Details of George Osborne’s upcoming – and possibly illegal – mass workfare scheme have emerged and make grim reading for everyone but the companies set to profit from this huge extension of forced labour.
Tender documents unearthed by @refuted reveal the specifications for the six month Community Work Placements scheme which begins in April 2014. These documents form the basis of a ‘commercial competition’ currently taking place, in which grasping welfare-to-work parasites like A4e and G4S will bid for lucrative government contracts to force long term unemployed people into unpaid work.
Those leaving the Work Programme will either be placed on daily signing at Jobcentres and ‘intensive support’ or face the six month workfare scheme. This will involve 780 hours of forced unpaid work, over two and a half times the maximum possible community service sentence which can be handed out by the courts.
In some cases this will not even be a work for your benefits programme. The tender documents reveal that people who have had benefits sanctioned will not have payments re-instated even if they agree to attend full time workfare. Instead claimants will be expected to work for 30 hours a week with no income at all – unable to feed themselves, but still forced to work for free.
Part time workers are also not exempt. Providers are instructed that people in part time work at the time of their referral should have a ‘top up’ workfare placement to ensure ‘full time participation’. People who are volunteering already are also under threat and will have to volunteer somewhere else if welfare-to-work advisors decide that their current work is not ‘appropriate’.
Astonishingly that could mean ‘volunteering’ for the welfare to work company themselves. According to the tender documents it is perfectly acceptable for providers to use this scheme to recruit unpaid workers for their own businesses, and get paid by the tax payer for doing so.
One big change which will have welfare-to-work companies cheering from the rooftops is the payment model for the new scheme. Gone is ‘payment by results’ and with it any pretense that this is about finding people jobs. Just 30% of the money handed over to the companies involved will be based on job outcomes, with the rest paid out merely for finding placements and ensuring people attend. The minimum performance figure for job outcomes is a derisory 15%, almost certainly around the same as the number of people who would be expected to get jobs anyway.
It’s not all good news for the welfare-to-work sector however. Whilst their furious lobbying to water down ‘payment by results’ appears to have paid off, they will know all too well that these contracts are undeliverable. Up to two hundred thousand people are expected to be referred to this scheme. The charitable sector doesn’t need or want hundreds of thousands of free workers, especially as new rules state that only 25% of placements should be in charity shops. Just like every single other workfare scheme since Blair started the shambles with the New Deal, Osborne’s mass workfare will fail because welfare-to-work companies cannot find enough workfare for people to do.
And this is where those opposed to workfare can help bring about the end of this grubby exploitation. Already most of the UK’s best known charities have pulled out of workfare in disgust – and this is the worst workfare scheme yet. Whilst the DWP will try desperately to keep quiet about who is using unpaid workers, they can’t stop claimants telling people where they are being sent to work for free. Any organisation which is happy to force people into 780 hours of unpaid work should be be prepared to face the consequences as they are shunned as pariahs by decent people everywhere.
To read the documents visit: http://refuted.org.uk/2013/10/24/workfarecompetition/
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the void 
I thought the Supreme Court had declared it a breach of the European Treaty of Human Rights. These MPs are morons. Perhaps one day, these idiots will feel the weight of their lack of empathy and pure selfish greed boomeranging back to them.
In Britain, the Rule of Law is as decided by the Courts but Subject to the Will of Parliament!
no the human rights angle was rejected, the court judgement was made on technicalities about how the schemes were introduced (problems which still seem to be there with this scheme) and the lack of information given to claimants
If the human rights angle was rejected why are those forced onto workfare not speaking to their MEP’s and taking it to the ECHR.
im sure the courts will rule this totally illegal as well
This HAS TO be stopped!
This is why they’ll be so keen to pump the anti-European propaganda down the chimp’s necks, so then they’ll have the same power the Third Reich had in 40’s. ‘Evil’ is too mild a description for today’s political Mafia!
By the time word gets out about who is using unpaid labour to fill their xmas orders and January sales, they will be back on the dole or sent elsewhere.
So much for the good news that Cait Riley won her case, going over and over the workfare issue is pandering to it and depressing those that are being put on placements, rather than doing any good.
g fawkes
depression is caused by oppression, truth never harmed a soul..people are forced to take part in these pointless tasks, see for themselves that they are pointless. depression will be caused by compliance, to the mass “vanity”, (like vanity publishers, create the appearance it/they are popular, buying friends, and favour), workfare scheme, ie being forced to put their bodies, where their minds do not want to go, and rationally reject doing. in other words, people are being forced to act irrationally, against their true, and rightful minds…stop sanctions and conditionality now!
cait riley won against the already rewritten(2013), 2011 regs…but the established principles of it are still live…
typo…cait riley won against the 2011 regs, but the established principles are still live…new regs were retrospectively rewritten 2013, to cover the inconsistencies of the 2011 regs…
The Book People hires people as Christmas staff and as soon as the holiday period ends, sacks them and puts them onto the dole again. Its main workers round the year are made redundant several times during the year. This is deliberate company policy. As employment is not ‘continuous’, they don’t have workers’ rights, or entitlements/benefits like holidays, time off, sick pay, pensions, and many more things you get by having had a job with no ‘breaks in employment’. Their HR department knowingly hires incompetent alcoholic substance abusers , fraudsters, benefit-fraudsters (claiming JSA but in paid work, telling DWP not in work, telling boss not on benefits) and thieves as sales staff. The person doing all this was also stealing stock (books) from the warehouse, selling it on ebay etc. for profit. When this was pointed out to them….. the staff member in question was not disciplined. Or investigated. Head of HR said they knew all about it and didn’t care. Or even that the person was coming in every day completely drunk and drinking alcohol and taking illegal drugs at work. Of course for informing them of this situation, yours truly was escorted off the premises by burly security guards and banned from going back. The context was a job interview (arranged by JCP) that DWP/JCP had made perfectly clear non-attendance was not an option (or benefits would be stopped). And at some point it had to be mentioned that one’s housemate (who one loathes) works there, conflict of interest, bigoted git, is dangerous, don’t want breaches of data protection/privacy/confidentiality by sharing a workspace. Also objection was made to their policy of pushing binding contracts on the poor/elderly to buy endless books they don’t want and/or can’t afford. And their in-house staff training policy on how to best do this, that is, to get people conned out of their money. As well as being despicable, cowardly and bullying towards people it can exploit, it uses patronising language about elderly people, and the term it uses to refer to them (official company term) is ‘Decrepits’. (!!!!) At the bottom of that page in the training manual, there was a note to the staff in smaller type, telling them that under no circumstances are they to let the public or the elderly know this is how they refer to them, and no member of staff is to let anyone else see the manual or learn of the company attitudes, training methods, and policies. Of course, being dumber than an educationally subnormal slug that’s been run over by a juggernaut and then baked dry in the sun, (which is still a slug achieving several IQ points higher than Boris Johnson), my housemate left all his training manuals lying around… while crawling off to puke then pass out drunk in his puke.
That is all utter bollocks. I used to work there
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We can’t stop it..but we can limit it , and once we know who, what ,where then we can go from there. I wonder how many shops will want their name involved in this ? After all we all have friends, family and neighbours all with buying power … it’s called money! Don’t shop at any shop that uses the unemployed as free labour!
It seems to me the way things are going anyone who has to claim benefits now is going to have their benefits stopped. This government is bringing in so much conditionality, and it is just designed to trip people up so that they can stop their benefits. This really is going back to the principle of less eligibility, and it is just meant to punish people. This government are just going to push more people into poverty by their policies. This government has created a culture of fear and shame for anyone claiming benefits and they are going to extend this even further if universal credit comes in.
I mean how progressive of them!
Lets stigmatise people on benefits, lets create a culture where people who are employed are thinking I’m glad that’s not me, and ultimately lets punish people as a deterrent to those in low paid jobs, to show them what would happen if they should lose their jobs.
Anyone who has read about the poor law knows that the same thing was happening nearly 200 years ago. The principle of less eligibility.
I go out of my way to stigmatize the ruling classes political and corporate, the middle class also, who are happy to work as the pimps of workfare or as advisers in job centres.
Start hitting back with the same type of treatment they dish out, dish the dirt on them, show them up for their extortionate salaries and expenses, fiddled taxes etc., etc.
The CBI on the news are already telling anyone in opposition to their demands and conditionality for employing people that if they are not careful, we will invest elsewhere. I say let them. Get rid of the corruption and greed from this country and start again.
The so called opposition parties are not doing the opposing except for perhaps Owen Jones, the social media are doing it for them, it is they that should be claiming “short” money and expenses.
Good post. The thing is that plenty of low paid working people on crap part time contracts and need to claim housing benefit to keep a roof over their heads. People should have Social Security regardless of their circumstances. All this thing about welfare and benefits is taking their language. A lot of poo is going to hit the fan for a lot of people.
There are people out there on less than 30 hr contracts who have already had their Tax Credits removed. This government is evil and it is going to get worse. UC is a disaster in its implimentation (except if your IDS the LIAR), ( George Iain Duncan Smith is a lying bastard). It will be a total disaster for the people of our country if it ever gets off the ground. Roll on 2015. Hold your nose and vote Labour. Ed Moribund for Prime Minister. Wipe the Libdem collaborators out. Not aimed. Just having a Rant. I could go on…..
vote for the green party as labour are pro workfare and sanctions and have even said they will be harsher on benefits than rhe current morally bankrupt cult of cunts! the green parties policy on welfare says they will stop workfare AND sanctions! check it out for yourself!
Of course there is the ingeus every day counts model too..
That looks like fun..well not really..who thinks up these idiotic names?
The first few times I saw it, I was convinced it must be a typo. I thought it said ‘Igneus’. As in igneous rock. As in the fires of Hell.
As in a blast of pungent fart from satan’s arse.
Now I think it is their attempt to spell out what they are: Ignoramus.
These workfare slaves will need to get organized and take action together.
What’s this peer to peer community based stuff and east Midlands work council stuff ?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmworpen/162/16208.htm
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How do I sponsor a migrant worker?
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/business-sponsors/points/sponsoringmigrants/employingmigrants/residentlabourmarkettest/
http://www.papworth.org.uk/page.php?s=&urlid=work_programme
At this appointment you will meet your Employment Adviser, who will:
find out more about you and your employment goals
tell you more about the programme
explain the support that is available
work out how we can help you.
demand you sign a 3rd party contract under threat of sanction as well as a data waver to process your personal information.
bully and lie to you about the no help on offer.
provide a cv under threat of sanction
send letters that dont get to you in time so we can sanction you even if we dont send any letters at all.
sanction you if ur late or have a job interview or doctors appointment.
sell all personal information you provide after the 2 years are over to any one that will pay for it.
park you for the hole 2 years if you are worthless and sanction you for the fun of it.
i got the last 1 i did 🙂
One day we will wake up and say what happend ,thats when it explodes again
This government wants to help people
by stopping their money,
If we stop their money they’ll soon change their minds about working.
DEATH TO WORKFARE!!
I notice the arse holes don’t mention that the real “barrier to work” is lack of jobs.
Time for action.
i miss my hit squad adviser im going to ask for him back as ive not even got it to cry yet , he ran away 2 times only for me to have him told off buy the floor manager.
and my free trip to the jcp has been stopped ffs as the bus fair is to much to go every day as its not 50p for a return any more as that was 20 years ago
😀
According to the DWP a million more people are in employment since 2010 The number of people claiming benefits is at its lowest since 2009,
The number of people in work has hit a new record high,
There are currently 540.000 jobs in the economy for those who want to take them, Good news for those who want to get on!
The number of young people claiming JSA fell by 84,800 over the past year.
The number of young people claiming JSA is now down to the lowest level since 2008.
Also anyone making a new claim for JSA will now have to sign a claiment commitment, this is to discourage them from making any new claims on the parish!.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/a-million-more-people-in-jobs
And who told you that ? DWP/A4e ie the same company that’s who..think about it if ppl ended up in full time work they would be out of a job and no more contracts
My JCP clerk was very animated at my last visit “You will be assigned to 30 hours a week,helping out the Community” and who will I work for? The same company that for 2 years has provided No training or support? Yes,they have the contract(Great) I approached the “Provider” and asked what will I be doing? “Initially you will work with under 25s,helping them Get Work Ready,processing applications and arranging placements/apprenticeships ,it is about giving back” ….I thought that was they were suppose to of done all along? and this helps me how?
You are joking, right?
ou812
i would tend to read this link, in the 1st place, esp where they have to provide one with enough info to be able to challenge their decision to put one on workfare, before you take part.. http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3069
So you’re going on a workfare placement…to arrange workfare placements? Gee whiz.
As far as I can tell from the Refuted website (link above in main article), the Commercial Competition for the Community Work Placements programme – ie, the invitation to tender for contracts – has just been announced by the DWP, so no contracts have been awarded yet. What is going on?
Sabotage is now a necessary and legitimate tactic for anyone placed on these schemes. . OOPS. I “Accidentally” dropped a box of expensive stock. How clumsy of me.
..”Accidentally” drop things. “Accidentally” break machinery. Accidentally break tools.
If you are put on the checkout, “accidentally” charge people too little and “accidentally” give out too much change.
Make the bastards fear every forced labour slave that is sent to them. Hit them where it hurts in their profit margins.
Let’s see how keen they are on workfare slaves when they find thousands if not millions in stock disappearing to unfortunate “accidents”
What are they going to do? Sack you? Take it out of your wages?
IDS:
“We will not deduct £0.00 from your wages of £0.00. We will deduct 2 pints,
from your jugular vein.”
Well arseholes are useful and have several functions – unlike the people (sic) employed by DWP/JCP and Work Programme/workfare. Employment Adviser: has anyone met any that have any knowledge of anything remotely connected to work at all? Or that can work the equipment in their own office? (Asking JOBSEEKERS to fix it/clean it!)
Knobcentre, Smegma and Pus (was ‘gunpowder, treason and plot’),
(Jokecentre DoublePlusUngood), really don’t give a toss (but happily throw you to the dogs at Atos..).
Today I signed on. 2 weeks ago I had a major seizure and missed my signing on slot. I was kind of told my dole was safe. Bearing that in mind; being sick already, not having eaten, and having an injury (which the doctors today confirmed was quite a bit worse than I thought) that makes walking difficult; I went out half an hour early, to catch a bus to the aforementioned knobcentre. The bus never came. I had to run on injured feet to the knobcentre, messing up my breathing because it launched me into an asthma attack. I’ve had a bad chest infection for over 2 weeks. I was 2 minutes late. They said it was okay but that if I’d arrived 30 seconds later it would have been a sanction. I said I’m sick so can’t run as fast, and only ran because the bus you told me to get, so I’d be here early, didn’t turn up. If they aren’t lying (and have therefore already sanctioned me), they are inconsistent – before, they have twice stopped my benefit for being half a second late. It’s like the IOC or IAAF telling Usain Bolt they will cut off a leg if he runs over 10 seconds.
In Chewie’s forwarded document above:
‘Jobseeker segmentation’: This sounds like an instruction to cut us into bits.
The document is lying, as I was told on Work Programme that I make them more money as I’m over 25, extreme longterm unemployed, disabled, AND health conditions. I don’t like myself or others to be ‘priced’. It’s sick. Like a slave market, except the other way round. Let’s say as an analogy, a handful of sestertii for a run of the mill slave, and someone desperately trying to sell a ‘cripple’ (sic) slave that’s also quite old, might drop their price to a denarius! But here the ‘least worthwhile’ (sic) people, who will make the new employers (if find jobs) the least money, are causing the scum (Workfare companies/Work Programme Providers) to be paid the most money. That’s bad enough. But seeing it as ‘compensation’ for the companies to take on a ‘less productive’/’less efficient’/’less attractive’ (sic)
worker…. There simply aren’t words to quantify the seethe-quotient on that one! The person being paid is never the jobseeker/slave.
But in this document it assumes jobseekers are ablebodied, no health conditions, no other issues in their lives. There are 9 categories but none covers ‘disabled/sick people on JSA’. Either the DWP are lying in this document, or they lied when they had the Work Programme companies say they are being paid more for you because you count as having more Barriers To Work.
They haven’t properly addressed the issue that thousands of sick and disabled people are being sent to Atos, failing the faked ‘medicals’ as being ‘fit to work’ (a phrase undoubtedly borrowed from the ‘strip and flip’ – strip you naked in the snow, run you round a yard, poke and prod you, then ‘flip a coin’ to send you left or right, to the flearidden uniform and slaveship-like unheated barracks for the work-camp, or to the gas chamber – guards on entry at Auschwitz.), then being sent to JCP and told to sign on for JSA. And either being refused JSA as ‘too ill’, or getting it but having to sign a lie you’re fit for work, or getting it but having it stopped the first day you get too ill (or they think you’re too ill), or getting it but being sanctioned the first time you are late/sick/delayed/ snowed-in, or the first time you ‘fail’ at workfare or work programme. Or any time the WPP says you are too sick/disabled to continue there. Then trying to appeal, and if you have been put on JSA in the meantime, you are either lying in your appeal that you are unfit for work (because you are on JSA), or lying on your JSA claim (because you’re forced to declare yourself fit for work, so making it ‘fraud’ to be appealing for your ESA/DLA/PIP). Or messing up your appeal due to lack/cutoff of Legal Aid, inability to afford travel to court, etc. If on JSA/WP you must keep applying for silly, irrelevant and impossible jobs. And you have to say you are fit for work or they won’t consider you. They can get you done for not making enough effort to get a job, if the knobcentre bothers to check. It’s also fraud to lie on your job application. So if you tell them you are sick or disabled, they either ignore it or bin your form, or interview you and ask your full medical history. Or say a disabled person is a hazard to the company. Not fast enough. Not productive enough. Not efficient/economic/safe enough. Too expensive to accommodate. And of course if your status as disabled is in dispute, both a real/prospective employer, and the DWP/JCP/police, could say you are lying by saying you have a disability. That way you can be fined or jailed for telling the truth, you could lose your benefits/be evicted/be made homeless. If in a job they could fire you, if in the application stage they could turn you down for the job. If you were turned down, the JCP would blame you and try to stop any remaining benefits as a punishment. Catch 22!
Incidentally it also calls into question the legality of any adaptations in your home, any travel pass or discount, any adapted vehicle, any concessionary rate/membership, any Radar key – ANYTHING you get for being listed as a disabled person.
“These uppity crips – they’ll be asking for RAMPS next!” -A. Hitler
(twinned with IDS)
I think IDS is more of a josef Mengele, the evil Nazi who experimented on the sick, disabled and child slaves!. Cameron is more hitler like (he even looks like hitler, just without the toothbrush moustache!) and Osborne is heinrich Himmler commanding his death squads!. I was watching a documentary on Nazis today and everything the Nazis did is almost exactly mirrored by what the condems are doing now!
I remember that there were Nazi hunters after ww2! maybe we could form tory hunters!
Problem is, the type of companies you might actually like to volunteer for, to get some actual worthwhile experience and contribute something to the community, won’t touch any certified government scheme. They are all rightly against workfare and want nothing to do with it. So the only companies signing up are the nasty unscrupulous corporations, who manufacture complete rubbish and exploit everybody, from workers to consumers.
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Absolutely disgusting… How the hell are brussles not intervening as this entire farce is in direct breach of the European Human Rights Law! If I was in this position I would turn up… With A HUGE PLACARD READING “BOYCOTT THIS COMPANY AS IT USES SLAVE LABOUR WHICH IT BOUGHT FROM THIER RICH MATES IN GOVERNMENT”. No wonder the tories want out of Europe, for if they gain absolute control they will write thier own laws which make atrocities like this legal and above board!
Reblogged this on Same Difference.
Mass Workfare: A jolly good idea! And about bloody time too!
Shine yer shoes, yer honour? Nah? ‘Ow about a box of lucifers, then? Only tuppence farthing. Garn!
The ultimate insult to many part time workers is that many of their jobs are ones that are likely to be taken out of circulation and given to those on workfare (why pay someone to do a job when a workfare provider will send you a never ending stream of slaves?).
Company directors have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximise profits, so in many cases it’s not a case of ethics or morals, but the bottom line. People need to make sure they boycott workfare companies, and write to them and explain why they are boycotting them (don’t just drop a tweet, at least an e-mail, preferably a letter).
When companies start to realise that it will cost them customers if they use workfare they will stop using workfare slaves. Economic protest is the most valuable tool we have. Don’t buy from shops who use workfare, don’t buy goods from companies who use workfare, don’t give to charities who use workfare. Name and shame all those involved in workfare, and most importantly of all, write to your local MP and tell him/her of your concerns over workfare.
You can find your local mp here: http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/
In many cases you can send an e-mail directly from the site. Just make it know you oppose workfare and as your representative you want them to oppose workfare (if they refuse to do so name and shame!).
This isn’t about getting people back to work (this scheme removes jobs from the marketplace, the type of jobs which are typically done by the lowest paid and most vulnerable in society). This is a neoliberal ideological change to further increase the wealth gap at the expense of the most needy, the most vulnerable and the weakest in society by exploiting the lowest paid workforce (wealth is relative, for one person to be richer a person, or rather lots of people, has to be poorer).
Fight back through every legal means possible! Your life, and the lives of your children, could literally depend on it!
Wouldnt it be a shame if, while on such a scheme, I accidently turned off the freezers? Or maybe set off the fire alarm? oops! left the taps running all night..knocked a full cup of coffee all over the bosses desk…
Once these placements are up and running, the identities of these workfare exploiters will be known. Then they’d better watch their step because incidents such as those you’ve described will almost certainly be widespread.
These six month placements will happen, however, I don’t think they’ll be on the grand scale envisioned by Osborne. The pimps and the Jobcentres are finding it hard enough to place people for four weeks, let alone twenty-six weeks. I don’t think anyone in their right mind is going to want someone on their premises for six months who doesn’t want to be there.
I’ve just come off the WP and I’ve met some seriously bitter people there. Can you imagine the mayhem they’re going to cause.
Even the Saudis, who are hardly good guys, have enough sense to make sure that even the poorer ones don’t starve, as they don’t want revolts. A government that starves a large number of it’s people is storing up trouble for itself in the long term.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmworpen/162/162vw02.htm
Written evidence from fraudulent company
.0 Executive Summary
With A4e’s insight, expertise and front-line experience, in our submission we make the following recommendations:
2.1A review of current categories, definitions and pricing to produce a fine-textured set of cohorts.
2.2Investigate the potential for more effective profiling tools, and if successful, for more day one entries to the Programme.
2.3A review of referral mechanisms to the Work Programme and the effectiveness of minimum referral guarantees.
2.4The DWP to lead a pan-government effort to create a common social outcomes procurement framework, which allows a single provider to pool budgets around an individual.
2.5Use of the claimant to vacancy rate as a preferred metric of labour market ease/difficulty, rather than gross domestic product (GDP).
2.6Local and national media should follow the lead of those publications already championing the Work Programme to help employers to understand the potential to support local jobseekers into work.
So tell me how this works ? A company on numerous occasions found to be fraudulently operating become experts and offer advice to government ?
So now we become fine textured cohorts ..
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmworpen/writev/work/m34.htm
Work programme submission to parliament
c. The WP wasn’t designed to accommodate clients who need more extensive support to be job-ready despite that being one of the professed aims of the programme
Quote from submission to parliament on different client groups
I can’t see we can stop this government doing what it’s doing without a revolution but we can make life uncomfortable for any companies taking part in this iniquitous scheme. Spread their names across social media, post on their FB pages, twitter them senseless, boycott their products and shops.
I’m sure Johnny will be letting us know who the miscreants are.
What about costs associated with Help-to-Work? Will people put on it get all their travel costs reimbursed if they have to visit their Jobcentre or do unpaid work every week day? Or will they be expected to fund travel expenses associated with the scheme out of Jobseeker’s Allowance? (The latter option will be impossible on an ongoing basis if claimants live several miles away from their local Jobcentre.)
Even now claimants are supposed to pay for their own computers, tablets, smart phones and bills, internet access, stamps, stationary and so on and so forth. Currently I don’t own any kind of telephone and can only get internet access at a library, two miles away from me, for one hour a day when one of the library workstations are free. I also now have to pay a quarter of my council tax bill (about £5.00 p.w), thanks to a decision made by my local authority, which I can barely manage and live constantly under fear of being sanctioned for making some small mistake.
Britain has gone insane.
Where will this all end?
WCFF, agree about the insanity & with the rest of your comment too (CT here is about £4/week but it’s £4 that’s not there really in the first place/certainly not ‘extra’ or ‘spare’. The constant fear of being sanctioned is just adding insult to injury & we need to reserve at least some of our energies for dealing with this constant daily threat).
They’re discussing the living wage on R4 just now – seem to be spending a lot of time covering issues of low-wage/people living on the breadline on there recently – for all the difference it will make.
It is time for us to go to war against our government, but we don’t have the guts to stand together against them, we need to be more like the people of Egypt and rally together to overthrow this corrupt Nazi regime!
I would lead or follow! but who would join me?
They don’t want their schemes to ‘work’. They want to employ people for nothing forever- and blame the feckless for their obvious part in the ‘failure’. Thus stigmatising the victim and frightening those who are not yet enslaved. Classic bullying. Unfortunately it works, and if anyone believes that the left-leaning liberal middle-class progressives are going to do anything about it then we are going to lose. They feel guilty for their part in it and so you hear their intellectual dishonesty in trying to justify the fact that they have done well out of it. Guilty people are easy to manipulate, and so are the frightened.
A poll-tax style support network needs to be set up asap and this time I think the socialist parties should be ignored; they have bought the whole neo–liberal economic propaganda and think that be-moaning the enemies new-found ability to beat them explains their own lack of activity (more guilty consciences there) The only people who can change this are us. We are many, and as their policies continue we will grow.
What we might do is produce a plan of direct actions on the profits of the companies who participate; it can be done, but only when we face up to the fact that we are on our own.
This is clear breach of the European Convention on Human Rights – what good are Brussels if they are not going to enforce the laws EU members have agreed to comply with? If I was required to turn up to a workfare placement I would turn up… With a placard that reads “This company uses forced slave labour that it purchased from their corrupt mates in government. DO NOT USE THEM!”. People have to stand up to this vile regime and their extremist right-wing, prejudice towards those it believes are inferior simply because they do not have inherited wealth.
hear hear.
i suggest anybody under JSA sanction, to sign off the said claim, go to your GP and pile it on, tell them you are losing weight, high blood pressure due to draconian sanctions, sleeplessness, missing vital dental appointment’s due to sanction basically pile it on, get a 3 month sick note from your GP/ even a month one!! then go home and make a claim for ESA, it cost them money to end a claim IE jsa, and also cost around 200 quid plus to for them to start a new ESA claim, also get an advance to your ESA the very next day, thus costing them a hell of a lot more, than it would to say, just pay them there 142 quid JSA, after 13 weeks, close ESA claim, then make a new JSA claim, again costing them significantly if all claimants did it, i say after 13 weeks as on the 14th week you will be assessed by ATOSSERS, and we all know they are finding cancer suffers limbles people fit for work, so the likes of us have no chance, yes when you go back on JSA any sanctions will still be there, put up with them for a while claim the 43 quid a week hardship, then after a few more months reclaim ESA!! that is the only way you will get any money out of them, thus making getting a job a bit easier, the only way this will all end is to hit them in the pocket, thousands doing as i said will cost ys thousands upon thousands of pounds, also appeal everything even though the chances of success are slim,again it costs them money, and as for workfare placements, if you are unlucky to be forced onto such, make sure your the clumsiest person going, 😉
http://ingeusstaff.co.uk/diagram
This is how ingeus sees it..
Hi Bob:
That Diagram is complete bollocks, I know because I went to Whingeus for 2 years on the WP.
Here’s how it actually works:
1: Make the L.T.B.’s attend weekly appointments for a month or so under threat of sanction to evaluate them.
2: Cherry pick the customers you think have any chance of getting a job and continue their appointments.
3: Park up the customers you think have no chance in hell of getting a job and fit their appointments around the afore metioned.
4: Try to fool every customer into signing a Data Protection Act waiver.
5: N.B. Collect the £400 to £600 Referral from the incredibly stupid DWP.
6: After 2 years, lie your arse off to the DWP to make it look like you have helped every Work Programme participant.
Well obi john has updated us about ingeus now and anyway I can never make sense of their diagrams..I saw in parliamentary stuff about creaming and parking and other slight of hand dirty tricks… But it still goes on.
It’s this newspeak they use..
We are ‘ cohorts’ and jcp farm us out to these pimps using the phrase ‘ warm handover’ someone is being paid to dream up this language
Go to the Atos assessment and then appeal the decision. This will give you a few more months of esa and welcome respite from the Nazis.
No it won’t because under the new rules last month while you are “being reconsidered” prior to a formal FtT appeal you are now entitled to didly squat.
The “reconsideration” can take as little or as long as they like and no payment is available during this phase…. if they don’t like you then they can keep you in this limbo for as long as they want, with no money.
Provider Direct – Work Programme Please note: The Provider Direct service cannot be used for Universal Credit claim queries as the agents do not have access to the relevant IT systems or the required knowledge. Introduction 1. Provider Direct is a telephone helpline service for providers. It is for you to use when a Work Programme participant has failed to participate in a mandated activity and you are going to raise a WP08 referral. 2. You are expected to use the service each time that you are intending to raise a WP08 referral unless it is obvious that to do so would be inappropriate. Circumstances when it may not be appropriate • Had the participant already told you that they would not complete a mandated activity and subsequently failed to do so • Have you confirmed the participant’s address or telephone number in the past 4 weeks • Have you have confirmed the participant is in receipt of benefit within the past 2 weeks • Have you received the Work Programme referral from Jobcentre Plus in the last 2 weeks 3. If any of these situations apply it is very unlikely that there will have been a change in the Participant’s circumstances and consideration should be given to raising the WP08 referral as soon as possible. 4. The service allows you to check that you hold the correct details prior to deciding whether or not to make a WP08 Decision Making and Appeals (DMA) referral to DWP. 5. The aim is to reduce the large number of inappropriate DMA WP08 referrals which will have clear benefits for both providers and DWP. 6. Currently, a significant proportion of unnecessary WP08 DMA referrals being made are caused by providers not having been aware of participants change of circumstances
“UK’s Supreme Court legitimises compulsory workfare”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/05/work-n05.html
Due to increased volumes of business we have extended our advertising campaign. With exciting new contract awards and ongoing service enhancements/policy changes from existing contracts, we are very pleased to offer a varied and dynamic work environment for medical professionals.
Atos Healthcare Disability Assessment careers.
Reblogged this on UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR and commented:
More unworkable madness from the lunatics running the asylum….
Universal Credit illustrations
These illustrations feature ‘James’ as he checks his Universal Credit eligibility, makes a Universal Credit claim, and starts work – showing how Universal Credit means he is better off however many hours he works
Sounds like a children’s fantasy book to me.
This is a computer. James is sitting at the computer.
He likes the computer. The computer likes him.
“Look” says James “An error message!”
“Shame!” says the JCP adviser – “Better luck tomorrow James …”
Hi Shirley… Yep its like infant school isn’t it..Janet and john starve to death waiting an appeal…
Hi bob – as if leaving people in limbo with no guarantee of even a basic income, sending them on workfare, making them apply online for the miniscule amounts on offer – they have to patronise & talk down to us as every possible chance they get – just in case we’ve somehow not become “as demoralised as can reasonably be expected”.
*meant to say –
“As if [leaving people in limbo …] isn’t enough” (“they have to patronise us as well …”).
Mandatory Work Activity Provider Guidance • ensure PRaP is updated appropriately within 24 hours. Consequence: Failure to carry out the action in this chapter will result in the claimant failing to start. This will have an impact on the payments you receive. Referrals 3.3 You may receive a call from Jobcentre Plus at the time the adviser makes the referral. This will be dependent on the agreement between you and Jobcentre Plus. This is known as a warm handover. 3.4 All referrals, including those where there has been a warm handover, will be notified to you through the PRaP system. You must check PRaP every day and ensure all updates are made within 24 hours of their occurrence. 3.5 You are expected to accept all referrals received from Jobcentre Plus. A referral may be rejected only in exceptional circumstances i.e. where Jobcentre Plus specifically instructs you to reject the referral. For example, if Jobcentre Plus makes a referral in error. 3.6 There are no circumstances where you can make the decision to reject a referral. 3.7 The Jobcentre Plus adviser will notify you either at the point of referral, or within 24 hours of the referral, of any special circumstances the claimant may have which you need to take into account when sourcing a placement. Balance of Time (BoT) and Re-referrals 3.8 A small number of claimants who have left MWA before completing their allotted time may be required to complete the remaining weeks. Claimants will only be re-referred to complete full weeks. For example, if a claimant has completed two days, they will be referred back for three weeks. In these instances, send a new formal notification letter before their return 3.9 You will not be paid a further start fee (see A6.7 definition) for these claimants. Jobcentre Plus will make the referral for BoT via a separate rereferral which will not attract a further payment in PRaP. The re-referral will state how much longer the claimant is required to spend on their MWA placement. 3.10 However, if more than 14 days or more have elapsed, it will be treated as an initial referral rather than a re-referral for balance of time
Ah such language for slave labour ” a warm handover “
Is this all true? Images of times past in another section of Europe…..but the UK is not Europe is it?
The begining of the end by the looks of it … 😦
I think IDS is more of a josef Mengele, the evil Nazi who experimented on the sick, disabled and child slaves!. Cameron is more hitler like (he even looks like hitler, just without the toothbrush moustache!) and Osborne is heinrich Himmler commanding his death squads!. I was watching a documentary on Nazis today and everything the Nazis did is almost exactly mirrored by what the condems are doing now! I remember that there were Nazi hunters after ww2! maybe we could form tory hunters!
Well Mr Cameron, I don’t think it’s too soon to let Ed Milliband into number 10 to measure up for the new curtains.
labour are pro workfare and pro sanctions and even say that they will be harsher on benefits, so try another party, the green party are the only ones I can find who will abolish workfare and sanctions.
In reality here are your choices for voting in 2015.
1: Labour
2: Conservative
3: Another coalition i.e. Labour/Lib Dem or Conservative/ Lib Dem.
Good luck!
it’s better to vote against all these massively corrupt and morally bankrupt parties than to not vote at all.
Can we become self employed anarchists?
Don’t see why not Bob. Long term it’s probably about the best option we’ve got, given that anyone with even half a brain must now realise that ANY kind of government is an extremely silly idea. We all know what a bunch of out of touch imbeciles they are, so why on earth do people vote for them? Like it’s going to make any kind of difference? Like hell, we’ll still get screwed by the bastards.
So I think it is going to be a case of becoming a self employed anarchist, or an anarchist that takes over the bakery, (or any other undertaking) with their friends and runs the show themselves, for themselves and the rest of us.
Party politics is playing pass the parcel with the electorate, those that vote that is, what about starting a party called “the none voters party”, whereby the manifesto will really be that what the people want not the ruling elite.
The conditionality and withholding benefits or threats to withdraw them smacks of blackmail..for all we know a work programme provider could force you do anything..eg deliver Tory party leaflets ..spy on protestors .troll anti workfare campaigners ..I am pretty sure some of these bastards have used benefit sanctions to get ppl to do things they wouldn’t normally do.
“In some cases this will not even be a work for your benefits programme. The tender documents reveal that people who have had benefits sanctioned will not have payments re-instated even if they agree to attend full time workfare. Instead claimants will be expected to work for 30 hours a week with no income at all – unable to feed themselves, but still forced to work for free.” – One flaw – if you’re getting no money you can’t be forced to do anything
I’m sure they have this covered by the “work commitment” agreement, fail to do Work(un)fare will no doubt incure another sanction that will start the day after the last one ran out….
Can’t get to a MWA because of no money as money already stopped… 3 year sanction.
Another IDS “positive benefit outcome”
Falling over due to hunger and damaging “providers” equipment is also going to be an offence as well as resulting in a sanction. (new rules/law to stop claimants being belligerent (turing up and doing nothing) or willfully damaging a company or company equipment… currently being muted for statute)
Well you could be forced to do anything if they keep suggesting they re instate them providing you do what they say…
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There is one good thing about Help-to-Work: Surely it will kill off, once and for all, Tory demonising long-term unemployed benefit claimants? If, as Osborne says, we’re all “doing something” how can they carry on attacking us as viciously in the future as they have done in the past?
Another crackpot idea doomed to failure costing even more of taxpayers money… by the time all this comes to pass they will be a rather sad and sorry footnote in political history as the incompetent coalition, incapable of any cohesion beyond chance in bringing this country from the pit of despair, a pit they plunged the country into in the first place by their sheer selfish greed and too far right-wing policies bordering on fascism, maybe they should change their party logo to a swastika if they shift any further right. I think Boy George forgets himself and needs to know his place rather than meddling in departments that are no business of his.
My daughter was forced to work for poundland for 6 weeks and the bosses there were evil, that much so that her advisor at JCP told her she’d get her another placement! She overheard the boss telling the assistant manager that they were getting 4 more grunts* (their term for the unemployed workers) off the dole for the xmas rush, so there wasn’t even going to be xmas jobs! Well paid ones that is!!!
If there is a job it should be paid and that should be the end of story. Unfortunately it isn’t…
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
In this article, Mr Void reports George Osborne’s proposed massive expansion of the ‘welfare to work’ scam, as exposed by the group @refuted, who have uncovered the original tender documents. According to these documents, those leaving the Work Programme will either be placed on daily signings at the Jobcentre, or placed on six months workfare. This will also include people in part-time work, and those doing volunteer work, if their supervisors in the Job Centre decide that this work is not appropriate. The article also shows that the proposed legislation is getting rid of the payment by results clauses, as the scheme’s massive failure to get people into employment is an acute embarrassment. The Void also offers practical advice on combatting this exploitative system. According to him, most of the UK’s best known charities have already withdrawn from the scheme as they do not wish to be associated with its disgusting exploitation of the unemployed. Despite the DWP no doubt wishing to keep the organisations using this unpaid labour confidential, there’s nothing to stop benefit claimants telling people who the organisations using them are. Opponents of the scheme can thus ‘name and shame’ the profiteering companies and organisations involved. There is also one specific part of the new legislation that should be of particular concern to anybody opposed to the way personal freedoms are being eroded by workfare. @refuted and The Void report that even unemployed people, whose benefits have been cut off, may be placed on workfare where they will be expected to work for free, without any pay whatsoever. Many people, myself included, have attacked workfare and the welfare to work policies as a new form of slavery. At the moment, although the system is viciously exploitative, it isn’t quite literal slavery just yet. This piece of proposed legislation comes extremely close to it real slavery, however. If you have individuals forced to work for no payment whatsoever, then this surely comes close to the definition of slavery. I intend to blog further on this real threat to our freedom, and how Osborne’s workfare schemes compare and conform to some of the systems of slavery and forced labour, which have existed historically and which still exist in many Third World nations. One of the books that exposed the existence of global slavery back in the 1990s was ‘Disposable People’, which described absolutely horrific abuse in countries such as Brazil, Thailand, Mauritania and the Gulf Arab states. I believe we are also seeing the emergence of similar systems of exploitation here, to the point where it may be worth contacting anti-slavery organisations such as Anti-Slavery International. In the meantime, this article has done an excellent job of warning us about the programme’s possible expansion, and recommending a course of action against it.
I certainly think it would be a wise move to contact Anti-Slavery International. I agree with you that as yet there is no de facto slavery in the UK, but it’s so close to it now that surely it won’t be long before it does tip over and become actual slavery, and certainly I believe that is is already in the ‘forced labour’ category, despite what some pretty out of touch guys in silly wigs might decide.
As many human rights organisations as possible need to have the behaviour of the UK government flagged up, so that they can monitor the situation.
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I may have to decide whether I prefer the Pitchfork, or the Flaming Torch.
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & THE SIEGE OF BRITAIN POLITICAL JOURNAL.
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Do not sign anything regarding work for your dole in a jobcenter, after all if its really mandatory to work for your dole why sign anything? the answer? it becomes legal IF YOU SIGN to do a stint on workfare.
Reblogged this on Benefit tales.
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Commit a crime and get community service you won’t have to do half the time you will by getting drawn into this scam
i started mwa on the 11/11/13 iv been there 2 weeks now not missed a day done everything theyve asked of me i work from 9am to 3 30 pm monady to friday its very physical work n im shatterd when i get home i went to sign on today 22/11/13 and because id only applied for 4 jobs instead of the 10 i normally do theyve sent my claim to a decision maker ill find out tuesday if theyve sanctioned me i work 30 hours a week 4 nothing if i hadnt of gone to mwa theyd of sanctioned me but because i did go theyve found another way to sanction me how can i win
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Treated with disrespect from first moment I walked into Ashton job center G4S get f#####d GOON SQUAD …G. 4. S
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if everyone…claimants,part time workers,single parents etc refused
to go on these work for yor dole
chain gang slave labour workfare
placements and opted for daily
attendance at the job center…
how would the scheme(scam) cope
and how would the job centers
cope with the numbers?
forced on this scheme first week photocopying,printing second week the same third week my manager even there should have left me a list but didnt bother so i was told to just sit there for four hours as i couldnt go home because the job centre would find out how exactly utter useless scheme
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Ouch, we are certainly too deep into times of austerity!
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