We would like to remind people, however, that there is more to refusing the work programme than refusing data protection waivers, as this articles explains.

The below article is snippets from Simple Guide: “How to deal with the Work Programme” for those placed on it  (we recommend you read it in full, but its up to you!) and also additional notes.

 Refuse to sign the modified Jobseekers Agreement (JSAg)

Why refuse to sign the modified Jobseekers Agreement? Simple, apparently the Work Programme is mandatory (we wont get involved in this for this article but browse this website to find out why) so why does Jobcentre Plus want your permission? Especially after all they have (or will soon) send so much of your personal information (including where applicable sensitive personal data) to a third party without your consent!!

The answer is very simple. They need as much information as possible as “evidence” to enforce their authority. But its mandatory so why do they need to prove your consent? Well we will let you work that out for yourself. As a Government department all decisions must be fair and “just”, and they risk judicial reviews at every turn which could damage their authority by forcing a change in law. So they must prove that you understand the law (or atleast agree so much to have an identical understanding as the unnamed decision maker posing as Secretary of State), that you are giving your consent (volunteering as opposed to being forced to undertake a “mandatory” activity), and that you know the consequences (benefit sanctions!!).

Of course this doesn’t really have too much binding as protection of say a judicial review, but its gold dust for benefit sanctions. They will automatically accept any sanction doubt thrown their way, however, if you are to stand a good chance of appealing the sanction decision, you must not consent – and you must not consent through the most important agreement for Jobseekers Allowance… the Jobseekers Agreement!!

Some websites are advising about sticking a line through parts of the Jobseekers Agreement about sharing some details. There are 2 reasons why we do not advise this.

1) Its the clause which states about being referred/attending/finding out about (etc.) the Work Programme that is relevant not so much about sharing CVs etc.

2) Jobseekers Agreement is carried in two forms… The first is the computer copy and the second is the signed copy. Its only typical that the signed (modified by you version) is lost and the first is relied on. You have some grounds of argument considering you haven’t signed it, but they are the authority here.

Refuse to sign the data protection waiver

 Simple as. So we haven’t included this section of the article – but please be aware of the following VITAL one that many people are coming unstuck on.

Refuse to provide details to the Work Programme provider

If you either correct information or confirm, you are giving your consent!

Do not give spoof details either, they don’t need your contact details to raise a sanction doubt… they only need your name or NI. If you are to get a sanction doubt (for another reason) after giving fake details its unlikely you will be able to have a successful appeal.

Yes, that’s right folks…  The Data Protection Act 1998 etc. requires data to be current and up to date, but its not your problem, you have not consent to it being held in the first place.

There is no valid point of being difficult to their staff and refusing the written waiver whilst correcting any mistakes or adding to the data (which is giving them information directly – they become a data controller rather than a data processor) this is giving your VERBAL implied consent!

But they cannot prove it? Well, if you have corrected or added to the additional information that acts as basic evidence – not exactly concrete but it will be their word against yours and as a corporate body they will always win in that argument.

Refuse to sign anything (including the fire register) including Action Plans 

It is of vital importance that you understand you must NOT enter into any contractual or implied agreements.

This means NO Action Plans! Stick your name in the fire register but do not sign (stops them tracing your signature – happened under New Deal which pretty much the same providers such as A4e).

Some websites advise you to withdraw your consent in an “Action Plan” – we disagree, as your are giving implied consent for such data to be processed whilst also trying to revoke the consent… and agreeing to further activities to continue the cycle.

An Action Plan is an contractual agreement between you and the provider - its layout and purpose is proposed and template designed by DWP/Jobcentre Plus, but they are not a party to such contract.

This means you are giving implied consent to process (current appointment), you revoke your consent by Action Plan (post-current appointment) although agreeing to attend again and you give implied consent for your data to be processed (subsequent appointment), then revoke …. (cycle continues, you get the hint).

You aren’t actually revoking your consent at all!!

Participate in all “work-related” activities

It will be lame and the same stuff that you might have done on New Deal before the dawn of the new millennium… but this is “work-related” activity. Of course the scheme actually isn’t mandatory but can only be challenged by judicial review – unless you want 6 months of benefit sanctions!? We thought not.

So anything constituting training or to improve your employment prospects you must attend. This isn’t advisor appointments. These will include modules (CV writing etc.), job interviews etc.  It also doesn’t include induction.

There is no legal requirement to enter into a contractual agreement with the provider (Action Plan).

You MUST communicate with the provider (send recorded delivery) and Jobcentre Plus to state you will participate in all work related activities to meet your requirements of being “Actively Seeking Employment“. You have to negotiate your right to participate in these modules on your terms – helps prevents benefit sanctions.

Of course, its a positive test (what you have done) not a negative test (what you have not done) to determine this but Jobcentre Plus never does this. 3 steps you have done that week, not any you haven’t done.

Compromise by disclaimer

To undertake that mentioned in the above section you must serve a disclaimer on them.

These above steps (view refusewp.com for full article – as on homepage) is only for those who have not been referred yet. Its too much too late for those who have been referred.  We recommend you to contact PIL or another solicitor first to discuss the issue of workfare, and we suggest you mention at every opportunity the judicial review cases as stated on this website in regards to workfare.

More resources

• Consent.me.uk  – A brilliant resource to help people with Work Programme Referrals on consent grounds. So much we agree with but we do not agree with everything advised on the consent.me.uk website so if you find anything in consent.me.uk that contradicts with that above and on refusewp.com, we recommend the above in place but of course its completely up to you.
• Boycott Workfare – Of course, we cannot forget Boycott Workfare!

Cait Reilly: Singled Out For Attack by Ian Duncan Smith.

In the Sunday Times today (22.1.12) Ian Duncan Smith Work and Pensions Secretary says of Cait Reilly,

“What a snooty-so-and-so. She seemed to say she shouldn’t stack shelves because she’s intelligent . The way she sneered -as if she was too good for it,” he says,. “She’s wasting our time and money going to court. It’s ridiculous. What about the human rights of the taxpayer. It’s a human right for the taxpayer to know you’re doing something productive instead of wafting around looking for the job you want while someone else pays for it.”

We can be sure Cait Reilly will receive a fair hearing with that kind of comment from a Minister flying around.

Not to mention his novel definition of human rights.

Wikipedia says “His wealth is estimated at £1 million much of which has been earned by working as a high end after dinner speaker”.

Ian Duncan Smith has never done an honest day’s work in his life.

Support this Campaign (see Box Bottom Right for link).

The Cait Reilly case has brought workfare (unpaid work for benefits)  to people’s attention.

Some seem to think this is a new policy.

Red Pepper reports,

Karina was mandated to work in Primark under New Labour’s Flexible New Deal. She had been sent to a private ‘welfare to work’ provider whose regime included putting claimants to work without pay in businesses, charity shops and public sector workplaces. Although regulations meant that she could only be obliged to work for up to 12 weeks without pay, she worked for 24 weeks, fearing she would have her benefits stopped if she did not agree. She had signed up to and paid for a college course that would help her find work but she had to give it up to do the placement: ‘They told me they would stop my JSA, so I stopped my English course.’

This sytem  began with the New Deal in 1998.

This is what the programme offered, (Wikipedia),

The NDYP begins with an initial consultation session, referred to as Gateway, that focuses on improving job search and interview skills. This training is provided by an external organisation such as a4e, CSV or YMCATraining. If the search for employment is still unsuccessful after the Gateway sessions, to continue to receive unemployment benefits, one of four options must be chosen:

• A subsidised job placement. The subsidy is £60 per week, and lasts 6 months; a £750 training allowance is also available to participants. Clients are paid a wage from the employer.

• Full-time education and training, for up to 12 months.

• Work in the voluntary sector, the client is paid JSA plus a £15 training allowance. This is called Community Task Force.

• Work with the Environmental Task Force.(DWP website; Peck, “Workfare” 304; Glyn 53)

Participation in one of the four options is mandatory to receive benefits, refusal to participate will lead to the benefit being stopped and will be referred to a Decision Maker who will decide whether a recipient should receive a sanction should they decide to reclaim.”

Gateway normally meant some CV writing (highly useful) job application and interview techniques (also useful).

It could also included less useful ‘courses’ including those based on the kind of self-help manuals that made Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus school of thought.

Despite appearing to offer a number of ‘options’ most people were put, without any choice, on the 3rd (I know nobody who did the first, which meant they got paid). Placements were rapidly extended beyond the ‘voluntary sector’ and the ‘Community Task Force’. They included working in local government, and private companies.

Why did people participate?

‘Work experience’ might be useful (for your CV for example). There was always the possibility of paid work. But more important perhaps was that getting an extra £15 and doing something was preferable to sitting in a room being hectored and told, 5 days a week, to do “job search”.

These Placements lasted from 13 weeks to 26 weeks.

I know personally cases of people of working in Ipswich warehouse-mega-stores shelving and carrying stuff around. One told me that his boss bought him a couple of drinks at Christmas – as well he might.

Charities and the ‘voluntary sector’ might seem a good idea. The Labour Government began farming out welfare services to them. The unemployed were used instead of paid employees – when they were not working alongside people sentenced to do Community Service.  Or, in Ipswich, working alongside prisoners on day release from Hollesley Bay.

Without the rights of salaried employees the unemployed were open to a wide range of abuses. Charites (often with highly paid executives) and the Third Sector are not always good employers.

I know of a number of significant cases where people felt ill-treated.

In nearly all cases when the Placement ended there was no job.

The attitude is thank you very much and now for the next placement-person.

The Flexible New Deal was introduced in October 2009.  James Purnell Work and Pensions Secretary was behind the change, though he had to resign that years when his expenses claims were found out.  

The Flexible New Deal reduced the time of Placements to 6 weeks. It got rid of the ‘sitting in front of a computer doing job search’ (though not the ‘courses’). It abolished the £15 bonus.

But the slide towards using the unemployed as free labour became more explicit.

They also used ‘volunteers’ from the Dole in place of genuine volunteers.

The Work Programme was introduced last summer. On this site Worky has explored its details.

Cait Reilly appears to have got into one of its programmes, a 2 week placement.

There is already the Mandatory Work Activity to punish people – which we have discussed here.

The plan now to make everyone who is unemployed for over 2 years participate in the Community Action Programme.

This is full-time unpaid workfare.

When it’s introduced it will be used to fill the gaps in public services - caused by the Liberal-Conservative Coalition cuts.

That is “picking up litter”  tidying up parks, and no doubt carrying all kinds of tasks not getting done because of government cuts.

It will be US style workfare.

There is conclusive evidence against workfare – here.

But, as reactions to Cait Reilly show, there are people in this country who simply want to order the out-of-work around, and make them sweat.

Something that Lord Freud, a former banker and wheeler-dealer, the man who advised the Labour Government on the Flexible New Deal and now, the Coalition on the Work Programme, has only ever done in a Sauna.

Museum volunteer told to work unpaid at Poundland

By Kaye Wiggins, Third Sector Online, 12 January 2012

Cait Reilly [David Sillitoe/Guardian]

Cait Reilly was told she otherwise would lose her Jobseeker’s Allowance

A university graduate was told she had to stop volunteering at a local museum for four weeks and do unpaid work in a Poundland store in order to continue receiving Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Cait Reilly, who graduated from Birmingham University in 2010, was regularly volunteering part-time at the Pen Museum & Learning Centre in Birmingham because she hoped to pursue a career in museums.

But last autumn she was told by her local Jobcentre Plus that she had been placed on a “sector-based work academy”, a four-week programme made up of two weeks’ employability training and two weeks’ unpaid work at Poundland.

Reilly has this week launched proceedings to seek a judicial review of the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011, which include a power to compel JSA claimants to carry out work.

Her solicitor, Jim Duffy of Public Interest Lawyers, said Reilly had been volunteering at the museum since May. He said she was placed on the work academy programme by her local Jobcentre Plus and agreed to do it after being told about the scheme in “vague and inaccurate terms”.

Duffy said when Reilly found out more about the programme, she told staff at the Jobcentre Plus that she did not want to take part, but was told that it was mandatory. She did the Poundland placement in November.

Brian Jones, another volunteer at the Pen Museum, a registered charity, said Reilly was not able to give much notice that she would have to stop her work for a month. “She is a valued volunteer here, so to lose her in that period was very difficult for us,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “Working in retail is perfectly good experience for a career in a museum. There are very similar transferable skills involved.”

Here.

Comment.

The Daily Mail seems to think that working for your dole in Poundland is a good idea.

Someone calling herself Dominique Jackson writes, “We should be grateful that Poundland has signed up to the scheme to provide work placements, training and a guaranteed interview for kids trying to improve their employability.” (Here)

I suppose anyone under 25, who gets a reduced JSA, is a “kid”.

To be treated as such.

The idea that Poundland have found a nice little earner – getting workers for free – seems to have escaped her attention.

Or that it is indeed a human right to be able to choose your job.

As in, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Article 23

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice  of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (Here)

Naturally for those who want to see the unemployed forced to clean the streets (and why not with Toothbrushes – there was a Pilot Scheme in Vienna in the late 1930s) this right does not exist.

On the Background to Workfare and details of how Private Companies, Local Government, the Third Sector and Charities are going to exploit this Harpy Marx is highly recommended – here.

Under this picture of the Gallagher family “Ipswich Unemployment Action Spokesman” Andrew Coates is quoted in a Sunday Times article (8.1.12) titled, “End of the Something for Nothing Culture“.

With by the by-line Jon Ungoed-Thomas there is a page about the Work Programme, “Mandatory Work Activity” and the coming “Community Action Programme.”

What is the central problem about unemployment?

On a  brief venture to a Birmingham dole queue a reporter eventually  found someone saying what they wanted to hear, “why should I work for nothing when I can get money for nothing?”

That was not the only ‘investigation’ they undertook.

On Friday there was a brief trip to Ipswich.

Not the Sunday Times but a journalist for Anglia Press Agency visited the town. He also telephoned me and interviewed  me – by phone.

During our conversation I told him of Boycott Workfare and the case of Cait Reilly in Birmingham who was made to work unpaid in Poundland. These duly figure in the report.

The main plank of End of the Something for Nothing is the Work Programme.

Work Placements are there.

The investigators did not find time to trace the history of this – from the New Deal to the Flexible New Deal.

The Liberal-Conservative Coalition says its Work Programme is different.

They might have asked about the drift – which we predicted – from genuine ‘work experience’ to filling in jobs in places like Poundland.

As part of the Work Programme people who are  under suspicion (or in fact those who refuse to obey instructions from Work Programme Advisers) , can find themselves on Mandatory Work Activity. That is unpaid work for four weeks.

We learn of the chief Minster for Welfare  Ian Duncan Smith’s pre-election visit to a Job Centre. He heard of how tough measures had support.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling is cited saying that ‘work for welfare’ will be introduced. The article fails to mention the time, but it is said to apply for anyone unemployed for over two years.

“Claimants can expect to be involved in working in parks, helping in community centres, and picking up litter”.

I am cited as saying

“People sent out on the community action programme have said they are being made to feel like criminals – working alongside the people ordered to carry out community work by magistrates for breaking the law. It seems increasingly the government  wants to punish people who are not working.”

This is a fair summary – although I said programmes like the Community Action Programme.

I also described Placements and Courses I had been on and how doing this had failed to get me work.

A serious article would have investigated why this has happened, not just in one case, but in tens of thousands (and there is a Parliamentary Committee report last year which – ignored by Ian Duncan Smith and Grayling – did just this)

In an Editorial, The Year to Tackle Welfare Reform The Sunday Times, concentrates on Mandatory Work Activity. Its says the DWP ”appears” to have selected some of those it suspected of playing the system”. In reality people can only be sent on this because they fall in this category.

The Editorial  mentions “the problem of welfare and the claimant culture”.

It then says, “But the government must ensure that jobs exist”.

Its solution?

Get the economy moving, and “securing Britain’s borders”. There is, it notes, legal immigration and illegal immigration. In fact the sole concrete way the Sunday Times foresees creating a better job market is to crack down on illegal immigrants.

We have some questions for the Sunday Times.

No doubt it would give Grayling pleasure to see the assorted Gallaghers, Coateses and no doubt other ne’er-do-wells, picking up litter in the streets for the sum of just over sixty quid a week.

But to do so will cost more money than our Dole payment.

Assorted Gallaghars and Coateses will need some pretty tight supervision to make sure they keep the pavements spotless and the parks immaculate, not to mention the fact that Community Centres may not relish the prospect of our help.

Elsewhere in the paper Nicholas Hellen reports on Entrepreneurs make millions helping Jobless.

So we can get a  fair idea of who will organise this ‘Community Payback’ for the out-of-work.

But hold on.

Aren’t these tasks already carried out by paid employees?

The National Union of Litter Pickers, Rag Collectors, Community Workers, and Leaf Sweepers, may not like the idea of their members’ jobs being replaced by unpaid Benefit Claimants.

Those recently made redundant by public sector cuts may not enjoy the prospect of seeing their old employment transferred to the Community Action Programme.

Ian Duncan Smith attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He spent six years in the Scots Guards.  Chris Grayling attended the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe. He then went on to Cambridge University. He has worked for the BBC and has been a ‘Management Consultant’.

Admirable qualifications no doubt for understanding unemployment.

Polly Toynbee writes in the Guardian on Saturday,

IDS’s other big idea, the Work Programme, is already in dire straits as contractors and charities can’t get enough people into non-existent jobs – unless they cheat or demand lots more money.

Here.

It’s worth reading the article in full.

It describes the mess that everything from the new universal credit system will create, the effects of the changes in disability benefits,  the abolition of the social fund, putting council tax benefit at the mercy of local councils, to the misery housing benefit reform will create.

Toynbee asks why Labour is not putting up a fight against this.

We think that it will expand and create a Victorian underclass, dependent, if they can get it, on charity.

She says,

“Shadow ministers should roll up their sleeves and demolish a plethora of similarly disastrous policies.”

The Unemployed  are encouraged to take us these posts, and normally this works out well.

Things have changed.

That is, they now worked not for the Royal Mail but for a private agency ANGARD STAFFING AGENCY-.

This was set up by the Royal Mail – to employ them as lower wages.

There are accounts, (first hand) that conditions of work for these temporary staff were extremely poor.

Many of these people (including in Ipswich)  only got paid – late – by vouchers (print-outs) which they had to cash at Post Offices.

Now, as we all know, signing back on (Housing Benefit included) is never easy.

This will have been helped by this experience.

But no doubt somebody at ANGARD STAFFING AGENCY is coining it in at their expense.

Subject: Channel 4 documentary series

Channel Four has demanded that we take their part of this post down because it is confidential (it took them some 22 days for them to discover this).

Always happy to bow to the censorship of the rich and powerful we have complied.

Thank you for your interest.

I doubt if many unemployed people in Ipswich regard Jimmy’s farm as ‘ethical’.

It is a high-priced niche company that charges people to walk on its ‘Woodland trail’ (when there are plenty of public footpaths in more attractive sites nearby) and sells packets of maize for children to feed their own fowl at over a pound.

In reality it’s  not much of a rural farm, being only a few minutes drive from Ipswich.

Apart from that anyone on JSA would, even if they wanted to, be hard pressed to afford its products.

So, as for helping this exercise in self-publicising, we would say, no.

Yours faithfully,

Ipswich Unemployed Action

We knew it laid unused but we weren’t sure whether the detention centre would come back for use by a subcontractor as part of:

• Mandatory Work Activity scheme
• Work Programme value added services
• Community Action Programme

It is now clear after YMCA Training finally splashed out on planning consent (IP/08/00082/FUL) a couple of years ago, that even with more attacks to those on welfare including the disabled and unemployed, there was no place for the Christian faith motivated detention centre.

 Revocation of the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Work for Your Benefit Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2010

4. The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Work for Your Benefit Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2010(7) are revoked.

We recently reported how the Conservatives had left the scheme dormant. The bad news is the enabler under the Jobseekers Act 1995 (section 17A and 17B-17C) that was added to allow this scheme is being kept and is used for the Work Programme etc.