If you depended on the BBC for your news - and apparently many still do - or if you thought that the Sun, the Mail and the Express were newspapers, you would know nothing about Universal Credit beyond the vague assurances that it's coming and will "make work pay". But there are still some real journalists who take an interest in such matters. One of them is Emily Dugan, who wrote a disturbing piece for the Independent on Saturday. She went to Warrington, one of the pilot areas, and spoke to the people who are having to suffer the consequences of UC; the claimants whose benefit wasn't paid or who found themselves in rent arrears because the money which was supposed to go straight to the landlord didn't; the Housing Associations trying to cope with a haphazard system which puts tenants at risk of eviction through no fault of their own; the CAB worker who says that the problems are increasing.
Sheila Gilmore MP is on the Work & Pensions select committee. She has written a piece on the Progress website about what they are being told and why they don't believe it. The meaningless waffle they get from civil servants is familiar to many of us, but it's trying to hide the fact that UC is a grotesque failure.
There are still only about 6,000 people on UC, and they are all the "easy" cases - single, no complications. Yet the IT obviously doesn't work even for them. I reckon that the plan for the Tories is simply to coast towards the 2015 election, delaying the roll-out. After that, whoever gets in can make the decision on whether to cancel the whole grisly project or to plough on since the only people who will suffer don't count.
The same may well apply to Help to Work. It was supposed to have started, but the workfare component was delayed to give at least the semblance of legitimacy to G4S's chunk of the contracts (no one was fooled but the DWP doesn't care). The rest of it - signing on every day, spending all day every day doing "jobsearch" in the Jobcentre - was never feasible and hasn't started either. But as far as Iain Duncan Smith is concerned, who cares? The propaganda has been successful beyond his wildest dreams. And there are very few journalists out there willing to report the truth.
You know what'll happen. Anyone criticising UC will be told by Smith, McVey, Cameron or some DWP minion that after a whole year "it's still early days". This was still recently being said about the WP into it's THIRD year of operation! And still said despite anyone claiming JSA for a year being called LONG TERM unemployed!
ReplyDeleteClaimants are being refered onto 8 week work placements instead of Help To Work. I am currently working in a charity shop four days a week.
DeleteYou read my thoughts halfway through,the constant delay in releasing reports,refusing FIO requests and appealing any judgement that goes against the DWP/IDS if anything was even close to showing some success,IDS would be all over the media,if and it is a big IF,the Tories remain in power this house of cards will eventually fall down.
ReplyDeleteI think it's obvious that making us go to the job centre everyday will cost more money in the long run as our travel costs would have to be paid! Probably why that hasn't happened!
ReplyDeleteQuite apart from which the job centres don't have the staff to cope with people signing fortnightly, let alone daily.
DeleteI wouldn't be at all surprised if Jobcentre staff try to back out of doing it. It's not like they'd be able to do anything productive in the time they would have available, so why even bother? As it is, I sign on twice a fortnight, but there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE with either signing on day. They do nothing differently, so again, why even bother? All they are doing is wasting time seeing people more than once a fortnight. Seeing people daily would be DISASTROUS!! Period. There's no two ways about it.
DeleteAs for UC, that's a train that only has a small amount of track to run on and no one is working on the line to extend it further (or they are, but they're not getting very far). It'll get derailed by the next party that gets into power in 2015.
Nothing gets built on broken promises.
Costing more, is fairly typical of government policy, as long as the unemployed get less, this government with it's fiscally irresponsible ideology doesn't care how much it costs.
DeleteIt's not just the journalists who are unwilling to report the truth. I complained to the Independent Case Examiner about my Work Programme experience. Unsurprisingly none of the providers did anything other than make empty promises & cosmetic changes. However the ICE is supposed to be independent yet their 7 page report on my complaint was simply more of the civil service waffle you highlighted above. Most of their reply was simply a repetition of the DWP's PR and false assertions masquerading as fact. Situations I'd described clearly were either ignored or manipulated to mean something else. It's one thing to have someone say "I disagree with your opinion", it's another to ignore rules and facts and simply promote a current political viewpoint. It shows that within the civil service, people are actively involved in promoting DWP myths no matter what the evidence. If anything wrong has occurred, the attitude is just to ignore and dismiss it. Clearly the only people the ICE talked to were the WP & the DWP themselves. And this is the same with the press - if that's the only people you talk to, it's a guarantee you'll have a skewed version of things and get it badly wrong. The question which remains for people like me is, why do they only listen to one highly dubious source? At what point will people put accuracy and evidence first and use that to challenge the Government's outright (and often proven) lies?
ReplyDeleteI think part of the reason why the British have accepted the principle of 'working for your benefits' is because it has allowed the govt. to ring-fence certain types of benefits and spending e.g. the pension, schools and the NHS. The unemployed have borne the brunt of the cuts and social security/NI 'reforms' and this has allowed the govt. to avoid further public sector cuts.
ReplyDeleteIt could be argued the unemployed have been sacrificed for the greater good.
I am currently on a work placement and when I am asked about it by friends and family I always make a point of saying I am not being paid. They all say it is wrong.
I believe the British have bought workfare not because they agree with it but as a necessary evil. Of course, the effect is the same; I am working four days a week for £72. BUT, I do not believe support for workfare will translate into votes for the Tories. They are dependent on whether the economic 'recovery' can be translated nationwide.
I could accept a greater good argument if the budget problems were being sorted, but they aren't. Benefits which barely grow in cost at all are being vilified whilst the actual problem areas are being brazenly ignored. That's not greater good, it's just nothing.
DeleteAt best you can describe it as an ideological solution to a non-problem that claims to address a different problem it won't acknowledge. Actually, that incoherent last sentence describes just about everything the DWP does these days.
It certainly has started, I work for a voluntary organisation (a moral one that refuses non-voluntary volunteering and work placements etc).
ReplyDeleteMany of the people we come across are now signing on daily. But more disturbingly between 10 and 30 people are turning up at our office daily, that have been "mandated" to volunteer, we've been very politely explaining that we're happy to help but only if they've come of their own free will and we're happy to supply a letter to their advisor explaining this. They keep coming though thick and fast!
Are all these people being sent by the same company? Or are they via the Jobcentre?
ReplyDeleteI am on MWA,on the start date 8 of us reported to a local charity,they were overwhelmed. very friendly,but unaware of the nature of the programme,talking to the manager he thought that he was helping the unemployed,the provider rep was very slick and sold him on the idea,he was unaware that the provider was paid for each placement,it is a small shop,we spend most of the time on break as there is not enough work to do,he was informed that 4 more "Volunteers" will be arriving next week. After hearing this I asked if these placements were costing the charity money,he was unsure other than doing H&S and keeping records to send to A4E weekly were using up a lot of his time,he said he wishes he had not got involved,but now feels pressured by the rep to keep accepting yet more placements even though he does not know what to do with the ones he now has.
ReplyDeleteThe true face of MWA/A4E it is about churning as many placement fees or sanctions as possible! It has nothing to do with improving the prospects of the unemployed!
On the WP for over a year now. 1st Adviser, took my UJM a/c details, with password, "In case I forget them", (Her words).
ReplyDeleteA short time ago, after clicking on email from UJM, scrolled down job description, only to find a box had ALREADY been ticked, "job doesn`t match my interests". I DID NOT TICK this box!?????
I have unticked all DWP authorisation boxes, and, of course, changed my password. A formal complaint has been made, to A4e.
Some very dodgy goings on indeed, being asked to go in, sign day book, told to sign to up-date their records, then told to go home, wait for next appointment! Received letter saying next appt. at new premises. Gets there, at new posh buildings, only to find a huge Poster in the window saying A4E ARE NOT IN THIS BUILDING! Bloke from upstairs said "go back to the job centre, this has been happening for the past 3 weeks now!
Long story short, that was a while ago, and am still waiting to be told when new premises operational. Meanwhile have had telephone appointments with A4e in another town. No explanation, as to whats happened, nobody knows anything! I had telephone appt. yesterday, only to be told, sternly, I should make the effort to get there, after being previously told, telephone appointments would be the norm, until new premises open! Also, could I email my CV, as they have lost all their records!!
The so called WP, I have found to be hysterical, distressing and demeaning. Certain. WP Advisers have been very rude to me and lack social skills. This has done nothing to improve my depression and severe anxiety, not to mention finding employment. I have two sole dependants, with no family or friends to turn to in moments of crisis and am living in total fear of sanction.
Sounds highly dodgy- I would never give my login details to an A4e adviser. However, I have witnessed an adviser choosing and making a record of the password used by someone whose first language is not English. She also loudly repeated the lady's password to her, which meant that anyone in the jobsearch room who had questionable morals could have then had access to that lady's account. I have also witnessed more than one A4e adviser loudly broadcasting customers' email addresses across the room, which displayed a complete disregard for confidentiality.
DeleteI agree that there are A4e advisers who lack social skills (eg by discussing confidential information in particularly loud voices), which is ironic, as a common stereotype about jobseekers is often that they are supposedly in that position because they lack social skills.
If you feel client confidentiality is being breached, note the names being bandied around and by whom. Make a formal complaint to the DWP and also ask them how many other complaints of the same nature have been made. Did the same myself a couple of years back when an A4e "advisor" was discussing a client's criminal record with her colleague within a few feet of myself - Judging by staff reaction a couple of weeks later, some butts had been kicked \o/
DeleteIf A4e are claiming to have "lost data", perhaps a formal complaint should be lodged with the ICO - If A4e can not provide information on this data loss, there is no way of knowing what has happened to the information. Was it ineptitude of staff pressing the 'delete' button, or was the system hacked and data deleted in order to hide an intruder's trail... Until such time as a satisfactory response is received, grounds for refusing to disclose any more personal information...
Log everything, with dates and conversations. Get the name of the person you're dealing with (full name). Repeat back to him or her the instructions you've been given, whether this is by phone or in person. If you like, send me a NFP comment with the details of the place where this is happening and I'll try to make some enquiries.
ReplyDeleteI attended my MWA Induction with A4E at the Charity,the A4E rep wanted me to sign a form(we were in a group of 6) he stated that it was a release form for having our photos used,if we did not want then used to put an X in the proper box,I queried why in the middle paragraph it stated "I authorise A4E to contact any future employer" I was then accused of being disruptive,I pointed out that I was mandated to be here,had no reason to sign any release form and believed that this would be used to try and claim a outcome payment in the future....needless to say the meeting went down hill from there! Tricky Ba£tards.
ReplyDelete