Osborne thinks he will save £350m by shaving a bit off the unemployed's entitlement to benefits. At the moment you can't claim for the first three days out of work. The plan now is that you won't get anything for the first seven days. (See the summary of the measures on the BBC news site.) Osborne says, "Those first seven days should be spent looking for work and not looking to sign on."
"Jobseekers," says the BBC, "will also be required to have a CV before claiming benefits." It's Planet Tory again. Many people will not be able to produce a CV without help (even if that's just help to get it on a computer and print it) so what is the point?
And "about half" of jobseekers - those judged (by whom?) to be not doing enough to find work - will have to sign on weekly. There's no mention of extra resources in the jobcentres to cope with this.
I read the BBC and various other Newspapers with interest,at my local JCP they have 2 old computers and no privacy,they are always swamped and are rarely working.I wonder who will have to pay for transportation to the JCP? to do a search for jobs that are not there.I also noticed a veiled threat that companies running social programmes that do not meet their contractual obligations will be dealt with(WP?) Once again another ill thought plan.
ReplyDelete"And "about half" of jobseekers - those judged (by whom?) to be not doing enough to find work - will have to sign on weekly."
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't really make sense (but this government never did make much sense really). If someone is judged to not be doing enough to find work they can be sanctioned, so what is the point of this? Will they be expecting sanctioned JSA claimants to sign-on weekly? Something about this proposal doesn't add up.
The requirement for everyone to have a CV before signing on is farcical. After all, a significant number of employers do not expect to receive CVs and would find it strange if someone turned up with one- imagine for example turning up looking for work on a construction site brandishing a CV? Chances are you'd be laughed off site!
ReplyDeleteIf the Government wants to save money on benefits all they have to do is random checks to see if people are actually applying for the jobs they say they are. No one has ever checked whether I've actually applied for a job, they just glance a my diary then sign it and I leave (in the 6yrs I've been signing on(& I do apply for jobs)) but there are many people knowing that no one checks and are happy to claim their benefits and not work.
ReplyDeleteIt would appear that Gideon thinks not having a CV is someone's 'fault'! Once again, it shows this government is not on the same universe, galaxy or solar system let alone planet as any other right minded person.
ReplyDeleteThere are many people who don't have a CV. Because of laziness? Lack of reading and writing skills? No. Rather down to phoning up about a vacancy or visiting a business in person and enquiring about a position 20 years ago and not having had to have compiled a CV in that time.
And just who'll be providing these CV's? Will it be something like the rather useful job shop 5 mins away from my home or a WP provider who'll offer a generic template based version riddled with spelling and punctuation errors?
Naturally Gideon along with the blinkered Smith and short sighted Hoban will see the £5Bn earmarked for the failing WP as money well spent rather than comparing this colossal waste of taxpayers cash with a relatively small (in comparison) £350M.
Presumably, some, if not most, of those jobseekers deemed not to be doing enough have already been victim of the huge increase in sanctions?
ReplyDeleteDo you get the feeling that our government would like to lock us all up in camps if they thought could get away with it?
>>> And "about half" of jobseekers - those judged (by whom?) to be not doing enough to find work - will have to sign on weekly.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to entirely be at the discretion of the advisors how frequently people sign. Mine originally required weekly signing, then decided the amount of job search per week was fine and signing reverted back to fortnights.
Stephen was your travel expenses paid for, for the extra week of signing?
DeleteWell, you see Universal Credit is paid a month in arrears, so it will be wait a week til you can apply, then wait another month for the money.. could be 38 days.
ReplyDeleteWho is going to take the Government to court for the gross miss-selling of the National Insurance scheme ?
ReplyDeleteWho is going to take the Government to court over the years of gross mismanagement of the scheme ?
Governments over the recent years have tinkered with The National Insurance Fund. They had no right to do so.
They have paid benefits to people who had not contributed to the scheme.
They have failed to manage it as an INSURANCE !
Why is this Government attacking the poorest is society when the Bankers are sitting back raking in obscene sums of money for doing NOTHING for the society. It is time to STOP the 'Something for NOTHING' culture in Banking. Take a fresh 'out of the box' review of banking and stop any transaction with does not a have a long term benefit for the nation. Stop transactions which are done solely for the benefit of bankers such as Short Selling and complex derivatives.
Come on and get tough with the bankers and leave the poor in society alone.
While we all sympathise with your sentiments, you are mistaken about the government's right to do what it likes with National Insurance. It first came into existence in 1911, and has been altered a great deal since then. Governments make the law, don't forget.
DeleteAnother point, Say someone is offered a temporary job for a week, they sign off then have to wait another week to sign back on, so people will not take these temporary jobs if they refuse thats 13 weeks no money. How are these people to live they will have to go to payday loan companies, creating more financial hardships
ReplyDeleteThe Anonymouse, I'm guessing people will only be offered a temporary job for a week if they have applied for it first, so most people wouldn't apply for it in the first place & I know (in my experience) A4e don't send you for temporary jobs.
DeleteWouldn't be surprised if the job centres started pushing temporary jobs.
DeleteI worked for a construction company and when all the staff got made redundant, I’m sure all the men who had worked long hard days in all weather conditions digging holes for sewer pipes, didn’t have a CV to hand to take with them to the Jobcentre. Most of the guys had no computer experience, so how the hell could they now turn up to the Jobcentre with a smart CV in time to start their new claim.
ReplyDeleteMost construction jobs are word of mouth and these guys would have spent their working lives knocking on doors asking for possible vacancies within various construction companies.
MP’s need to walk in the shoes of ordinary people, not all of us have A’Levels, University Degrees to type up onto a piece of paper called a CV.
Interesting proposal. I'd assumed that people who had just lost jobs would be the good guys, people who'd demonstrated their striving attributes and will to 'get on' by working.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the government believes otherwise and views them as latent skivers who need a sharp, behaviour modifying kick when they're about as down as they can be (in the employment sense at least) just to be on the safe side.
I genuinely am stumped by this one. However misjudged and untroubled by evidence they might be, many of the recent reforms have some sort of rationale. This just seems sadistic.
Finally, as others have mentioned, it'll be interesting to see how this works. One of the policy aims of UC was to make it easier to move into work, if necessary via short term jobs as a route to progression. How does this support that? How does it interact with UC at all?