The DWP have finally released some scant information on the performance of George Osborne’s Help To Work scheme – the £300 million workfare programme announced at the 2013 Tory Party conference and then quietly scrapped in last month’s Autumn statement.
Those sent on Help To Work can be expected to sign on everyday at Jobcentres, face intensive and mandatory ‘interventions’ supposed to help them find work or in many cases be sent on an unpaid ‘Community Work Placement’ for six months. Previously published statistics revealed that such is the unpopularity of workfare amongst charities and community organisations that these placements could only be found for half of those referred to the scheme. What they didn’t tell us is how many people had found jobs. It is only now, 20 months after Help To Work began and in a week when most journalists are pissed or on holiday, that the DWP are admitting just 1,670 Job Outcome payments have been made to the welfare-to-work companies running the programme.
These payments are only made once someone has been in work for six months, meaning many on the scheme have not had long enough to qualify. Despite this, of the 67,000 people referred to Community Work Placements, around half began on the scheme long enough ago to have possibly found long term work. The DWP’s own far from optimistic minimum expectation was that 1,860 people would have found jobs so far. This is not a target by the way, it is a worst case scenario. Whilst the department are not telling us how they came to this figure it is usually judged to be the number who would have found work without any so-called help at all. So far this flagship scheme is performing worse than the worst case scenario.
It seems likely that bullying people into full-time unpaid work actually makes it harder for them to have the time, energy and confidence to go out and find a real job. Meanwhile the brutal benefit sanctions that the scheme is backed with force claimants into a desperate hand to mouth battle just to eat and stay healthy. As dismal as they are today’s statistics only tell one side of the story. We do not know how many people referred to Community Work Placements have been sanctioned and as a consequence possibly lost their homes, had their health demolished (as benefit sanctions are intended to do) or even been driven to their death. The DWP are investigatng 60 suicides which may be linked to Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms. They are refusing to tell the public the results of these enquiries.
Referrals to Community Work Placements are due to end in April next year. Until then many more people will be forced to work for free. This is not going to ‘help’ them to get proper work – today’s statistics prove that. It may even make it harder for them to get a job. But that was never the point. Community Work Placements were introduced as nothing more than punishment for being poor. Well that and to line the pockets of the grasping welfare-to-work industry who are being paid millions to continue this shambles.To join the fight against workfare visit Boycott Workfare’s website.
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the void 
2.7%? their under own steam fig, i think, was circa 17%…
Forced Labour is Slavery and Labour without Pay is Slavery
Slavery Need’s to be Opposed in the United Kingdom
Increase the State Pension and Lower the Retirement Age and
Hands Off the Poor
Reblogged this on 61chrissterry.
Oppose Oppressive Sanctions and Degradation
No to Nazism in the United Kingdom
Yes to Basic Human Rights such as Human Dignity For Decent People
Petition For Resignation of Ian Duncan Smith as Secretary of State For
Work and Pensions has 114,962 Signatures
It is Not the Poor and Vulnerable who are the Scroungers it is They who
are the Victims of Oppression
There are Many Real Scroungers in the House of Commons and House
of Lords
http://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/unseenmarch
Quaker film questions the militarisation of education….
HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SING,
POVERTY AND SANCTIONS THE TORY’S BRING,
PEOPLE DYING DUE TO CUTS,
HIDING THE DEATHS, THEY LACK THE GUTS,
HOSPITALS FAILING ON THEIR WATCH,
EVERY REFORM, THE RICH MANS BOTCH,
MONEY BLOWN LIKE CONFETTI,
BENEFITS STOLEN FOR SOMETHING PETTY,
FOOD BANKS AWASH AS PEOPLE STARVE,
POOREST INCOMES CUT IN HALF,
CAMERON;S CHUMS AINT GOT A CLUE,
SERVES YOU RIGHT FOR VOTING BLUE,
IF YOUR’E NOT DEAD, JUST GIVE IT TIME,
THEY’LL HACK AND HACK TILL YOU DECLINE,
THE SIMPLE MESSAGE OF THIS RHYME,
CONSERVATIVES FUCK YOU EVERY TIME…………
Geoff
Excellent.
I would change the last line to :
Bend over, here the the Conservative Pig Fuckers come again
Oxford Toffs Forever
Marvellous statistics Johnny, £300 million for getting just 1670 people into a job, but what kind of job?
A zero hours Sport’s Direct trainer technician or a MAXIMUS REMPLOY grave digger?
So it cost £17,964 pounds each to get these into a dead end career with no prospects and little pay.
Dunko the Clown must be the only man in the UK to herald this wanton waste of public funds on a hare brained schemed that signalled the requirement of Christmas extended opening hours of food banks.
They are not just inept, criminal as well……………
And i bet nearly all the one’s who had jobs for over 6 months don’t have them now. So the whole situation is a friggin’ farce.
DWP + JCP = SCUM.
very creative Geoff, I agree with it.
Liberal Democrats have been Reprehensible in Being Austerity Stooges
and so Too the Austerity Stooges of the Parliamentary Labour Party and
in Local Councils
“ATOS, CAPITA AND MAXIMUS WELCOME FALLON’S IDEA OF COMMITTING MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN”
Michael Fallon’s private war came a step nearer to absurdity after he sent more cannon fodder into Tony Blair and Jack Straw’s theatre of lies.
Waiting on the touchlines will be the profit driven conveyors of death in the guise of the three stooges, ATOS, CAPITA and MAXIMUS…………..
If the Taliban can’t kill our guys then i am sure these rogue outfits will.
With limbs missing, shell shock and trauma, each and every one will be found capable of work, that is, those that don’t come back to be repatriated, the latest words for killed in action.
450 of our finest stationed in the middle of nowhere in non combat roles, pull the other one you war mongering bastards that are a million miles from the battlefront in safe haven Westminster.
The nearest you will ever come to battle is arguing over your lavish expenses or fighting over the price of taxpayer discounted freebies in the subsidised dining areas.
Margaret Thatcher Embodiment of Evil in the United Kingdom like Her
Pal Jimmy Savile both So Vile
Make up for benefit cuts by working 200 more hours, government says.
Department for Work and Pensions admits work allowance will fall under universal credit but people can ‘recoup the loss’
The Department for Work and Pensions has admitted that people will see cash losses to their in-work benefits under the new universal credit system and suggested they could make up for it by working an extra 200 hours a year.
But they won’t, they the paid employees (many of) will be laid off between now and next May (living wage) and replaced with forced labour, (work experience/workfare) & apprenticeships.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/21/universal-credit-benefit-cuts-work-allowance
Margaret Thatcher the Evil Tyrant is Thankfully Gone so Let Austerity be
Ended as Well
DWP procedure when fit notes are sent in (Universal Credit)
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/dwp_procedure_when_fit_notes_are?nocache=incoming-747975#incoming-747975
Young people to earn or learn or lose Universal Credit benefits from 2017?
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/young_people_to_earn_or_learn_or?nocache=incoming-747980#incoming-747980
Universal Credit Needs to be Opposed Stopped and Reversed
Scrap Austerity Hands Off the Poor
Something Else which Makes my Blood Boil about Nazi Bonehead Britain
A Vulnerable Disabled Man was Victimised by Scum
The Police in a Particular Part of the UK Let him Down and their Behaviour very much Appears to be an Utter Disgrace with Racism probably playing a
Part
He Pleaded but was Not Properly Protected
Some Mindless Scum Assisted by another Scumbag Assaulted this
Disabled Man till he was Unconscious and Set Light to his Body
Murder
Totally Bloody Well Disgusting both the Boneheads who were Involved in the Murder and the Could Not Care Attitude of Police Officers Involved
When I wonder, will the British People decide to do something about what has happened to social security in this country ? Or is mass apathy the future ?
These wretched policies are largely designed to put the JSA claimant under pressure. If they were genuinely aimed at helping people into work, there would be no need for the brutal sanction system.
Nothing will ever happen, after all the politicians and the media tell everyone that all those on benefits, are nothing more than bone idle scroungers draining the country dry, what better way to demonise lots of people at once?
Is it true that those on these schemes aren’t included in the unemployment figures? If so, then that’s the reason people are being pushed onto them, anything to bring even temporary relief to the real shocking state of unemployment in Tory Britain. I well remember all the billboards from 1979 saying ‘Labour isn’t working’ because of the unemployment figures back then, which at least weren’t fiddled like the current ones are.
the dole figures are totally bogus. They don’t include people on schemes or ESA or those who are sanctioned. Real figure is more like 4.5 million.
Thuggish Disability Victimisation wherever People being Murdered by
Mindless Boneheads or being Tipped Over in Wheelchairs is a Total
Outrage and Need’s to be Addressed
There is too much Suffering due to Nutcase Austerity
When they have some Human Decency Stop the Attitude of Obliviousness
together with the Evil Racist Blame Immigrants for Everything Mentality
When they have the Capacity and Integrity to Think beyond the Oblivion
Box of TV and the Propaganda ” Newspapers ”
When Common Sense is Common to the Many instead of just the
Honourable Few
Jeff Smith | December 22, 2015 at 3:58 pm | Reply
When I wonder, will the British People decide to do something about what has happened to social security in this country ? Or is mass apathy the future ?
These wretched policies are largely designed to put the JSA claimant under pressure. If they were genuinely aimed at helping people into work, there would be no need for the brutal sanction system.
Also when the UK has a Political Class that Cares about Decent People
in this Country Public Services in this Country and about this Country as
Well
Not Just Arrogant and Out of Touch Despicables in the House of Commons
and House of Lords
Pingback: Worse than the worst case scenario, £300 ...
Pingback: Worse than the worst case scenario, £300 Million workfare scheme is a disaster | the void | sdbast
I am Proud Not to be Sheepish and go Along with the Disgusting Orgy of
Commercialism known as Commercialmus
It is Something Good to Support a Genuinely Caring Society
I detest this government and IDS needs a visit from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future but it won’t stop me from celebrating Christmas whilst I still can.
I think everyone knew that one day they had to admit that it were a failure. It were only a question of when.
A Message From The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come…
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
The MP’s were feasting on subsidised grouse.
Their expenses claims hung, by the chimney with care
knowing the taxpayer would pay for their fare.
Outside the poor were frozen, even in bed
While visions of food and heating, danced in their head.
Their children with rickets, malnourished, no bread
For them Christmas, another day of going unfed.
Dad has been sanctioned, Mum has TB
The New Year she will not see.
No NHS, no money for treatment or care
They place their last hopes, in silent prayer.
The Wonga collectors bang on their door
The children lie quiet and still on the floor.
Dad borrowed money he can no longer pay
The landlord says they can no longer stay.
49 Thousand dead from the cold
In the 11th richest nation in the world.
Thousands more dead from austerity measures
At the hands of the never elected oppressors.
Don’t give money to beggars, the charities say
We decide who gets what this Christmas day.
Our CEO’s first, then fund-raising next up
If any is left then the poor can sup.
The rich say cull the poor is what we must do
The last penny from them, we must screw.
Euthanise the elderly, take their houses away
For the buy to rent landlords they must make way.
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land
The rich drank champagne and danced with the band.
“PATIENTS UP AND DOWN THE COUNTRY CELEBRATE JEREMY HUNT’S PROMISE OF FREE WI-FI IN THE NHS”
………………Hospital wards were littered with empty beer cans and bottles after Hunt’s amazing promise. Singing could be heard from John o Groats to Lands End.
Only the biggest cunt in the country, who has no aspirations of saving lives could come up with an offering as worthless as this.
The few hospitals that will still exist after this tosser has given them to his friends in the private sector, will be decimated beyond belief.
Hunt’s pathetic attempt to divert attention is like putting out deckchairs on the Titanic or icing a coffin…………………….
What would wi-fi enable the last few free patients to do?
They could contact each other from the Las Vegas parking machines in the car parks or go online to see if NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, has withdrawn their life saving drugs.
Ambulances and tents erected outside over populated A&E departments will be able to contact short staffed wards to see if any broom cupboards, annexes or tiled floor space has become available…………….
This myriad of possibilities has no end, patients will be able to go on online betting sites to wager money that they die before they leave as more and more, nil by mouth posters are hastily stuck on struggling ward walls.
Hunt is a first class cunt. His steely eyes those of a tory shark that is willing to gamble with human lives to fulfil the ambitions of the parliamentarians and lobbyists who are stuck up the private health insurers arseholes.
i gota sign on every day and its doing me head in WHAT IS THE FUCKIN POINT OF IT
It is assumed by DWP that all those on benefits are working on the side, of course there is also harassment.
sorry but frankly, it’s mainly done to do your head in ie create a mind stir…
http://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/node/68 search this site, the displayed page on the link is the workfare one, see if any advice there is useful…
The point is exactly that, to do your head in, so pretend to enjoy it and do their head in instead.
Maria:
Couldn’t have put it better myself!
@A4E Dltbgyd.
That IS the point of it, simply to do your head in. À punishment, pure & simple.
Michael Sheen petitions to help homeless teenagers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35158195
Here are a couple more interesting articles.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/22/bedroom-tax-my-spare-room
http://www.the guardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2015/dec/22/if-londons-poor-are-being-purged-why-are-there-more-of-them
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2015/dec/22/if-londons-poor-are-being-purged-why-are-there-more-of-them
The Workfare scheme cost 300 million pounds and only delivers 1600 hundred positive job outcomes. Wow, that must be some sort of record even for this sad Tory government that fails the majority of people in this country every time. If you fucked up at work and cost the company a few quid you could be looking at facing the sack by now. Yet the Tories lose £300 million and nobody notices.
Like their bailed out psychopathic banker wanker friends, the Tories have simply wasted millions of pounds of ‘hardworking families’ /’taxpayers’ money like it’s going out of fashion. Everybody knew the Workfare scheme was designed to fail right from the off – that’s why many enlightened companies didn’t sign up to it.
Historically, the Workfare scheme raised the conditionality bar on the previous New Deal scheme brought out under Tory Blair and therefore it was never intended to support jobseekers, upskill them, or provide a positive foundation in helping to deliver positive employment outcomes. It was merely instead more about the Tories’ obsession in breaking down jobseekers to the point whereby they would have to accept being on a forced labour scheme (modern day slavery if you will). Based on their experience of the scheme, most jobseekers would probably have accepted any low payed deadend job as it would have been more preferable to workfare slavery. And that’s really what the scheme was all about… forcing people to accept shit jobs.
Cameron, Osbourne, as a tax payer I want all my fucking tax money back right now because I do not agree in your continued support for banker wankers claiming their massive rip-off tax dodging bonuses at the expense of the Welfare State and NHS. Nor is it right that you have wasted millions of pounds on the Workfare scheme that any fool knew was totally crap from start to finish.
In terms of helping jobseekers find employment that is supportive towards the employee’s needs and pays a real living wage, this Tory scum government couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery!!!
santa
that’s £187000/person…!!
whoops, no it’s not coz it didn’t say how much of the £300000000 was spent..
That’s very true OBD – I guess we’ll never know the true extent of how much money was wasted on this horrible scheme as it will be hidden from the public as usual. But we all know that money was wasted.
well they’ve conned themselves another term now…i don’t think they’ll be much to cheer us in the coming yrs….
Of those 1600 job ‘outcomes’, 1590 would have occured anyway.
Of the people who did NOT get a job, another 100 of them would have found one if they hadnt been jumping through hoops like a headless chicken for this utter bollox and to keep the wolf from the door.
A Tory government has no interest in supporting an employee in any way what so ever, it just fucks up the slave labour market.
Capitalism does not work without massive competition at the lower skilled jobs point, and a Tory government will allow uncontrolled borders and mass immigration to counter birth control and restraint by the lower classes as they become ‘Edjumacated’ and seek to better their lot.
In short, for ten years in power they will sell you up the swanny to the point you have encampments of 3rd world people living on your river banks and renting a room costs > the national minimum wage.
Mr G.Smith I am sure will cash in his share of that 300 million squid at some point in the future, probably in form of a directorship.
In the meantime, it is pleasing to note he WILL actually need a police officer standing beside him; for the rest of his cock sucking life.
And another ‘expenses’ story to add to the growing list!
home.bt.com/news/uk-news/lords-speaker-claims-hundreds-of-pounds-expenses-for-chauffeur-driven-mercedes-11364030128837
Frances Gertrude Claire D’Souza, Baroness D’Souza, CMG, PC (born 18 April 1944) is a British scientist and life peer in the House of Lords. She is currently Lord Speaker, having taken office on 1 September 2011.
Specialised subject
Parasitic indulgencies within expense portfolios and creaming benefits stolen from the poor. Leeching and its effects on the welfare state.
Food banks and opera. Keeping chauffeurs waiting while the peasants pick up the tab.
Ambition
To curtail the parameters of the freedom of information act to hide parliamentary freebies from the public eye.
Geoff – From your description she sounds like another parasitic self-serving bastard that loves to keep the rest of us down in the gutter. But I will never let the likes of this creature control me. My motto is to resist and survive!!!
santa
OBD – My usual music tastes are considerably more darker, political and aggressive than this, but thanks for this anyway. Please feel free to check out YouTube for bands like Killing Joke, Extreme Noise Terror, Fear Factory or PIL.
yeah, good stuff…
Geoff they are all baron Hess’s Rudolf would be proud of their red noses this time of year.
Baron Hesses or baron hess’s not sure?
That vicious, ugly bunch of Nazi sympathisers in government won’t believe the true figures that the WP has failed and burned like every other bollocked-up work scheme that has gone before it.
All work schemes, under whatever fancy fairy dressed-up name, does NOT help people into employment by shoving them into slave labour for x amount of weeks or whatever ”training” they claim helps.
If those incompetant fools at my JCP realised that New Deal had failed me, then they would have never sent me to all those other ‘schemes’ since. They would have instead had done the right, decent thing for me and phoned up all the local employers in my town to ask them if whatever work was available for me.
Quick-fix schemes always fail, no matter who is behind them. That Ponsi pyramid scheme years ago that made big news springs to mind…
Sod that bad news cobblers from the ‘government’. They are all fucking wankers the lot of them as usual. As for doing any job search the next few days, fuck that. It’s Christmas so I am for once enjoying it, unlike other years previous where the JCP ruined the season for me one way or another. Until in the new year I am back to the dumb jCP (every fucking week now – for whatever lame reason) – which I am not now for another two weeks, thank fuck. I’m too busy watching Xmas telly all day to do stupid jobsearch. Besides if the JCP are now not open until New Year, why should I give up my time for them when they are not doing anything – as if they do when they are open?
——–
To all bloggers on here and Johnny Void, (but not any of the Trolls on here that ruin it for us when we have something constructive to say) may I wish you all a merry christmas and happy new year. See you next year, whenever I can pop by.
Merry Christmas Fen, I mean it, hope they can’t spoil it for you with their dirty tricks. Try pretending to like going everyday, use reverse phycology, don’t let them know you suffer because that will just give them scope to make you suffer even more.
no, one option short, treat them with the NVC contempt they deserve….ie don’t grin and bear it…utter disgust when it is @ the right moment to do so…90%er, NVC,10% moved to speak…quake with rage…which is how quakers get this slang name….’take the quaker down’…kick them out of head space and keep them out…
Are we talking about ‘quaker oats’ here obd?
Dear Fen Tiger,
Your next signing will be on Xmas day at Wisbech JCP at 13.30. If you’re late, we’ll sanction the tits off you. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your day.
Best wishes,
The Witch of Wisbech JCP, aka, your work coach
Oh, and do bring along all evidence of job search, including all job applications and replies.
Looking forward to seeing you the day after tomorrow, you idle bugger.
Notice the witch of wisbech said 3.30. Do all witches come in 3’s?
That’s 13.30 (1.30pm) not 3.30.
I’m like Joey Essex, can’t tell the time, but I do know witching time and who the witches are.
@ Dimples
Just ignore the witch – just a sad lonely troll with zero sense of humour and no grasp of reality outside of his house other than what he sees on his computer screen.
@ The Witch
You sad tit. My JCP is closed until Jan 4th next year with my next visit on 5th Jan 2016. One thinks you have been force fed brussel sprouts so much that this is the reason it has been exceptionally windy with gales yesterday (Xmas Day).
George Osborne in 2015: travels with my hi-vis jacket
John Crace
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/22/george-osborne-in-2015-travels-with-my-hi-vis-jacket
Merry xmas to all, even the trolls and may your day be merry and bright, no pea soupers.
Fuck you!
Humbug!
fuck sanctifying abstract deities, the parasitic norm….worship and serve the true deity, which is humanity…all many can get is slight respite from the daily grind, due to the days off and jester gesture charity…
ie ‘look how good/smiley i am, really…’
ps here’s me/us being ‘charitable and kind’…be thankful…not thankful, ‘how dare you question my ‘generosity’, and it’s conditionality, here’s a sanction, to teach you be grateful lesson…
Well you are full of xmas cheer obd, I even used the atheist word for xmas to please you as well.
duh!, xmas(s) is an abbreviation of the word christmas(s)…
It doesn’t it means kissmas here is a smacker for you X 🙂
Xmas – taking Christ out of Christmas 😀
How many holes have you got so that we can find out if you are holy or not?
Just re-read my post and it doesn’t sound too holy, I was referring to xmas stockings.
Such a Shining Moral Example from some MPS
No Wonder the Country is in the State it is
Had Labour of Opposed Austerity Properly from May 2010 AD to March
2015 AD they would of quite Likely of Won the General Election of 2015 AD
Labour should it Not Properly Oppose Austerity does Not Deserve to Hold
Office
Should Jeremy Corbyn be Outed as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition so a Austerity Stooge / Lapdog of War takes his Place
then Labour has No Place as the British Government
Labour are certainly no longer an opposition party and never have been since Blair took power, maybe even before then.
No to Universal Credit No to Slavery and No to Austerity
The Country Need’s to Forget the Commercialmus Pantomime and
Call For Social Justice and Decent Public Services
Hands Off the Poor
Better a Present and Future of Human Dignity and Public Services than
One of Slavery and a Nazi Style Totalitarian State
The public services at the moment are part of the Nazi style totalitarian state.
When Greece Voted No in EU Bailout Referendum this Country should
of Woken Up and Said End Austerity
The Underdog Need’s to Say No to Oppression and Tyranny to Point
Out the Abhorrent Outrages of the Class System and that Slavery is
Not what True Freedom is About
Increase Welfare Benefits and Hands Off the Poor
Labour has a Lot to be Ashamed of over the Fact that Apparently only
48 MPS Voted against the Welfare Bill
Notice that Petition For the Resignation of Ian Duncan Smith Now has
114,967 Signatures
No to Universal Credit Hands Off the Poor and Shame on the Austerity
Stooges of the Parliamentary Labour Party for being Accessories to the
Misery and Oppression of Nutcase Austerity
No to Nazism and No to Neo Liberalism
Defend the Welfare State No to Universal Credit Increase State Pension
Defend Political and Religious Freedom of Speech No to So Called
” Extremist Disruption Orders ” and a Nazi Totalitarian State
“HOW THE DWP ILLEGALLY ACCESS YOUR DISABILITY MEDICAL RECORDS TO STEAL YOUR BENEFITS”
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/nhs_records_2#incoming-748559
You asked:
‘Could you tell me how many times in 2014-2015 the DWP has accessed the medical records of
people without specific consent? IE how many times have the DWP looked into someone’s
medical records in an attempt to seek to alter:
1-their disability benefits
2-any other benefits.’
I can advise that the DWP does not directly access medical records.
In order to establish whether there is information falling within the description specified in your
request, all records relating to disability benefits would need to be accessed. We estimate that
the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £600
“PLEASE NOTE, THE DWP HAS ADMITTED THAT IT DOES NOT DIRECTLY ACCESS YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS”
THIS IS INDICATIVE THAT THEY DO.
THEY ARE EXAMINING YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS IN ORDER TO AID AND ABET HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS WORKING FOR ATOS, CAPITA AND MAXIMUS, TO FALSIFY WORK CAPABILITY PAYMENTS FOR ESA AND PIP.
THE £600 COMPLIANCE FIGURE TO INVESTIGATE IS JUST ANOTHER OBSTACLE IN BLOCKING THE TRUTH,
“YOUR DISABILITY BENEFITS ARE BEING STOLEN TO ORDER AT THE BEHEST OF THE DWP”
“We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £600”
What if we offer to crowd fund it. Do you think they’d carry on their investigation?
JV gets a mention.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-940e-Just-25-forced-on-workfare-get-jobs
To be quite honest I question that even as many as 1,600 found job as a result of the scheme. My experience, from 2011/12, was that when I was claiming JSA, I was offered a job but the company had a hiring freeze til the new year, so asked me to come in for a week before Christmas as work experience. When I spoke to the job centre, they said I couldn’t do that as I wouldn’t be available for work – never mind that I’d got an offer. I had to do it through their scheme, and I had to do it for two weeks, and now I’d told them about it I couldn’t pull out or I’d lose my benefits over Christmas. The time it took to sort meant I did it after Christmas too, which delayed the time I actually started getting paid for the job. The JSA considered this to constitute them finding me a job through this work experience scheme, even though I had an offer already before they got involved and even though the company that hired me hadn’t been enrolled in the scheme with the job centre until I came along.
I bet if I’d been doing that within the time frame of the statistics of this article I’d have been counted amongst those 1,600-odd. And I wonder how many of those were in a similar situation, where someone found their own work experience (or volunteered for a charity) but was forced to go through the scheme to make the scheme look good.
I wonder if someone there can help me.
Last year I was unemployed and signed on as such, for 3 or 4 weeks….I was also seemingly automatically signed up to one of these back to work schemes (which I never attended, since I found a job pretty quickly)..
Now, despite being in work, I receive 2 or 3 emails a week, and once a month a whole enormous ‘help to work’ pack, all inviting me to my first ‘meeting’…I have called and emailed many times to get them to stop this, and the fact it NEVER stops really has me wondering if they are fraudulently claiming for me as one of their customers.
I even got a call from them once asking me to review their performance..I immediately began asking them if, and if so WHY, I was listed as a client and if they were charging the Gov….and their response was VERY strange…..I got handed up the chain 3 or 4 ‘levels’ until they just hung up!
I am getting fed up of getting all their junk in the post especially as it is always a huge package of stuff…
Can any of you guys up there help me with what to do to get them to stop? As well as find out EXACTLY what info they are holding on me, and if they are indeed charging the authorities for my attendance, which is, and always has been non existent?
..and not to mention find out why it is IMPOSSIBLE to get them to stop attempting to invite me to their meeting!
(I am also concerned that this seeming ongoing attachment to them may effect me, if I have the misfortune to have to sign on as unemployed at some point, as they may think I have been a ‘no show’…..which is true aside from the fact Im a ‘no show’ because I didnt need their useless help!
Thanks.
(I can give the details as to the organisation involved etc by email if needed!)
One of the ways Osborne tried to sanitise Help to Work is to claim that unemployed benefit claimants would be forced to prepare food fo elderly people etc. I wonder how many of those shanghaied onto Help2Work actually did end up doing jobs like that? Not many if any I bet.
you would need a Food Hygiene Certificate & possibly DBS clearance to do things like that. Osborne was lying.
So that’s £300,000,000 / 1,670 = £179,640.72 per job, eh? Nice!
Next week I have to attend some bullshit called ‘Skills Conditionality’ at some poxy shit hole called ‘Pinnacle People’, which consists of 4 weeks in Classroom being harassed & bullied about personal hygiene, appearance, benefits of the workplace, standards of behaviour, employrr expectations, and CV writing. What a load of patronising fucking bollocks. Then a 4 weeks unpaid work placement. Happy New Year.
I feel for you. I start my forced labour on Monday (the 4th) for 4 weeks. I do love the way they try to say you have the option to not do it and of course if you do that you lose benefits for anything from 3 weeks to 3 years, that’s hardly choice. I wonder how long it will be before they decide to make unemployment an actual crime rather than simply treating the unemployed as criminals
is that Mandatory Work Activity that youre doing then? I did that 2 yrs ago, & although it was shite atleast the woman running it was ok & let us have as many tea/fag breaks as we liked, & those who wanted were allowed to nip outside to smoke weed, & we went home early every day at about 2.00pm. Just like a real job….not!
I doubt I’ll be lucky enough to leave early. Assuming the bus is on time for leaving I’ll be home at 5:30 after the ‘job’ finishes at 4:00. Once you factor in the 5 hours of ‘lunch’ and the travelling times and waiting for buses the 30 hours a week becomes 49 hours a week.
I’m also a diabetic who gets hypos (low blood sugar) when I don’t have my main meal by 1 PM, my body has got used to this as I’ve been having meals at around that time for 20 years. One reason I ended up losing my last job was that after more than twelve and a half years they decided to change me from set times on set days (the only changes were when I did overtime) onto any hours between 5:30 AM and 11 PM on any day of the week. Well, each time I was in after 1 PM I had a hypo. After a few months of this I lost my temper and swore at someone and that was that. At first they tried to sanction my benefits as I was sacked but after I’d explained what had happened the sanction was overturned. Naturally being sacked means no reference which is why I decided to do voluntary work, the first one was in the local keech hospice shop but they wanted a work reference so after I’d handed in the application form I never heard anything.
The really galling thing is they have bent their own rules a bit by putting me on this, apparently you are supposed to be told why you are being put on it, I wasn’t, I also had voluntary work lined up with a charity that deals with the disabled, this is the second voluntary job I tried for, I was just waiting for my police check to go through. The ‘advisor’ at the job centre knew about the voluntary work and when I reminded her about it all she said was I could do that on top of the MWA.
Nah they won’t do that, because you will have no money for them to fine you with and you won’t take part in their glorified community service sentence, so they will have to imprison you instead and that will cost them more than giving you benefits. So how are they going to punish you more than they are now? because prisoners have more rights than you do.
‘Skills Conditionality – Transitioning Ahead’. Who the hell dreams up this fucking toss?
Someone who is well paid with a nice fat pension when they take early retirement.
My punishment starts on 11th, so not next week but week after. I’m half tempted to take a Sanction on this and fuck it. 2 months of Hell versus 4 months of destitution. What a fucking choice. The only other option is to injure myself in some way to get out of it. Choices, choices…..
Yep, that’s exactly what these tossers regard as giving you a reasonable choice. I can see myself being rushed to hospital because of my diabetes and being put on a glucose drip or something because my blood sugars have dropped too low, that’s assuming that anyone calls for an ambulance when I collapse of course, who knows they may just leave me. That would be one less ‘sponger’ if/when I kick the bucket. I’m sure that prat Duncan Smith would be happy, hell, he may even give them a bloody bonus for bumping me off.
you should be on sick with diabetes, bloody hell what do you have to do to get a friggin sick note these days? I know à guy with an heart condition on beta blockers 54 yrs old & still on JSA cos they won’t give him à sick note. It’s fucking ridiculous.
Skills Conditionality also, apparently , includes “addressing self esteem and benefits of the work place” . WTF is that supposed to mean? Unless you’re doing something really interesting that you enjoy, which is highly unlikely, the only benefit of the work place is that you’re getting paid for being there! But if it’s a shit wage tn there is no benefit of being there, especially if it’s a shit borings soul-destroying job. They talk out of their fucking arse.
And what does self esteem have to do with it? Standing around in a Charity shop unpaid does nothing for your self esteem, nor does stacking shelves or flipping burgers or sweepin floors for Minimum Wage. Self esteem my arse.
I have chronic kidney disease, hypertension and recurring gout… Those cunts at Prestwich Jobcentre (those sour arsed bitches that work upstairs!) dragged me in on January 4th (Xmas not officially over at that time) to gleefully tell me I was being put on CWP. I saw a Doctor (for want of a better word!) today to ask for any kind of help or advice, and he didn’t give a fuck (there’s a surprise!). I have to be in Manchester City Centre by 9am, tomorrow morning for my ‘interview…’
Interview my arse. As per, these fuckers will dish out their orders and we have to like it or lump it. I dread to think what these pigs have lined up for me tomorrow. But if it is too hard or demanding or dangerous to my health, then they can fuck right off. Better skint than dead and better dead and proud than alive and a bloody slave….
Skills Conditionality, just like all the previous employment schemes, is complete & utter bullshit. How the fuck is this utter bollocks supposed to help anyone? The Provider, in my case Pinnacle People, just like all the Providers are patronising dictatorial fucking wankers who seem to be living on another planet . what a load of fucking shit and what a set of fucking cunts.
Those Seetec cunts are no better. They give you all this bullshit about helping you to find a placement that matches your requirements (I asked for something IT related, as I have qualifications and the latest ECDL). But they didn’t look very hard. In fact, they didn’t look at all, because one day later these cunts have placed me in (you guessed it!) a grotty charidee shop… There was never any intention of finding a placement for me or anyone that would have any real experience or eventual promotion opportunities.These people and their jobcentre bedfellows are stinking flyblown excrement. They are the scum of the earth.
All they are interested in is getting you into unpaid work and of course ensuring that you are removed from the unemployment statistics.
Also, what is the fucking point of travelling 8 miles to Manchester City Centre to do four hours of ‘jobsearching’ in front of a (crap) PC, when I can do the same thing at home? They love to make people dance and they attempt to antagonise people so they will snap and they can say, ‘Gotcha! You’re sanctioned!’ They hung cunts like these people at Nuremberg. Bloody shame it doesn’t happen here too…..
I’ve just been informed today that the 4 weeks unpaid work placement that I have to do as part of Skills Conditionality does not have to be at a not-for-profit charity organization but at an actual company or business, according to the Tutor at Pinnacle People. Is that correct or are they bullshiting me? I thought it had to be at a charity.
Testing
Today on my Skills Conditionality course I learned that, apparently, barriers to employment don’t really exist, there are none, It’s all in your mind. Never mind that you lack skills & relevant experience, and that you have no transport, or a 5 year checkable work history, or specific qualifications, or a Driving Licence, or FLT, CSCS, or DBS , there are no barriers,not even health problems, because they are all imginary and its all your fault.
Today on Skills Conditionality – Transitioning Ahead, I spent all morning trying to sellotape plastic straws to an egg, as a group team building exercise. It only takes me one & half hours to get there. You couldn’t make it up. What a waste of fucking time.
It’s all your fault you are unemployed, yep, sounds like the sort of crap spouted by the tories and their supporters. It must be hard to say nothing when someone says complete BS like that to you. No doubt this person has no experience of being unemployed so they have no empathy. They, like the tories, probably despise the unemployed and think of them all as lazy spongers draining the country dry.
Even when you turn up to their ‘Community Work Placement’ bollocks, those Seetec cunts still phone in every day to see if you are in ‘work’.
It’s like being on probation. A lady who also ‘works’ in the same place as I do told me of how she had to miss a day because of a family funeral,The shop were fine with it. Yet although she told Seetec well in advance they still sent her one of their nasty warning letters… These bastards love their job and they really are vermin…
I always thought that that Universal Jobmatch was created to do away with paperwork and writing every application down… So why do those cunts at Seetec insist that you write all your applications down, even when you have done them online and they are there for all to see? Even when you actually apply properly and use that crappy UJM, you still have to hand in those applications in writing: like a kid handing in their homework… This is not (and never has been) about helping people back to work and building self esteem. This is about obeying orders and humiliating and punishing those who are out of work. Seetec really are rapacious filth and I hope they perish…
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