This might seem logically fair enough considering the payment model of the Work Programme, however, word has reached us, that these activities are becoming harassment, and many of those being chased and harassed never even attended the Work Programme.

One person in particular, who signed off shortly after being referred to one provider right at the beginning of the Work Programme, before the initial interview and without signing any forms, is receiving up to 2 letters per week and up to 7 phone calls per week whilst the provider tries to dig for information to claim a rather healthy and substantial outcome payment.

This has been ongoing for a few months this year, and even resulted in the provider attempting to contact relatives and friends to find out employment details of this person, in order to attempt to claim money from the taxpayer – money in this case that the provider isn’t entitled to considering the person never started the Work Programme.

The fact of the matter is, the Data Protection Act doesn’t allow data to be stored for longer than it is necessary, so 2 years since the initial referral when not claiming Jobseekers Allowance in that time is unlawful, the data should have been destroyed along time ago. The digging for information through relatives is an invasion of privacy.

Have you been receiving the same unsolicited correspondence? Or know someone who has? Let us know.

This Sunday (19^th May) 
No Morning Service, 
We are meeting with over 2000 other Christians in the Centre of Ipswich at the Pentecost Celebration on the Cornhill(see below)
10:30 Singing Starts
11:00 The Event “Carry the Can”
If you are going please remember to bring a can of food, eg soup, vegetables, to donate to the “FIND food bank”

From here.

The idea that the problems of people in Ipswich without enough food to eat – caused by the Liberal Tory Coalition’s Welfare ‘reforms’ – can be solved with 2,500 cans….

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”?

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.

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 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.

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)

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.

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!

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.