERFORM FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOUR” – ie, it is the EMPLOYER in any workfare workplace who commits the offence.
“Forced or compulsory labour” is defined as: “All work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”.
The Mandatory Work Activity Scheme and the Community Action Programme are clearly an active demonstration of the said definition of forced or compulsory labour because both are forcing non-volunteers “under the menace of a penalty” for non-compliance.
In reply to tobanem, the job seekers agreement states you should be available for work (as in paid work to alleviate the tax payer of paying benefits most of us have worked and paid into), therefore the unpaid labour of work programmes or enforced voluntary work is not leaving you free to be available for paid work, thus transgressing the ideology of getting people off benefit and into work.
Hello wendybaker
Yes, it’s all very contradictory. If people are spending time doing forced labour, clearly they are not simultaneously available for work, nor will they have the time or energy left to actively seek proper paid work into the bargain – even if enough work was available for all of them in the first place!!
The position will become even worse when the Community Action Programme is rolled out nationwide next year. After completing their “mandatory” 30 hours of forced labour, candidates will also be required to spend another 10 hours of compulsory jobsearch seeking work which doesn’t exist for most of them!!
I expect people will collapse with exhaustion. Also expect to see bodies – dead and alive – piling-up on the streets of cardboard city!
One intersting point. “Forced or compulsory labour” is not defined by whether it is unpaid – or paid for that matter. The definition of “forced or compulsory labour” is:
“ALL WORK OR SERVICE WHICH IS EXACTED FROM ANY PERSON UNDER THE MENACE OF ANY PENALTY AND FOR WHICH THE SAID PERSON HAS NOT OFFERED HIMSELF/HERSELF VOLUNTARILY”.
I hope you and other readers find these comments useful.
Hello tobanem,
by your definition of forced and compulsory nature of employment being under menace or penalty would mean that nobody is expected to work at all if they did not want to – this was the case with striking miners who withdrew their labour, but sadly were not entitled to any welfare benefits because of this – they struggled to raise funds to feed themselves and the miners leader Arthur Scargill if I am not wrong secured funding from colonel gadaffi to help feed them.
FAO “wendybaker”
You seem to be drifing off the main point.
Your reference to striking miners in the 1980s has got nothing to do with unemployed people on workfare nowadays. Being on strike is not the same as being unemployed.
Forced or compulsory labour has recently been made illegal in this country. The definition I mentioned of forced or compulsory labour is not my own invention; it originates from the International Labour Organisation.
The European Court of Human Rights has already commented on the ILOs definition of forced or compulsory labour, by saying it is the starting point for interpretating Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights – and the recent legislation in this country which outlaws forced or compulsory labour is itself based on Article 4, which as you might know, condemns forced labour.
It is now up to unemployed individuals who are being “mandated” into workfare schemes to take legal action against anyone who requires them to perform “forced or compulsory labour” which is now a CRIMINAL offence under Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 in England, and under Section 47 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 in Scotland.
Hi Tobanem
If, as you say, workfare is a CRIMINAL offence then presumably the action to take would be to report the offence to the police?
Hello “Gissajob”
Yes, that is the procedure when there is an occurrence of a criminal offence.
Some interesting quotes:
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” – Mussolini
“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike” – Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933
hi tobanem
i was just trying to ascertain whether or not you would still be entitled to welfare payments if you withdrew your labour or refused to be forced into it on the grounds that forced labour was illegal – sorry about going off onto the miners strike but they too were left without basics by the Thatcher govt. even though they were paying into a welfare system through their n.i. contributions and were refused hardship allowances.
FAO “wendybaker”
No doubt the DWP would try to apply a benefit sanction on any workfare candidate for non-compliance, using the logic of “The threat of removing benefits for non-compliance is not the same as forcing someone to work against their will.”
What the DWP is ultimately saying here is that no one is forced to claim Jobseekers Allowance, but if anyone does claim it, then they must comply with the conditional rules of receiving it such as participating in “mandatory” workfare schemes.
But as I have already said in one of my earlier posts above, the person who commits the (criminal) offence under recent legislation, is not the unemployed person, but the person who “requires another person to perform forced or compulsory labour”, ie an employer in a workfare workplace.
You cannot have statutory rules governing procedures in Jobcentres which will cause workfare employers to break other laws! Or can you? This Government is steadily pushing everything over the edge of reason!!
FAO “wendybaker”
All is not yet lost. If a workfare candidate boldly asked a workfare employer “do you require me to perform forced or compulsory labour”, and then mentioned the recent legislation outlawing forced or compulsory labour, the workfare employer might back down.
That development would nip workfare in the bud! It certainly would put a spanner in the works of workfare!!
It is up to individuals to tackle the iniquity of workfare – and we will see how things develop in the course of time.
Don’t forget to keep an eye and ear on the outcome of the High Court Judgement on the Cait Reilly case and the other case at the same Court about the Community Action Programme.
Workfare is so inequitable it deserves to be knocked for six!!
I have the strong feeling that people will deeply resent doing ‘Community Payback’ just because they’ve committed the crime of being unemployed.
There might be some happy to scrape and bow but a lot will be very uncooperative.
to those who replied to my query thankyou – my story about being sanctioned is on intensive activity.wordpress.com 2008/9/5/21 job centre -plus-not-exempt-from-human-rights-act 1998/#comment -11919 under wendy baker and was replied to by disgusted.
FAO “wendybaker”
The following reports might cheer you up a bit:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172260/The-human-right-claim-benefits-Jobless-sue-better-payments-controversial-plan.html
http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=1321
If entire companies are already pulling out of workfare schemes because of protests and bad publicity, then some individual employers remaining might do the same when reminded that “forced or compulsory labour” is now a criminal offence in this country – as I have said earlier on.
Also see the following link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/11/four-face-jail-slavery-law-convictions
In the meantime though, I think it is vitally important that you do not just point blank refuse to participate in workfare schemes, otherwise you will be immediately sanctioned for non-compliance.
FAO tobenam
I hope you are right about more and more companies pulling out of workfare, although I was never placed on workfare as such just intensive job seeking or told to do training.
I was actually doing a bsc degree part-time at university when jobseekers allowance replaced UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT which I was claiming whilst at uni. As a mature student(I did not want to be saddled with debt by going full-time and grant maintained or should that be loan maintained), I was also working PT to pay for my books and travel. When I went to sign for the new job seekers allowance, I was told that I had to be looking for and be available for work at any time which meant I had to give up my PT course and get loans to study full-time thus bringing me off jsa altogether or leave uni, so I left because of the reason regarding debt.
After leaving university I was at first offered a few vacancies that were available mostly out of town and were difficult to get to on public transport and signed up with a few agencies for office work, none of these openings produced any employment for me so I agreed to do an ibt 1 + 2 computer course offered by the job centre and found some part-time work whilst doing this course although temporary . By 2002 I was reliant totally on jsa as temp jobs dried up or were taken by the next round of job seekers going through the gateway or intensive activity period so was then told to go on a BASIC maths and english course despite having A level English, I refused and my benefits were sanctioned, each time I re-signed I was offered nothing but voluntary work which I refused to do despite having worked voluntary a lot when my kids were small, but to me it was the principle of being FORCED to work for nothing while those in New Labour who were espousing these policies, were setting up charities and feathering their own nests awarding themselves managers pay etc, from the substantial grants they were receiving while the real work was done largely( if you did not happen to be in the managers clique or family) for nothing – at least when I did work voluntary it was through choice and did not expect to be paid for it as I think ALL those involved with charities should do.
Once JSA staff find out what you are not prepared to do, they proceed to offer these options to you and when you refuse they tell you a question hangs over you receiving benefits, they will not let you sign, keep you hanging on for decision makers decisions, when you appeal you again never get any official appeal just a letter refusing you benefit based on the decision makers decision and then you have all the problems with other benefits as I did with housing benefits etc. – the whole system is a disgrace and I for one could not work for dwp handing out sanctions it takes a very callous person to perform such tasks.
I forgot to mention, after going off on another tangent again, that the job centre is as culpuable as the work enforcer for sending job seekers on these work programmes in the firkst place. I can only speak about my experiences with them but I wish others who have been sanctioned would tell us their stories also.
my provider has lost me so cant get sanctioned this stint so far.
only been 2 times,first time they left me in the training room till they were shut in told me to make another appointment.
last time i went i gave um holy shit and 10 pages of letters told them i was working and walked out last year.
had a fishing letter since for a 121 but binned it and that’s it so far.
soothsayer:– You may like to know that at my local jobcentre here in Ipswich, apart from now having too take that new ”jobsearch sheet” with you, some advisers when you sign also now ask to see the written evidence of what you have done. Copies of outbound emails etc. Replies. If you said you phoned they want to see the number in your phone. Is ipswich about to become sanction central ….?