Despite a high profile launch of the latest mass workfare scheme two weeks ago, DWP documents confirm that in fact it hasn’t started yet.
The unpaid Community Work Placements are one element of ‘Help To Work’. This is the latest draconian scheme concocted by Iain Duncan Smith as part of his increasingly desperate attempt to prove that unemployment is caused by unemployed people. The £300 million initiative involves claimants sent on six month’s full time workfare for ‘community organisations’ under the threat of benefits being stopped.
The scheme is mired in chaos with sources at the beginning of the month saying that no-one who works in Jobcentres has “been told anything about it”. This is confirmed by a DWP newsletter which says that “the first claimants will be referred onto Community Work Placements from the end of May 2014”. It is even unclear whether daily signing, or mandatory interventions – the other two elements of Help To Work – have actually begun yet. A PCS Union circular to members working at the DWP states that it will the end of May before ‘processes will be in place’ to start Help To Work.
The reason for this embarrassingly delay seems to be down to the tendering process for the placements. Welfare to work companies who had bid for contracts to run CWPs expected to be told whether they had been successful way back at the beginning of March. Instead they were not informed until mid-April. It was not until the evening after the ‘launch’ that the DWP quietly admitted to the public that G4S had won six contracts to manage the workfare placements.
As Private Eye points out this week, G4S were barred from bidding for Government contracts until April 9th due to the investigation into the security tagging fiasco. It’s hardly a huge fucking leap to speculate that this flagship Government policy has been delayed just so the DWP can shovel yet more tax payer’s cash into the grubby pockets of G4S.
Much of the details of the placements remains shrouded in secrecy. It is still not known who will join the six lead providers, which also include welfare-to-work firms Seetec and Learn Direct, as sub-contractors to run CWPs. Neither does anyone have any idea which charities will actually accept these forced volunteers. Well over 250 charities have now signed the statement to Keep Volunteering Voluntary.
This mass boycott is not just a disaster for the DWP, but also for the private contractors who will be paid to run the scheme. Jobcentre documents warn that if these companies are unable to find work placements for participants then they must provide full time ‘jobsearch’ or ‘work related activity’ themselves. They will only be paid once someone is either on an unpaid work placement or they are found a job. A pilot scheme for CWPs found that placements could only be found for 63% of participants and that was before the voluntary sector firmly rejected this kind of workfare. Whilst hundreds of millions of pounds are potentially up for grabs to run Help To Work, if not enough placements can be found then this will prove expensive for the contractors running the scheme.
In an effort to protect the reputation of placement providers, where claimants finally get sent to carry out unpaid work will be kept a closely guarded secret. The DWP have repeatedly refused to name companies and charities involved in the shorter Mandatory Work Activity, despite being ordered to do so by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The department claims that campaigners targeting those using workfare could lead to charities pulling out and even bring the scheme to an end. Charities using workfare, who have a duty to be open and transparent, are now being shielded by the Government in an effort to prevent those who support them from knowing what they are up to.
One charity certain to be involved in Community Work Placements is workfare quango @GroundworkUK . With no other names yet released then they can look forward to being the centre of everyone’s attention for some time to come.
Read more about the murky launch of Community Work Placements, along with details of the shameful record of Seetec, another provider, at: http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=news&issue=1366
Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid
the void 
They’re going to have difficulty finding slave work places in Liverpool and Ipswich.
The UC shambles getting worse:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/benefit-reforms-one-year-on-universal-credit-is-not-working-9391283.html
i hope they can’t find slave fare places in any area. i tweeted that groundwork to voice my disapproval. hopefully it will collapse like their other silly ideas.
It is a continuing source of total amazement to me how many hundreds of million pounds of ‘hard working tax payer’s’ money IDS is willing, and permitted, to waste in his relentless punishment of the unemployed….the vast majority of whom just want a bloody job!
Anything IDS touches turns to shit, because he himself is shit, his ideas, his persona, his talent, his intellect, his mode of thought; all shit. Ian Duncan Shit. King Midas in reverse.
Yes, LP, we all know this, but how does the lying twat keep his job?…and will the electorate of Chingford vote for anything….. as long as it’s Tory? Is Chingford full of right wing imbeciles?…it must be a really strange place to live if they are happy to have a complete and utter cunt as their MP!
max
they create bizarre theatre, they are actors in a staged show, with elaborate props, a well rehearsed script, to fool/con people into “believing” that they are doing something useful, so that they can suck us all dry….more and more organisations and people are refusing to take part, so they have to provide them for themselves…their charade has been exposed for what it is…
The words ‘piss-up’ and ‘brewery’ spring to mind.
We haven’t got a Government . It’s a bloody Mafioso Condominium , run by, legalized by and sanctioned by its own members club.
when this finally hits the ground are the ‘slaves’ insuranced against injuries/accidents/preverts etc.. or do we take to court the DWP or the work provider…or the company if anything nasty happens?
Are they and us the unemployed going to have all of us all checked for previous /exsisting criminal record.. What about the people who haven’t been caught yet? and have no criminal record?
This has the potential if it’s not done properly to ignite a lot more than the ‘pimps/providers are expecting!
I have no objections to doing real voluntary work if there is a possiblity of real training and proper paid job out of it….but i have the feeling it’s going to be the usual no hope no pay ..unless you are the one using free labour!
Why don’t these pimps do voluntary work,, Because they don’t get paid! How many people in Government do voluntary work without claiming something and they take a small fortune from the taxpayer.
Time to join a union if for nothing else than having acess to help!
Unite the Community is good way to fight these pigs in the trough & become organised within a Trade Union . I am in North Wales & shall get the necessary Info to be circulated . I am hoping to attend a march in ( a wheel chair ) at London in June.
I could see him being on the board of these companies before long. That would indicate this is just a roundabout method of siphoning taxpayers money from the public purse into his own pockets.
I can’t wait to hear what ‘Red Ed’ will say, I bet he’ll really fire into the Tory scum, loudly decry their scumfuck doomed policies, tear them down a peg/strip or too and give them a right good kicking…….and a large sow was seen hovering over Westminster.
Eric Pickles can fly?!
Groundwork UK have yet to reply to my email enquiry regarding their policy of preventing any ‘accidental’ contamination of any land they are managing via the boots/clothing of Help-To-Work Slaves, whom may inadvertently introduce Himalayan Balsam and Japanese Knotweed to a site. This was a serious enquiry from a member of the public who is concerned about the Environment, yet it seems they are ignoring my email. Just what sort of Conservationists are they?
The cover up regarding where the slaves are sent to work will surely be blown when the slaves concerned let it be known who and where these exploiters are here on sites like this.
http://www.boycottworkfare.org will take anonymous info.
Surely this must be illegal, people doing a full weeks work for no pay apart from jobseekers payment, which isn’t even minimum wage.
But I suppose the government have protected thereselves against this by twisting the law in there favour, and how are you supposed to be seeking full time employment whith a proper wage while doing this unpaid illegal work.
keith
my argument is that £72/wk cannot provide work energy/calories, it was never designed to do that, it is not classed as a remuneration because of that fact. it is supposed to keep one alive, fit and healthy, until one finds decently paid work, which is why enhanced and up to 35hr/wk job search, is stressful and unhealthy and known to be so, because it starves one of vital energy/calories/resources…according to ESC benefits are 40% to low in any case…many years ago the energy/calories used in doing this extra work was acknowledged by the extra tenner that would provide food for the week, as beer is food, many used it wisely.
the living wage should be paid for workfare, no work exp, without a wage exp…with no jobseeking activities on top of that either…
ET (Extra Tenner)* TFW** (Tenner for Work) … oh, that pint to look forward to at the end of the week 🙂 those were the days 😀
* Employment Training
** Training for Work
Off topic do I have to hand over my CV to the WP? Can they make me join any websites? I had my 1st appointment on Friday and they reviewed my CV and wanted a copy I refused but she said she wanted it by next appointment which is tomorrow. They have booked me in for jobsearch 3days next week and I got a letter on Sat to say I have a further 2 weeks
No Job
No you do not have to it is your property not theirs. Show them a paper copy but do not leave it with them and tell them you don’t want them to copy it. They have no right to store a copy on their system if you don’t want them to (DWP’s own information). You do not have to sign any of their forms either. I’ve been there myself.
JD
That is a further 2 weeks of Gateway Employability Activity whatever that means.
If you are unsure of any of their requests ask them to put it in writing.
Many thanks JD I very much appreciate this.
I’d advise add a copyright onto each page of your cv. This will make the argument with them a lot easier as to why you don’t want them to copy it when they start arguing about you not cooperating – which is nonsense. Easier just to say because they will be in breach of copyright also the many crappy destinations that your cv ends up these days due to need to be applying for every job under the sun you’ll have some comeback should they start sharing your cv around. You can put an encircled c 2014 or copyright 2014 at the end of page.
NoJob, put your name after the copyright symbol and the date. That’s essential and it makes it clear to the Wp staff.
Lucy
It could be added although I doubt it strictly necessary as the CV is cvearly that of the copyrighter. Yes add it but it’s more symbolic than legalistic really.
I also add code into my CV so I know the source i.e. where I sent it.
Interesting clarification of copyright issues here:-
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p03_copyright_notices
Again, it’s a fluid thing (different rules/different countries) and some might argue that a CV isn’t copyrightable, but WPPs stand to make financial gain from its use and NoJob could make financial gain from it, in the form of a job.
I’d follow the layout they suggest for noticies = Copyright © 2024 NoJob
Lucy
As I say copyright in either form is sufficient as it makes clear one’s wishes but I don’t really want to carry on this discussion. My initial advice to No Job was good. Thanks for your additional “input”.
I’m not quite sure what the problem you have there is JD. This blog isn’t a competition site and it doesn’t belong to we commenters. We all have different knowledge and experience, we can all share different info’ to help others, wherever we are and whoever we are. There’s no need to feel threatened JD. Not one of us here is “The Boss”.
Wishing NoJob all the best.
Lucy
I don’t mind you interjecting into my conversation, as you say it is a blog, but you are needlessly confusing the initial advice to the respondent which was accurate, and clear. You I would doubt are a trained lawyer, neither am I so lets keep it sensible advice within the bounds of our knowledge?
You are starting to go off at a tangent here with detail that is both uncorroborated and unnecessary to the initial problem that my advice was tailored.
By all means interject but try to add value to the conversation rather than complicate issues for no reason. With respect I am not going to continue this or reply further.
Calling Johnny Void
Clear up in aisle 3 please 🙂
Ian bullshit smith ha ha ha ha just reading about him daily chatting shit is a rollacoster of laughs, the blokes a fucking idiot, it appears now though even the daily mail readers are on to him! a hell of a lot of comments under Saturdays article referred to the 10.000 plus who have died under his nazi ideas roll on next year when we have to listen to know more of the bald evil murdering bastard,
Reblogged this on sdbast.
http://www.tottenhamjournal.co.uk/news/800_000_crisis_loan_under_spend_sparks_war_of_words_between_haringey_s_political_groups_1_3604459
Help to Work is actually George Osborne’s idea and he is the force behind it rather than Iain Duncan Smith.
This one is dedicated to Iain Duncan Shit and the Help to Workfare poverty pimps.
I, signed on a few days ago. And the advisor asked me if I have a cv (pointless question) I, said Yes I do have cv, but it’s on ujm. She then asked me if I would email my cv to her
(as soon as she said it alarm bells were ringing) do I really have to email the advisor my cv ?? and, if I don’t need to email her my cv please can I have evidence that states jobseekers don’t have to give jobcentre their cv (so I can show them) cheers
ok folks serious question how can the minimum wage exist if millions are working for jsa,im a humble man with a bald patch,which is getting bigger because of this question,is the minimum wage just a falacy
Been wondering that myself… if you have a legal minimum wage, then surely anything below that is illeagal and breaking the law ?
Or is this a first step towards abolishing the NMW ?
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog.
I’m more concerned with how useless and supine the PCS has become.
I’ve tried defending them before.
No longer. While individual members doing their best, especially whsitleblowers, the leadership are a joke. Sitting back while customers and staff alike are brutalised.
But it’s the former that comes off the worst. At the very least, a PCS staffer refusing to initiate a sanction will get a telling off. Even if they get the sack they aren’t in the position of someone already out of work and then made destitute and starved to death.
Not much better I grant you; but that’s the point of taking action.
*ghost whistler,
The PCS Kapos get away with the mercenary brutalisation of the vulnerable because of the solidarity of the left, for to fully expose the criminality of the DWP agents would involve a recognition of differential competitiveness (us and them) within their political principle – solidarity for the sake of solidarity the brutalised individual claimant is the collateral sacrifice to solidarity and privileged trade unionism.
Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.
Reblogged this on UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR.
I’m sure I will be one of the first to be put on help to work and I will certainly put my placement information all over the web.
I noticed that a couple of people are asking about cv’s and should they give a copy to their advisor at the jobcentre. A while ago I was told to email my cv and to put one on UJM and I did. Although I keep the one on UJM in private mode, I thought that if a direction is given to you to email a cv then you had to or face potential sanctions. It would be useful to clarify what the situation is to avoid sanctions.
JD and Lucy have added copyright. The Adviser did not ask for my CV today. However she asked me to sign up to UJM. Up until now I have not had to join. I explained I had no problem searching the site but I would not be applying for jobs on it. I showed her the jobs that I could apply for example one was Reed and could apply direct. Also said would not apply for jobs with no company names. She said she had never heard of any problems with security etc. See what happens on
Wednesday but my CV will have copyright
nojob
just thought i would add this link on your UJM rights….
http://www.edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/node/105
p s nojob
this link provides more food for thought…
http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/most-jobseeker-agreements-ruled-unlawful-and-the-dwp-doesnt-care/
Best of luck with it NoJob, stick to your guns. I think it’s good to keep shoving ads for jobs that are suitable under their noses, might help to keep them away from the UJM subject if they see you being proactive. But stay watchful of them all the time. They cannot be trusted.
JD, OBD and Lucy many thanks for the info it is all a bit scary dealing with these people.
nojob
they are paid by the state to scare one, their power to steal your lawful entitlements to your vitals, is very scary.
Do, jobseekers have to email cv to their advisor ??
(if the answer is no please can I have evidence to show them)
thanks
bam
read this link…
http://refuted.org.uk/category/email-address/
bamboozled – If you really don’t want them to have your private email address you could create an email address which you use only for job applications and for courses, and which would be the same as you have on your cv. That is what I have done. Then if they ask you to email your cv to them all they have is the “business” one. They could argue they are entitled to see your cv and even keep it for reference if they see a job to which you are suited, since that is officially what they are there for (although we all know that some of them are there to sanction people). There was a case of someone being sanctioned for amending their cv as requested but not giving the jobcentre minus a copy.
It’s tricky! You need to get on with them if possible but at the same time show you won’t let them walk all over you – do that at the beginning!. It depends a lot on your adviser. If they’re reasonable you’ll be ok but if they are on a power trip (lack of confidence in themselves) then you’ll be battling all the way. Take each meeting as it comes but never fear taking them on if needs be.
My above comment reply to NoJob’s post @ 1:50pm
OBD I will be on my guard. Will not be signing a contract with them. They also tried to imply that they would not pay the travel expenses if I did not show them I had applied fpr jobs. I did the searches noted the ones would apply for. Then stated as the network was slow and crashing that I would apply for the
Jobs at home. They paid my travel in the end.
Instructing claimants to attempt to satisfy unsatisfiable JSA conditionality only serves to build the sanction gallows even higher for the next claimant or signing on period.
Mark Serwotka your members actions are destroying vulnerable people.
Hang ’em high! 🙂
Stitching-up claimants is all part of the job, says Jobcentre insider.
Former Jobcentre Plus adviser tells of a “brutal and bullying” culture of “setting claimants up to fail”
Last week Iain Duncan Smith met a whistle-blower who has worked for his Department for Work and Pensions for more than 20 years.
Giving the Secretary of State a dossier of evidence, the former Jobcentre Plus adviser told him of a “brutal and bullying” culture of “setting claimants up to fail”.
“The pressure to sanction customers was constant,” he said. “It led to people being stitched-up on a daily basis.”
The man wishes to be anonymous but gave his details to IDS, DWP minister Esther McVey and Neil Couling, Head of Jobcentre Plus, who also attended the meeting.
“We were constantly told ‘agitate the customer’ and that ‘any engagement with the customer is an opportunity to sanction’,” he told them.
IDS and his department have repeatedly denied there are targets for sanctions.
“They don’t always call them targets, they call them ‘expectations’ that you will refer people’s benefits to the decision maker,” the whistle-blower says. “It’s the same thing.”
He claimed managers fraudulently altered claimants’ records, adding: “Managers would change people’s appointments without telling them. The appointment wouldn’t arrive in time in the post so they would miss it and have to be sanctioned. That’s fraud. The customer fails to attend. Their claim is closed. It’s called ‘off-flow’ – they come off the statistics. Unemployment has dropped. They are being stitched up.”
“Customers were being deliberately and inappropriately targeted,” the whistle-blower says. “I would see people crying in frustration, knowing they have been stitched up. Yet my Jobcentre was held up as a shining example to others. One of the district managers came to congratulate us. He said, ‘I see these people hanging round the precinct, being lazy, drinking, taking drugs’. That was a very senior leader. Another said, ‘These people are taking your money’. There was a total disrespect for the customer.”
Advisers were told to “inconvenience” benefit claimants, he says. “I was told see them face to face, agitate them. ‘Let’s inconvenience the customer’, they said, ‘get on these people from day one’.
“They were treated appallingly, lots of conditions put on them. Many of them were vulnerable people with low self-esteem or coming back off sick. We were setting customers up to fail.
“This Government has developed a culture in which Jobcentre Plus advisers are expected to sanction claimants using unjust, and potentially fraudulent actions, in order get people off the dole.
“This creates the illusion the Government is bringing down unemployment.
“The last thing Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey want is for this uncomfortable truth to be uncovered.”
Last night a spokeswoman for the DWP said: “We take any allegations such as this seriously and will investigate.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/stitching-up-claimants-part-job-says-3537051
Below is a similar article from The Herald
‘Claimants don’t have equal human rights or citizenship’
Friday 16 May 2014
When Neil Couling, director of benefit strategy at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), told MSPs recently that Job Centres often receive thank-you cards from people whose benefits they have stopped, it provoked gasps of amazement among many of those who work with claimants.
desperate MEASURES: Food bank volunteers have also dismissed the idea that take-up has been driven by supply, not demand. Picture: Mark Mainz
In fairness, he was responding to welfare reform committee deputy convener Jamie Hepburn, who asked if offices were “inundated with thank-you cards”. “Yes, that is not unremarkable,” Mr Couling replied.
He had previously been talking about how many jobseekers “welcomed the jolt” such sanctions gave them, and rejected claims there is a causal link between food bank use and the benefit sanctions, which can see claimants losing payments for weeks, months or even years.
The comments certainly provoked dismay at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) in Alexandria. One of its volunteers, Linsey Close, co-authored a recent report on sanctions, Unjust and Uncaring, which was scathing about their use.
Ms Close became a volunteer after using the service herself. Now she helps clients who she says are often given little detail about why payments are stopped.
Although the DWP says jobseekers should be told why sanctions are being applied, CAB advisors still regularly see people who are confused or completely in the dark about what has happened, Ms Close claims.
“People don’t get a letter saying ‘you have been sanctioned because you failed to put in 15 job applications’. Instead they are told ‘over this period you are deemed not to have fulfilled your jobseeker’s contract’.”
This leads to problems for those who want to appeal against decisions, she adds. “How do you appeal when you don’t know why the payments were stopped? People end up saying ‘I think it was this…’.”
Fairness is undermined by this aspect of the system, she says: “People’s work search criteria can be given verbally, so how do you prove you were ever told to apply for 10 jobs a week, say?”
The idea that cutting payments is welcomed by those affected gets short shrift from her. “If an MP or any of us were five minutes late for work, would you expect to lose your money for four weeks?” she says. “Benefit claimants just don’t have equal human rights. They don’t have full citizenship as far as I’m concerned.”
Ms Close is not a bleeding heart, she explains. She doesn’t think people should just be given the money, no questions asked. “But a Job Centre decision-maker can take away your money for food, rent, heating, everything. If it is someone who can’t access the hardship fund, a food bank is the only option.
“We have people here saying ‘what will I do?’ and sometimes there is just nothing you can say. It is soul-destroying.”
Failing to meet job search requirements or interviews is rarely if ever a deliberate act, she says: “I have never met anyone who has intentionally put themselves in that position.”
Meanwhile, food banks are not leading demand – another claim made by Mr Couling at the committee – according to Joe McCormack, manager of the West Dunbartonshire CAB.
He is one of those behind the West Dunbartonshire Community Foodshare initiative, which aims to offer an alternative to “traditional” food banks.
He characterises their approach as “feed and fight”.
“Giving out food parcels is only part of the solution, a short-term crisis intervention,” he says.
“Unlike other food banks, we do not operate a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ system,” he adds.
The West Dunbartonshire scheme is broad-based – with trade unions, the homelessness service, addiction and mental health charities involved, as well as churches.
Importantly, the mindset is about sharing, Mr McCormack says, rather than dependence. “It is about accepting that we all are only a sick note away from personal crisis.
“Such is the state of people’s personal finances that it could be any of us next month.”
“It is certainly not true that the growth of food banks is supply-driven, as the UK Government has claimed,” he adds. “As an advice agency we are concerned about levels of destitution, not just among people on benefits and on zero-hours contracts, but also the underemployed or low-paid generally. The foodshare scheme is about being there at a time of crisis and looking at what people need to move on.”
West Dunbartonshire Community Foodshare, which operates from a number of sites in the Clydebank and Dumbarton area, operates on a relatively trusting basis and doesn’t require referrals (for example, from social work). People can come direct.
McCormack does not hold with the idea that abuse is common. “If people are desperate for food, why put them through an added layer of bureaucracy?”
Common sense tells you that few would trade the stigma of using food banks for a few staple food items, he argues. “If people are willing to come to a total stranger and say ‘I don’t have any food,’ that can’t be easy.”
He believes the public “get” this, pointing to a recent tabloid attack on the food banks run by the Trussell Trust’s claiming it was easily to falsely claim food parcels. “The day after that article, food bank donations increased markedly,” he says.
Nevertheless, demand remains high, and the network has cut back on what is in each parcel from 26 items down to eight (usually including cereal, beans, pasta, pasta sauce, teabags and fruit if it’s available).
This is partly to make donations go further, Mr McCormack says. But it really is the basics – not a replacement weekly shop for people hoping to save on their grocery bills.
The DWP insists it is right that those claiming benefits should do everything they can to find work, and says rules about what could happen if they don’t stick to the rules are made clear.
Sanctions are used as a last resort, it says.
But that is unlikely to dampen the anger of those like Joe McCormack who say welfare reforms are driving desperate people to the foodshare scheme, and through the doors of his CAB.
“People are being abandoned by the state,” he says. “We’ve seen suicides, and I think we’ll see more.”
Ever wonder who is responsible for the anonymous “DWP spokesman” press releases and responses? It’s thuggish Murdoch minion Richard Caseby, employed at the taxpayers’ expense to peddle IDS’s warped bullshit when he’s supposed to be a neutral civil servant http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/19/time-ids-pit-bull-richard-caseby
The term “spokeperson” just means a PR representative. DWP “spokeperson”, TV Licensing “spokesperson”; they are all the same, just someone employed by a PR agency to put across an organisation(s) viewpoint.
The DWP are talking bollocks when they say sanctions are a last resort, I was sanctioned for being unemployable gue to illnesses, ieventually got some moneyafter about two months of using food banks etc and being put in rent arreas of close on a 1000 pounds plus to top it off the council are taking me to court for council tax arreas and another 75 quid on top of that for costs and now over a 100 pound a fortnight less payment of my sickness benefit, where the hell do they think I can find money to pay back all of this with less money coming in, bills to pay and on top of that buy food and use public transport to go for job interviews that I’m not going to get because of all my illnesses.
Is, this repulsive scheme definitely starting end of this month ??
Reblogged this on Benefit tales.
Ian D Smith sits on us all
Ian D Smith had a great fall
All the Queens horses and all the Queens men
Can never put IDS together again.
RIP Ian Duncan Smith a man of the common people.
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all this gives me a terrible feeling of “deja vu” in the 90,s i got divorced and having one child was immediately set upon by the CSA,they wanted 50per cent of my wage,i wont bore with the details but i was phoned at 2am letters after letters even though my ex and i had come to an arrangement during one conversation with a henchman i got annoyed and politely said “you cant do that sir,i will lose my house” to which he replied “i just have and quite frankly i dont care if you lose your house tough” from that moment my life changed i realised when power is handed to these faceless people they can do exactly what they want,i requested the mans name,he refused to give it and an attachment of earnings was done and i lost my flat and was made homeless and by default my job…just to make it clear ide paid every week with an agreement with my ex,this was a money making scheme..now i dont think the CSA exists
I can well remember the CSA, one of my friends was in a similar position to you and hanged himself because of it. And he wasn’t the only one driven over the edge by the CSA.
*Fellow JCP Sufferer/Customer
“Ms Close is not a bleeding heart, she explains. She doesn’t think people should just be given the money, no questions asked.”
The conditionality qualifier statement undermines all of the other points that Ms Close has attempted to make.
JSA conditionality is the presumption that there are deserving and undeserving poor, that presumption of conditionality reconstitutes welfare into a penal system that criminalises the poor and enslaves them in welfare servitude.
voidseeker
you’re so right, they put us on trial she has no right to make such a statement….she condones sanctioning pure and simple, NO org that claims to help should do that…she has set herself up as a judge of who gets what….deserving and undeserving….by saying what she did…their job should be to condemn the use of sanctions in the strongest possible terms, i would not touch them with a barge pole, sanctions and conditionally are never ok…find a local grassroots group, who see things for what they are, and act accordingly…like… http://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/
voidseeker – I just thought people would be interested in the article. I didn’t write it therefore there is no point in addressing me re your issues with parts of it. I agree with you on the point you are making about conditionality – but I don’t think it undermines the statement in the heading about human rights and citizenship.
fellow jcp
voidseeker saw with clarity the hypocrisy in her statement and expressed it…i for one am grateful for that, this insight is a gift not a slight…
@ obd – I too condemn anyone who supports sanctions. Everyone who does not have money to live on should be given money by the government with no questions asked but, as I have stated, this does not invalidate the heading, and apart from the woman’s comments the article contained other information which I found interesting.
fellow jcp
yes i know that you condemn those who support sanctions…
we only have the human rights that we or others stand up for.. for her to claim that she value’s our human rights is an insult to us all..i do get and value your point..but i don’t get hers, as she is saying 2 things at once double speak, yes she does value human rights, hers, but not ours…the point is what she said on that point went unnoticed, by most..but not voidseeker..
Fair point, obd.
JD and Lucy
I added the copyright to my CV and have been in to the WP
2 times since and they have not asked me for a copy. Even UJM they have left me alone.
Excellent news NoJob, they don’t like it up’em. Keep up the fight.
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This is CONSTRIPTION not volunteering. I’m a victim of these placements. I was promised somewhere that I could use my admin skills. I have been let down twice, I ask the manager of the Trinity House charity in Blackpool I have been stuck with if I could do some shop based work. He said yes and 2 weeks later, still nothing. I am on my feet 6 and a half hours out of 7 and I am in bad pain with my shoulder that only really starts if I’m on my feet a long time. I had a series of interviews last week and recently have arranged my own volunteer program with local hospital radio. the jobcentre are fine, but Learndirect are really giving me stress. So I have booked a doctor’s appointment next week to which I’m sure my Learndirect advisor won;t like.