Iain Duncan Smith – Is He Pissed?

Iain Duncan Smith has revealed he is as ignorant of his own policies as he is about substance misuse with his latest outburst threatening to cut benefits from drug users and heavy drinkers.

In a sign of his increasingly bizarre and challenging behaviour IDS has decided that Jobcentre staff are qualified to judge whether someone drinks too much or takes drugs.  He wants to give officials the power to force drug or alcohol users into treatment or have benefits sanctioned.  Has the Secretary of State forgotten that his new Universal Credit system is designed to be digital by default?  Does he expect Jobcentre staff to diagnose problem drinkers over an internet connection?

Just as importantly, is he even aware that many people need specialist medical support to detox from drugs or alcohol?  That stopping drinking suddenly can kill a heavily dependent drinker?  Or is he just blathering on about a subject he knows nothing about like the out of touch pub bore he is.

Once more IDS is dreaming up schemes that are completely unworkable in practice.  According the The Guardian a DWP source has said that they can diagnose drug or alcohol dependency by the number of Crisis Loans a claimant takes out stating:  “If you are applying for that up to 10 times a year then that is a sign of a chaotic life”.

Since according to the DWP themselves, no-one can claim more than three Crisis Loans a year and then only in exceptional circumstances, it appears this diagnostic criteria is pie in the sky.  Once again DWP Officials don’t appear to know their own rules.  And given that Crisis Loans are soon to be placed in the hands of Local Authorities as opposed to Jobcentre they seem similarly unaware of their own future policies.

Iain Duncan Smith will reveal his latest plans at a speech to Alcoholic Anonymous revealing worrying signs that he may be planning to send benefit claimants to get down with their ‘higher power’ at the notorious Christian cult.  Alcoholics Anonymous may want to consider the impact of hordes of benefit claimants, many of whom will doubtless be still drinking, noising up their meetings.

Support services for people with drug or alcohol dependencies are being slashed across the country.  If Iain Duncan Smith’s plans come to fruition, the end result will not be thousands of street drinkers or heroin users finding God and becoming good little citizens.  It will simply further impoverish people who already have very little and are likely to be forced into crime, prostitution or begging as a result.  You can’t bully people out of an addiction.  Doctors, substance misuse charities and health professionals should intervene now before Iain Duncan’s Smith’s deluded rantings cause any further damage to society.

Could The Work Programme Really Be Increasing Unemployment?

The figures speak for themselves – the Work Programme isn’t working.  Yesterday’s report by the Welfare to Work industry reveals that only 22% of long term unemployed people bullied onto the Work Programme have got jobs.  Of those many will be in temporary work.

Chris Grayling claimed that 36% of people on the Work Programme would gain sustainable long term employment.  Yesterday’s figures reveal this is little more than a fantasy.

Of more concern however is the figure given in the Telegraph today (thanks Eric) which reveals officials would have expected 28% of long term unemployed people to have found work without any help at all.  This means that the Government’s flagship Work Programme is not just under-performing, it appears to be making the problem of long term unemployment worse.

This almost appears counter-intuitive.  How could a multi-billion pound scheme, carried out by experts in the Welfare to Work field like A4e, actually be creating higher unemployment?

The recent drop in the unemployment count may be a blip and is entirely due to full time jobs being replaced with part time positions.  But still long term unemployment is rising.  The very problem the Government is throwing billions at is getting worse.  Worse even than if they weren’t throwing billions at it.

The Work Programme scheme does not exist in a vacuum and is one of several schemes designed to ‘help’ unemployed people into work.  Almost all of these schemes have workfare at their heart.  Whilst sanctions have temporarily been removed from some of those schemes, possibly hundreds of thousands of people are currently working for free in supermarkets and High Street stores.

The DWP claim they don’t know how many people are on workfare schemes as what the Work Programme providers are actually doing for their billions is shrouded in secrecy.

When the workfare row blew up perhaps one of the most illuminating excuses from corporate workfare exploiters came from Argos, who claimed they only use workfare during the Christmas rush.  This was a clear example of real jobs being replaced by unpaid labour, funded by the tax payer.  Temporary seasonal jobs are the kind of roles which companies may have been more likely to offer to the long term unemployed.  Perhaps some of those people would have been offered permanent positions.  These kinds of jobs and opportunities have disappeared due to workfare.

Common sense dictates that unpaid labour is almost certainly one of the reasons that the Work Programme, and all the other workfare schemes, appear to be doing more harm than good.

But could the problems run even deeper than that.  Successive governments have sought to blame the unemployed for unemployment, a useful lie which benefits both government and business alike.  Governments get to pass the buck for fucking up the economy and the demonisation of the unemployed allows greedy bosses to drive down wages.  As people become ever fearful of the murderous stigma that is now attached to claiming benefits, competition for the few jobs out there increases and therefore wages come down.

However the recent Work Programme figures suggest a problem with the current scapegoating of the unemployed.  If it is unemployed people’s own fault they are out of work, and long term unemployment is increasing for those on Work Programme, then what the fuck is the flagship Government scheme doing to them that means they are unable to find work?

Of course this kind of thinking is bogus, but ministers can’t have it both ways.  Following the logic of Iain Duncan Smith and his bunch of clowns at the DWP, the Work Programme appears to be demotivating people, increasing idleness and making people work less hard to find jobs.

Whilst it is shameful to blame the unemployed for unemployment, government schemes like the Work Programme do have real and tangible impacts on people’s lives.  It is entirely possible that being patronised, bullied and lectured at by A4e jobsworths is damaging people’s self-esteem and confidence.  It is also possible that the Job Search facilities offered by the  Welfare to Work industry are no better than those available at home or in libraries, the only difference being that in those environments they can be used in peace.  It is not unimaginable that people on workfare, or pointless fake training schemes, become not only institutionalised, but stuck in a rut and are less, not more likely to look for an alternative.  It is therefore even possible that the Work Programme is increasing, not decreasing, dependence on the state.

There are other factors that could be at play.  A recent comment from Dave L on this blog says:

“It’s a complete waste of time, in all the appointments I’ve had I’ve had absolutely no help, none at all. Last bit of ‘help’ was a cover letter that they thought was brilliant that contained lines such as “friends and family would say I’m a good worker”… I have work history too, so why put that?”

This is an all too familiar description of life at Welfare to Work companies.  Shoddy CVs, poor covering letters, badly trained staff, broken computers and unemployed people forced to send off mass applications for jobs which aren’t suitable, are all too common criticisms.  Perhaps the ‘help’ offered by poverty pimps like A4e is worse than no help at all when it comes to finding work.

To further compound the problem, many people currently having their time wasted on the Work Programme may have previously been on courses at local colleges which provided real skills.  Depending on which Work Programme shark they are sent to, they may have been forced to leave College to attend A4e.  This has been a feature of compulsory Welfare to Work schemes ever since Blair brought in the New Deal way back in the late 90s.  That, like Work Programme, was a dismal failure.

Unemployed people need and deserve support.  This means access to computers and the internet, advice on career options, as well as more practical provision such as fares for interviews, tools or clothing needed for work.  It also means real training, not the airy fairy vague bullshit offered by the Welfare to Work industry where IT training means little more than being told how to turn on a computer and any other training is virtually non-existent.

Where are the training courses for the long term unemployed to become plumbers, hairdressers, IT workers or classroom assistants?  They once existed, but in this neo-liberal brave new world training as a nurse, carpenter or midwife is not an economically viable option for most people over the age of 20.  As for the idea of education as a life long process, the big lie fed to my generation, forget it.

The Welfare to Work industry has deskilled the training sector in the UK, forcing unemployed people onto ever more pointless ‘jobsearch’ courses and workfare instead of providing real training.  They’ve done this because it’s far cheaper to pay someone little more than the minimum wage to run CV Workshops than it is to provide quality acredited training that would lead to real jobs.  Once again the private sector has been allowed to run rampant providing public services.  And once again the only people who have benefited have been the multi-millionaires who run the Welfare to Work racket.

Protest Lord Freud – The Benefit Fraud

Lord Fraud, the odious toff behind many of the welfare reforms, will be speaking at the National Housing Federation’s Welfare Reform Conference in London on May 23rd (that’s tomorrow folks).

Join the protest outside from 9.15 to tell the former banker that we are coming for him.

The conference is being held at the swanky Commonwealth Club, 25 Northumberland Avenue, London, WC2N 5AP, just round the corner from Charing Cross Station.

Also taking place this week in the West Midlands is a protest against the use of workfare in our hospitals.  Meet at Sandwell Hospital, West Bromwich, B71 4HJ. Assemble at the corner of Little Lane and All Saints Road, outside the A&E dept on Thursday 24^th May at 5pm.  More details on the DPAC website.

Even The Poverty Pimps Admit Work Programme Isn’t Working

In yet another humiliation for lying bastard Chris Grayling, even the Welfare to Work poverty pimps seem to think that the Work Programme is turning into a desperate and expensive failure.

The Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) represents workfare sharks like A4e who have won lucrative government contracts to run the Government’s flagship Work Programme aimed at ‘helping’ long term unemployed people into work.

Today they released a statement that seems to suggest that barely over one in five people who have been on the scheme have actually got a job out of it.  According to the ERSA just 22% of people bullied onto the scheme under threat of benefit sanctions have found work so far.  This shatters Chris Grayling’s deluded claims that 36% of people would find work on the Work Programme.  In fact it is quite likely the figure represents people who would have got work anyway without any help from the Welfare to Work industry.

In the 90s Job clubs and Employment Service Programme Centres, many of which were run by charities or small community organisations, were expected to place a minimum of 45% of people in employment or face being shut down.

It is testament to the pressure from private sector parasites like G4s and A4e that this figure has already been driven down so significantly.  But 22% represents a new low and reveals that no amount of motivational claptrap, workfare or sanction regimes will help the unemployed back into work when there are no fucking jobs.

Of even more concern is the ERSA’s claim that of that 22%, many of those jobs are likely to be short term.  It has long been a perfectly legal scam carried out by Welfare to Work companies to place people in short term jobs and pick up fat ‘job outcome’ fees from the tax payer.

Whilst the new Work Programme claims to only deliver payment by results, private contractors  get paid £400 every time someone walks through the door and is ‘attached’ to the programme.  Whilst the Government has said this will be phased out, it has been estimated that Work Programme could cost around £1 billion before anyone has ever actually found work.  So much for payment by results.  This is on top of the £56 million that was spent on demolishing the current welfare to work schemes due to Chris Grayling’s desperate bid to rush this untested, un-thought through farce into existence.  The DWP is handing out our cash like smarties to any bunch of dodgy fraudulent bastards who can bamboozle them with figures and flaky job outcome claims.

The situation for sick and disabled claimants would appear to be even more desperate.  No figures yet exist as to whether any of those referred to the Work Programme have actually got a job.  St Mungos, one of the largest homelessness charities in the UK,  recently pulled out of the scheme after announcing that they had not been able to place a single individual in work via the Work Programme.

For a long time Iain Duncan Smith and his lacky Chris Grayling have promised the Work Programme would be the solution to all of society’s ills.  It has been used as justification for both the Remploy factory closures and the brutal new regime for sickness and disability benefits which has seen hundreds of thousands of people stripped of vital financial support.  In figures that now seem laughable, bold claims about Work Programme helping over two million long term unemployed people find work have now been demolished by the very companies being paid to do just that.  After 18 months the ERSA say that only 66,000 people have found work so far.

At current performance levels it would take around 44 years for the Work Programme to even come close to Grayling’s predictions, and that’s providing that no-one else becomes long term unemployed in the meantime.  Unfortunately recent figures show that long term unemployment is rising fast.

As ever Grayling has attempted to bullshit his way out of trouble calling these dreadful figures a ‘good start’.  In the real world, someone who pissed away hundreds of millions of pounds of an organisation’s money with no clear benefits would be sacked without recourse.  If ever there were a clearer example of gross misconduct it is Grayling’s stewardship of the DWP. That would be one addition to the ranks of the unemployed that we could all welcome.

The Vicious Trap That’s Been Laid For Disabled Workers

Disabled workers could be forced into not just unemployment, but homelessness, extreme poverty, workfare or even face being stripped of both employment and benefits for up to three years due to the Government’s vicious welfare reforms.

A recent large scale survey carried out by Disability Rights UK (PDF)  found that 56% of disabled people say they will be forced to stop or reduce work should they be stripped of Disability Living Allowance (DLA).  The Government is replacing DLA with the new Personal independence Payment (PIP), a crude cost-cutting exercise which is openly intended to strip disability benefits from 20% of current claimants.  On top of this the Government is closing the Remploy factories in a move which will see around 1,500 disabled people forced into the benefits system.

DLA is a benefit which is available to those in and out of work alike and is intended to meet the additional costs of living with a disability.  Many people depend on this benefit to allow them to stay in work, using it to pay for extra transport needs, specialist equipment or personal care.

The new assessments for PIP are to be carried out by private companies, using the same discredited model that is currently inflicted on out of work sick and disabled people who depend on benefits to survive.  This practice, carried out by French IT firm Atos, has caused untold devastation, with claimants driven to suicide by the brutal and inhumane system which ignores the opinions of GPs and medical consultants in favour of a short computer based test.  It is too early to say exactly how the process will operate, but if the recent Atos experience is anything to go by, disabled people could face losing benefits because having a job is deemed to prove they are not disabled enough.

Whilst Iain Duncan Smith has claimed that Welfare Reform will make work pay, the truth is that changes to DLA will force tens, if not hundreds of thousands of disabled people out of the workplace.

Many disabled workers have questioned the logic of stripping people of an in work benefit only to make them dependent on out of work sickness or disability benefits.  As Disability Rights UK have pointed out, this measure appears to make little financial sense.

Unfortunately the situation is far bleaker than many people have realised.  Employment Support Allowance (ESA) is the benefit for those unable to work due to sickness or disability.  This was shamefully introduced by the last Labour Government in an attempt to change the parameters of what it means to be sick or disabled.  It introduced the previously mentioned Atos computer based test to determine eligibility for benefits.  The stated aim is not to test whether someone is unable to work due to sickness or disability, but to measure whether there is any work that they could possibly carry out.  Being able to watch an episode of Eastenders has been one notorious factor that has led to people being found ‘fit for work’.

After undergoing the assessment claimants are placed in one of three groups.  Most people are found ‘fit for work’ and are forced onto Job Seekers Allowance. A small minority are placed in the Support Group, meaning that it is accepted they are unable to do any kind of work.  The rest are placed in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) which means they are deemed to be able to do some kind of work at some point in the future.

Disabled workers forced out of work due to the changes to DLA will be forced back into the assessment process to determine their eligibility for sickness benefits.  And the sad truth is there can be only one outcome under present conditions.  Their recent employment will be used against them and they will be declared ‘fit for work’.

Sick or disabled people will not, as ministers and charities have claimed, be sent to specialist provision run by disability charities to help get them back to work under the Work Programme.  They will be placed in the mainstream JSA system where they will face workfare and benefit sanctions if they do not complete mandated activity.

Over-stretched Jobcentre staff are not trained in the barriers that sick or disabled people may face in the workplace.  Over zealous advisors, under pressure to meet targets from above, can force JSA claimants onto Mandatory Work Activity should they decide someone is not trying hard enough to secure work.  This means four weeks workfare, quite possibly carrying out demanding physical work.  Failure to complete Mandatory Work Activity means benefits will be sanctioned.

More importantly JSA claimants can be forced to take any job under threat of benefit sanctions.  It will not matter if disabled people can’t afford to take the job due to the costs of specialist equipment or transportation needed to get to work.  It will not even matter if the workplace they are to be sent is inaccessible for disabled people as so many are.  Under new rules claimants are to be expected to travel up to 90 minutes in either direction to get to work and back.  This will be impossible for some disabled claimants but it will matter not one bit.

Those who refuse work that is unsuitable, or even impossible, will soon face benefit sanctions lasting three years.

Part time work, under the changes coming when Universal Credit is brought in, will no longer be an option.  Everyone will be expected to work 30 hours a week – or possibly 35 if ministers get their way – and will have benefits sanctioned if they are not deemed to be doing enough to increase their hours.

It is still unclear whether benefit sanctions under Universal Credit will include Housing Benefits.  Disabled former workers, forced out of employment, could be forced into three years homelessness and dire poverty for reasons completely out of their control.

Whether by accident or design some disabled workers face a brutal future.  It is little wonder that so many are now questioning whether it is actually the intention of this toff Government to eradicate completely those that have been deemed unproductive by this cabinet of over-privileged millionaires.

The Sun is leading the charge to rid Britain of a generation of scroungers — and with your help we will succeed

Hundreds of thousands of scroungers in the UK are robbing hard-working Sun readers of their cash.

They cannot be bothered to find a job or they claim to be sick when they are perfectly capable of work because they prefer to sit at home watching widescreen TVs — paid for by YOU.

Published: 12 Aug 2010

j.sloan@the-sun.co.uk

@_jennasloan

Additional reporting: ANDREW DAGNELL

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3091717/The-Sun-declares-war-on-Britains-benefits-culture.html#comment-rig

You can donate to the trust for the Philpott family at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/235023496599952/

Holland & Barrett Face Pickets and Occupations!

Workfare campaigners staged a lively day of action in South London yesterday following the call out from South London Solidarity Federation.

Snake oil salesmen Holland & Barrett, who have plans to replace around a quarter of their staff with unpaid labour, were the target on a day which also saw actions in Hackney, Brighton and Lincoln.

In Lewisham protesters met in the town centre and thwarted a heavy police and security presence outside Holland & Barrett in the shopping centre by heading to leafy Blackheath instead.

On arrival at the Blackheath branch of Holland & Barrett, one of the larger stores in London, banners were unfurled and a noisy but good-natured picket began.  Staff in the store were given a well deserved break whilst for two hours barely anyone entered the store after being informed of the companies exploitative practices.   Despite the somewhat posh environment, the picket was well received by those passing by, many of whom were shocked to discover that a pretend ethical company like Holland & Barrett refuse to pay many of their workers.

After the successful picket it was back to Lewisham shopping mall where Holland & Barrett were now unguarded.  Protesters entered the shop for some militant browsing before unveiling the banner and shouts of ‘workfare, unfair’ brought the store to a standstill.  They were soon joined by a very cross store manager who began shouting ‘get out, get out’ at the top of his voice, upsetting some of the store’s younger customers.

The shopping centre’s security weren’t far behind as they arrived en masse and began throwing their considerable weight around.  Finally plod turned up, and along with the security staff, bundled protesters out of the store under threat of imminent arrest.

A mob of police and security then pushed protesters out of the shopping centre completely.  The picket continued for a short while in the market before a quick trip to Greggs, who are also involved in workfare schemes.

Once again customers turned away after they were told of unpaid labour being used in the company’s stores.  Greggs, who are already reeling from the news that coppers are to face annual fitness tests, as well as the infamous pasty tax, could well do without yet more controversy sure to drive away customers.

The Government have temporarily removed sanctions from some of the workfare schemes after the recent storm of protests.  Early indications suggest this hasn’t filtered down to Jobcentre staff with reports that people are still being bullied into unpaid work.  Those who refuse the currently ‘voluntary’ Work Programme and Work Experience schemes have been forced to attend Mandatory Workfare instead.

Meanwhile multi-national companies are using work experience staff to fill labour shortages and drive down wages and working conditions for everybody.  In a naked wealth grab by the rich, multi-billion pound companies and their Tory lackies are attempting to dictate to unemployed young people that it is normal and acceptable to carry out unpaid work in a High Street Store or supermarket whilst trying to find a job.  Barely any of these claimants are offered jobs at the end of the scheme and results suggest that ‘Work Experience’ is virtually useless as a method of helping unemployed people find work.

Protests are set to continue across the UK until every worker is paid the wage they deserve.  Next weekend a conference is being held in Brighton to discuss ‘how do we break workfare?’. 

Keep an eye on the Boycott Workfare and Solidarity Federation websites for details of upcoming action against workfare.  In the meantime boycott Holland & Barrett and support your local independent witch doctor instead.