Jobcentres 'tricking' people out of benefits to cut costs

[JER]

This is one fucking vile coalition regime we're living under

 

Fuck you Clegg and Cameron, you silver spooned, evil motherfuckers

 

Jobcentres 'tricking' people out of benefits to cut costs, says whistleblower | Politics | The Guardian

 

 

Rising numbers of vulnerable jobseekers are being tricked into losing benefits amid growing pressure to meet welfare targets, a Jobcentre Plus adviser has told the Guardian.

 

A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months. He said it was part of a "culture change" since last summer that had led to competition between advisers, teams and regional offices.

 

"Suddenly you're not helping somebody into sustainable employment, which is what you're employed to do," he said. "You're looking for ways to trick your customers into 'not looking for work'. You come up with many ways. I've seen dyslexic customers given written job searches, and when they don't produce them – what a surprise – they're sanctioned. The only target that anyone seems to care about is stopping people's money.

 

"'Saving the public purse' is the catchphrase that is used in our office … It is drummed home all the time – you're saving the public purse. Feel good about stopping someone's money, you've just saved your own pocket. Its a joke."

 

The claims came as the big businesses handed contracts to get the long term jobless into worktoday said the government should privatise jobcentres so that their firms could work with people who have been jobless for less than a year.

 

Statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show the total number of cases where people have lost their benefits has soared since the beginning of 2010 to 75,000 in October, the latest month available. The figures also reveal the number of claimants with registered disabilities being cut off has more than doubled to almost 20,000 over the same period.

 

This follows a change in the rules in April last year where sanctions were extended to claimants who were late for jobcentre interviews and other less serious offences.

 

When a claimant is sanctioned their jobseeker's allowance is stopped. They then have to apply for hardship payments, which are usually about half the allowance, or just over £30 a week. John, in Wigan, has been sanctioned for six months and says he has to rely on food parcels and must sleep on his friend's couch. "It's left me in a state of depression. I've lost weight, I'm tired … I feel like I've been attacked for no reason."

 

The whistleblower blamed the targets. "We were told suddenly that [finding someone to sanction] once a week wasn't good enough, we were far behind other offices, and we went to a meeting where they compared us with other offices, and said we now have to do three a week to catch up. Most staff go into work and they're thinking about it from moment one – who am I going to stop this week?"

 

The DWP denies there are specific targets, but the Guardian has seen email evidence of referral targets in one office, and the issue of targets has been raised by employees on online forums.

 

The DWP said: "To say that we are targeting vulnerable people is ridiculous. We only sanction people if they do not adhere to their agreement. We are massively expanding the help and support that jobseekers will receive to ensure that they get the right help and support to get into work. If someone is incapable of work, they will continue to receive unconditional support."

 

But the whistleblower said the policy hit the vulnerable instead of hardcore benefit cheats, who he said were a small group. "The young often fall into it, because they haven't been there long enough, they are generally a major target. The uneducated are another major target. I've seen people with … seriously low educational standards and it's easy to exploit them."

 

He said staff had different ways to ensure they could stop benefits for a set amount of people. "So, for example, if you want someone to diversify – they're an electrician or a plumber, they may not want to go into call centres or something. What you do is keep promoting such and such a job, and you pressure them into taking it off you, the piece of paper. Then in two weeks you look at the system, you ask them if they applied for it … they say no – you stop their money for six months.

 

"You very rarely see the hardcore taken because they know the forms – they know it better than the staff, the system."

 

Shirley Cramer of the charity Dyslexia Action warned that the true impact on people with learning difficulties was likely to be higher because in many cases it was a hidden disability. "Because we know there are large numbers of them, and that they are hidden, and that they are over-represented in disadvantaged groups, they are very much at risk. And we know that with a bit of help they can be terrific employees."

 

Martin John, national officer for the Public and Commercial Services Union, said ministers had demanded a tougher approach since the general election. "We are against the use of targets for labour market sanctions, and are worried about the financial impact on people."

 

Citizens Advice has reported a significant rise in clients who have had their benefits cut. Andy Robertson, a caseworker in South Tyneside, an area with 13% unemployment, has a huge pile of paperwork for appeals, and says his casework has more than doubled in the last year. "What's happening at the moment is possibly the worst thing I've ever seen with regard to practice from the DWP. Clients seem to be getting sanctioned for next to nothing," he said.

 

Robertson worked for eight years as an adviser and financial assessor at jobcentres. He has also seen the changes affect many vulnerable clients, such as those with dyslexia or mental health problems. "Advisers were previously exercising their discretion … now the client-adviser balance doesn't seem to exist any more."

 

Yvonne Fovargue, the Labour MP for Makerfield, raised the issue of sanctioning in parliament during a reading of the new Welfare Reform Act. She is worried that at a time when funding to support groups such as Citizens Advice is being cut, an even stricter regime is being introduced.

 

Fovargue said the situation would only get worse with the drive to bring people off incapacity benefit and on to the jobseeker's allowance, where they are suddenly exposed to these sanctions.

 

The whistleblower also thinks there will be an impact. "A lot of them haven't been in work for a number of years. So I'm not expecting them to understand the system … which will make for easy sanctions.

 

"This cannot be right that we are using a department that's supposed to help people into work to stop them getting benefit that a lot of them are entitled to."

 

In Wigan, John said he first found out he had been sanctioned when the money did not appear in his account on the usual day. His jobcentre told him it was because he had missed the deadline for three jobs. He said his Jobcentre adviser said he would send application forms in the post, but they arrived too late. "It's outrageous … to leave someone with no money for six months. It's totally hindered my jobsearching, I spend all of my time dealing with these problems now."

 

The whistleblower says his office has been told there is no more money for back to work training from April. "From April, we offer no provision … nothing, no training course, nothing. The funding ends at the end of March.

 

"[Now] your office can shine through one of two targets. You can either shine through getting people into work, but that's really difficult. Or you can stop their money, and that's really easy."

Case study John Robson, 53, South Shields

 

"It never seems to go away. Every day you're thinking: 'I haven't got a letter today, so obviously there isn't a sanction going against me.' Another day there's a brown envelope from the DWP and you think: 'What's this for?' There's always that cloud hanging over you."

 

Robson was made redundant from his job as a delivery driver 13 months ago. "I was 17 when I started work so I've been working for 35 years. I'm not Jack the lad who's never been in a job and is trying to con the government. I want to work, I just can't get a job.

 

"You try your best, and the minute you do something wrong, they're on you like a ton of bricks."

 

Robson has been sanctioned three times. First he was ill and missed a jobcentre appointment. Next he was sanctioned for not applying for one job. "I was sure I had applied for it but I couldn't find evidence that I had. If you apply for job after job after job, and you get nowhere with it, you can lose track."

 

Robson turned to Citizens Advice for help. He won the appeal, but his financial situation remains precarious. "It reached the point where I'd visit my mother and sit there for hours just to get warm, use her shower and cooker, because I couldn't afford the gas and electricity."

 

Recently he was sanctioned for a week, again for not applying for a job. "Because of all the hassle with them I thought, 'What the hell,' and just gave up on it. I shouldn't have accepted it, but you get ground down so much. So many things go wrong when you're unemployed, and you just get so disheartened.

 

"It's actually quite frightening being out there. And nobody seems to care. It's like a lot of things of life – things are set in place by people who don't actually experience it themselves."

[RedinSweden]

That is pretty fucking nasty.

[silverlining]

There's no denying that there are hundreds of thousands of thick, lazy, system-playing scumbags who don't want a job, and prefer to sponge.

 

Measures like this have to be introduced to reduce the number of indolent cunts leeching off the rest of us.

 

Unfortunately (and typically, under a Conservative government), the reform is flawed, the point is missed and it's the weak and vulnerable who suffer first.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

I touched on it in a rant in the Anti Cuts thread.

 

The Jobcentre are there to help people get back into work, but treat those people with contempt and dont listen to them and their needs.

 

There are people who take the piss of course, but it's the decent ones who always get screwed over.

 

 

 

You wouldnt believe how many people hate the advisors they have to deal with.

 

If somebody

[RedinSweden]

There's no denying that there are hundreds of thousands of thick, lazy, system-playing scumbags who don't want a job, and prefer to sponge.

 

Measures like this have to be introduced to reduce the number of indolent cunts leeching off the rest of us.

 

Unfortunately (and typically, under a Conservative government), the reform is flawed, the point is missed and it's the weak and vulnerable who suffer first.

 

I wonder how much the whole benefits system costs to run. It seems to be a gigantic mass of staff, offices etc etc. I think it would be really interesting to see what it would cost to just give everyone the benefit without bothering to make them jump through hoops. Those who want to work will work and those that don't won't, regardless of how you make them get their money. That would then give the people who want work proper time to get work.

[Fowlers God]

SD says good work!

[bigbak]

The truth is that the staff have been given targets like the rest of the country and are fully prepared to fuck people over to safeguard their own jobs.

 

What they're supposed to be doing is rooting out the serial piss takers who have no intention of ever working or working on the side, claiming housing benefit and renting out the place we're paying for.

 

There are a lot of Portuguese and Poles able to find work. It's just a lot of people are better off on benefits.

 

The 1p cut in fuel duty lasted all of a week where I fill up. I filled up before the cut and never actually managed to benefit from it. The petrol station opposite never dropped its price. Totally pointless.

[Section_31]

Quelle surprise. It's a nasty country, it has been for quite some years.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Make the unemployed build Motorways. Give the jobs forcibly vacated by ze repatriation of worthless foreigners to our brave men and women of the Coalition. Make the disabled dance for their suppers. Zis Coalition will last for a 1000 years.

 

And stop pampering ze Addicts...........they should be liquidated. !!!!!!

[Carvalho Diablo]

The Guardian article is a pack of lies.

 

There are no targets to sanction people benefits, but there are no shortage of willing punters ready to give it a go.

 

It's piss easy to secure your JSA :

 

1. Turn up on time

2. Keep a log of everything you do to look for work. Spec approaches count.

3. Participate in all the mandatory activities.

 

Whether these 3 steps moves anyone closer to employment is highly debateable, but they do secure entitlement to JSA.

 

The amount of people who abjectly and laughably fail or refuse to comply with those simple rules should be where the outrage is directed.

[Carvalho Diablo]

I wonder how much the whole benefits system costs to run. It seems to be a gigantic mass of staff, offices etc etc. I think it would be really interesting to see what it would cost to just give everyone the benefit without bothering to make them jump through hoops. Those who want to work will work and those that don't won't, regardless of how you make them get their money. That would then give the people who want work proper time to get work.

 

Most unemployed people on JSA are required to attend for 5 minutes once a fortnight ! They have adequate time to seek work.

[MOGLET]

Re the person named in the main report, you dont get sanctioned for missing a signing appointment if you call the job centre and tell them you are sick, you do get sanctioned if you have missed two on the trot or you dont bother calling them, so there, like most of these so called sob stories, is more to it than just missing "an" appointment.

 

For those slagging off those who work in a JCP, have any of those people worked in one? do you know what its like to face some of the scum who do sign on for years and years with no interest to get a job?

 

People who have to be virtually carried in because they are smacked of their faces, or who fall asleep at the desk because they are pissed, not to mention those who are pissed off and think that abusing the person who has to sign them is ok.

 

Two sides to every story people.

 

Dont get me wrong, as some have said, there are plenty of decent people who have to sign on and get treated the same, and who desperately want to work, but cant get a job, but how many of the multitude do you honestly think do want that?

Sadly we have a nation of lazy fecks who know that its easier to be on the dole and get handouts while doing the odd bit on the side.

 

How many people do any of you know that sign on, and that still manage to go to Marmaris for two weeks? Ive not had a holiday for two years, and me and the mrs both work.

 

The system is a joke, and the people who work in it know this, but they dont make the rules, the government do, so to all scream that the job centre staff are this or that, is ignorance of reality.

 

They follow a set of rules decided by those this country voted in, it doesnt matter what they think is the right thing to do, they are stuck with the guidelines.

 

But dont let reality spoil a good rant at the normal people like my mrs who have to sit through some drugged up piece of shit calling her what the hell he likes, or some immigrant spitting at her because she has told him he wont be getting his free money this week.

Just keep believing what the red tops say and abuse them anyway.

 

 

Sorry but it fucks me off when gobshites who dont have a clue spout bollocks about something they know one side to fuck all about.

 

 

Failing that, let me sit across a desk to your wives and let me call them anything I like for 10 minutes, then spit at her, every two weeks, then see what you think to the way those on the dole are treated, and then give me some free money.

 

Apologies for the rant.

[Fugitive]

My mates bird works in a Job Centre but will soon be out of work because they are only on fixed term contracts and she's out the door in May along with a load more.

[a stoner]

I have had 2 "investigations" lately into jobs I had "failed to apply for" but on both occasions I had applied by email and had alot of evidence to back it up.

My adviser is getting a bit pissed off by it too as I'm having a go at her and she knows it's bollocks.

[a stoner]

My mates bird works in a Job Centre but will soon be out of work because they are only on fixed term contracts and she's out the door in May along with a load more.

 

They can rotate the jobs that way. 10 out and 10 in off the dole queue keeping the figures ticking over. No hang on that was labours trick to create jobs to hide the truth.

[dennis tooth]

So theres no jobs and the private sector's hunger continues unabated, market force reaction: "We need to privatise the job centre".

 

Once you pop you can't stop how the government is privatised and it's nose it getting noticeably longer, while it also becomes acclimatised, day by day it grows, Cameron knows but he's not going to tell. To rectify the problem pick on the ones who can't spell, for you can lead a horse to hell but can't make him drink, you can lead the poor to forms but dont ever let them think, keep the wife supplied with mink and give Nick Clegg a wink, class war is on the brink.

[Remmie]

The article is a bit vague and speculative, I'll ask a friend who works at the Jobcentre what she thinks

[Istvan Kozma]

i work with young people and most would love a job or apprenticeship. out of 20 i would say 18 would kill for work. one of them had her jsa stopped after she was asked to submit a cv to them. she did but they said it was not up to standard so stopped her benefit for a week.

others have gone on the sick with depression and sent a doctors not to the benefits office, which they lose and so suspend payment. nice start to adulthood for them.

in my experience the spongers that knob head talks about are a minority in the extreme. more help to train and prepare for employment is whats needed, not kicking the weak.

[Section_31]

Job Centres are spectacularly shite though. Last time i signed on was about five years ago, they don't help you find a job, nor can they help you fill out your forms. My jobsearch revolved around me being allowed to use their phones and their computer station things, and advice on my claim forms was dispensed via a call centre in St Helens.

 

I went to a council-run jobsearch place and the bird interviewing me was quite clearly playing Solitaire on the computer.

 

Needless to say, I found my own jobs, the only way to really do so was through temp agencies which - to be fair - were pretty shit hot on that score, although the jobs were obviously shit.

 

Back in the day about 12 years ago when I signed on, it was luck of the draw who you got asking you if you'd signed on. One bloke didn't give a fuck, I got the impression he'd be happier if you hadn't done any jobsearching, while one woman used to run you through the ringer everytime, you'd come away with about six feet worth of printed off job applications.

[Strontium]

No, I don't believe a word of it. Not because I think the Guardian has concocted the whole thing (although it quite clearly has), but because I would have trouble believing that your average Jobcentre employee was competent enough to pull off something like this.

 

Like lots of unemployed people, my girlfriend attends the Jobcentre every fortnight (only signing on for NI credits - as someone with no source of income who actually wants to work, that's all she's eligible for). Almost without exception she has to actually request that they do a jobsearch for her, and they never, ever want to see the evidence of jobs she's applied for, even though she always brings it with her.

 

On the odd occasion that they can actually be bothered to do a jobsearch for her, the jobs they pick out are invariably ones which are entirely unsuitable eg forklift truck driver (she is a law graduate with a background in insurance).

 

She's been told numerous times that she's eligible for tax credits (she isn't) because they're too useless to even operate the tax credit calculator. And their attitude stinks to high heaven.

 

It's got to the point where you begin to wonder if they're taking the piss because surely nobody could be this incompetent by accident. You could write a book about it.

 

My mates bird works in a Job Centre but will soon be out of work because they are only on fixed term contracts and she's out the door in May along with a load more.

 

 

Nothing new this, my first job was the Jobcentre, I had two separate contracts over a 12 month period in 2000-2001.

[norwichlfc]

What is wrong with getting some lazy lard arsed scrounger off his arse to do some work? Those that genuinely cannot work should rightly be given help. Those that cannot be bothered to look for work, even though they can work, should be sanctioned.

[dennis tooth]

Job Centres are spectacularly shite though.

 

Well they are about to get loads shitter!

[Adebisi]

What a fucking life. Sitting about watching daytime TV and drinking yourself stupid.

 

I don't get how anyone could do it. At least do some volunteer work or something.

[Captain Turdseye]

I went to a council-run jobsearch place and the bird interviewing me was quite clearly playing Solitaire on the computer.

 

Sorry but that bit made me laugh.

 

I was signing on for about 8 months before I recently started a new job, and my experience tells me that even the staff don't know what the fuck is going on. They moved me to weekly signing after 6 months which is the norm, and immediately put it back to fortnightly. I was fortunate as I had an advisor who could see I was genuinely looking for work, so pretty much left me to it, while showing me a couple every now and again that weren't on the job machines or the website yet.

 

I asked after around 6 months, how long I had before they started sending me on meaningless courses. The lad said there was none planned and basically they didn't have a clue what was going on. On the flip side, my sister recently signed on for the first time in her life, doesn't know how the system works, and was docked half of the money the very first time she was late to sign on.

[Chairman Meow]

I've ended up signing on twice, although the second time I actually received no money and finally told them to fuck off after signing on once.

 

It's all well and good saying people should get of their arse and find a job but where exactly are these jobs? Newcastle Evening Chronicle has a job section which now has between 250 and 300 jobs advertised per week, 5 years ago when I was last looking for work it was 1800 to 2000 jobs in a week.

 

According to the government figures as of February 2011 the number unemployed is 85,031 in the North East Region, that only covers those who claim "Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) or benefit arising through registering as seeking work through the JSA process". Even assuming the jobs advertised are fresh jobs every week and those signing on are what people want for those jobs it would take over 5 years for everyone of those to find at job, this at a time when the DWP offices are threatening to lay off potentially into the tens of thousands from what they are telling my mother in the meetings they are having with staff.

 

During my first time unemployed I was routinely told to apply for jobs I was massively over qualified for, pretty much all of which I didn't even get an interview for, those I did get interviews for generally ended up revolving me being asked why I was applying for a job I was over qualified for. I don't quite know how they worked it but on occasion they gave me ones I just had to go to which they had already arranged, response was always "why have they sent you?" as soon as they saw my CV.

 

I ended up doing voluntary work at a local school, mainly to get myself out of the house and keep my brain working. I then got pulled up and investigated for it because when your doing voluntary work you aren't "Job Seeking".

 

Second time I was unemployed was a proper fuck up all round, got offered a job. Handed in my notice at my original employer, trained up my replacement and then left. Had two weeks break before I was due to start the new job and returned to find out they had gone tits up, god knows why they had the bright idea of advertising for people if things had been so shaky. So I ended up trying to sign on, got told I wasn't entitled to anything as I had left my previous job voluntarily, this despite me showing them formal job offer and all that lark, they did say I could still go in to sign on but they just wouldn't give me any money. Needless to say I declined their gracious offer.

 

It always seemed to me like they targeted the genuine ones but didn't do anything with the ones who came across as clearly having no interest in getting a job, possibly because the ones with no intention of getting a job know the system, the likes of myself don't so we are an easy target to cut the numbers.

 

I got made redundant earlier this year and will not even be speaking to Job Centre Plus/New Deal or whatever they are called at the moment, simply because I can't be doing without being spoken to like a piece of shit every fortnight.

 

Finally like Strontium Dog I very much doubt that any local office had the gumption to do such a thing as that in the article, always seemed to me that the local scrotes knew how it worked a hell of a lot better than the staff did.