Stuff Yer Jobs!

I'm being a bit naughty and I don't care, though sadly not in a particularly saucy or interesting way. Instead I'm not going to apply for a couple of the jobs I've just seen on the DWP website. This, quite simply, is because they are shit. If that makes me a terrible person and an irresponsible citizen then tough shit. It's a sunny day and humans were not up on this earth to apply for crappy part time admin jobs at the other end of the nearest city in some ghastly industrial estate. No doubt this is exactly the sort of thing that fuels the dreams of people like IDS and Chris Grayling. Clearly I am a shirker and a feckless layabout not worthy of state support. But is it really worth applying for a job that isn't going to even pay enough to allow me to 'contribute' and to 'pay my way', which is the big deal about working - so I'm told. Can I live on £85 a week? I wouldn't apply for it if it were 850 quid a week (irrelevant really since that is never going to be the case).

At a wage like that you are at best treading water: you are doing nothing more than redistributing wealth. Why bother? It's not like the job is vital to the infrastructure and wellbeing of this society (It's selling petfood wholesale). Just another crummy, poorly advertised DWP jobsearch website advert. My only option is to pursue jobsearching like this and it's something I find actually quite difficult. Of course that means nothing, because when you are out of work nothing is difficult, no matter what your problems might be (including learning difficulties and eyesight that is growing increasingly incompatible with using a VDU).

I suppose all jobs are ultimately just redistributing wealth: taking Petfood Co.'s profits and sharing them out like some kind of neocapitalist robin hood! But if you aren't even earning enough that you are paying tax and NI (or at least your employer is, on your behalf, so you don't actually contribute anything to the welfare kitty even if you do work!) then really what are you doing? If it's something you enjoy doing then fair enough I suppose, though I question whether that's a good enough excuse these days. Is it about that misplaced sense of pride called the 'work ethic'? That's also bullshit: it's just a means of social control, like Jesus or Father Christmas (you'd better be good for goodness sale...). Pride comes from doing something well that you enjoy for its own sake. I enjoy playing and practicing my bass guitar. It takes discipline and effort, but the likelihood that would ever be recognised by my new friends at the Salvation Army is extremely unlikely. Why; well because there's no money in it.

It seems to be all about wealth creation: growth. We must have growth, especially now the economy (that other fictional construct) has tanked again. But even when the economy was 'fine' we needed growth. But that's unsustainable. The Tories make great political capital out of castigating the last government for their apparent fiscal recklessness while hoping we'll forget they are no different. They are all for growth. They are all for wealth creation - and they are all for curtailing its distribution. What then is the point of wealth creation if we don't share it? I suppose the answer to that is obvious - but only if you're a banker (another member of the Barclay's Gang has just received another golden handshake to the tune of millions). Not much redistribution there (the best thing that could have happened to Barclays, with respect to their being fined, was that the customers had their debts wiped, because instead the cost of paying that fine will be passed down).

It seems to me that wealth creation is a bit like painting a house. Only instead of that being a finite job where, once done, you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour - a nicely painted house - you keep painting. It never stops: day after day you apply a fresh coat of paint. That's the message. We must continue to create wealth, wealth creation (i.e. The City, banking) is the beating heart of the neoliberal capitalist society. It is the only economy worth a damn; unemployed people with artistic skills perhaps even some musical talent aren't worth a damn, and if they can't be bothered even applying for a job that does nothing more than what they already do then they can go to hell. We must create wealth! The problems are that the wealth is never redistributed, making the whole exercise pointless for the rest of us, and that it's akin to chasing the end of the rainbow - we must have more and more and more!

So I decline these crap jobs. Not because I don't care to contribute anything to help my fellow citizens (we've just wasted 11 billion to pay to allow the world's worst corporate entities to stick their logs all over London and tell everyone what to eat wear and drink for god’s sake!). Instead because I care too much about my own pride and self worth to be a slave to a dead economic system. There is functionally no difference between redistributing Mr Petfood's profits (a concept that seems to exist only for its own gratification) and returning my benefit money to the source by way of Tescos and Santander!

Olympic Welfare Question

Well we are now in orbit of the sun itself. We are so close now we daren't even open our eyes the light will instantly burn our corneas right ouf of our heads. The heat is unbearable. The Olympics are upon us. 7 years of corporate deals, back room handshakes and the engineering of capitalist privilege masquerading as sportsmanship. It's sad really, to see all those young kids conditions by this juggernaut into becoming less athletes and more corporate tools. Is Jessica Ennis an athlete, or is she a model? Does she even care, or is she looking forward to her inevitable honour from the Queen like that cyclist bloke: Sir Chris Hoy - not quite what King Arthur envisaged when he founded the Round Table!

To help Jessica understand what's really going on, perhaps she should read this. She could also listen to this, as I am doing right now.

I am not going to go into the Olympics per se, nor am I going to dissect all the nasty little corporate/political actions undertaken on behalf of Lord Coe (lord of...running?) and his personal juggernaut. What is clear is the Olympics has nothing to do with sport, sportsmanship, or competition. I suspect we all knew this already; it's patently obvious. But more than that, it now strikes me that this is a front for all the equally nasty corporate social engineering that politicians know they could never get away with any other time. Actions like community displacement (and allowing their bankster chums to get hold of these lands afterwards, for their own ends). 

I'm not an investigative journalist (I'm far too lazy for that). So I'm just going to raise this question: regarding the government's plan to socially cleanse the poor through benefit/housing benefit caps, is it then a coincidence this is happening in the same year as the Olympics? Could IDS have pursued such a harsh agenda (remember even Boris Johnson, of all people, called it social cleansing!) had he not been able to act within the shadow of the Olympics?

What's Wrong With Everything 2 - Job Search

I've just done a job search for the day.

Granted it didn't take me the 8 hours that Camerot-in-hell and his think tank cronies would like, but then why should it. I look online at corporate websites including the DWP's own toilet of a database.
Frankly my head just spins.

Einstein is reported to have said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. That is exactly the definition of jobhunting with the Work Programme (or, more accurately, in spite of it, as they don't help at all). I look at the same pages, the same poorly designed career/recruitment sites and it's a mindfuck of corporate bullshit, images of happy clappy people all in some joyful action pose, like action man on MDMA. The same results,over and over. The same poorly placed links, the same stupid ad copy that I cannot read (literally, my eyesight and my ADD make parsing the "you will be a dynamic dynamo within our dynamic company. Are YOU excited by targets? That wasn't a question, because we know that YOU are!"

Where is the help? Where is the support? At best the WP just transposes the venue for this headache inducing, if brief, endeavour to somewhere most likely less suited to your needs, with completely inadequate resources. All so the people that work there can continue to do so - and for what? It's a feedback loop that is destroying the spirit of people like me and driving others to the very brink of self destruction. If you think that's melodramatic, go sign on and find out for yourself. There was no thought given to the provision beyond how much money can be made. Customers, for that is what we are, have no say in where they go or whom they see.

Meanwhile in rural communities the decline continues unabated: cuts to vital bus routes are like a hardening of societal arteries. Vital community care links and services, such as CAB outreach and human contact for the elderly, are threatened. And nobody cares.

I don't know how much more of this I can take. Every other week, when the shadow of signing on looms, I worry that this might be the week I get sanctioned. I try to do what I can, according to the rules, but it's not easy. A Jobseekers Agreement sets out the terms and conditions of my entitlement to the difference between survival and destitution, but no contract can withstand contact with the labour market, so all it takes is for one week's requirement not to be met and for me to be seen by someone not in the mood to act human and...bang, that's it. Game over. It might sound, again, melodramatic. But this is the reality of life on the dole, it's impossible to plan ahead because you simply do not know if you are going to fall foul of a system that can just, seemingly at random, decide you 'haven't engaged' with the WP (despite it not engaging with you) or that 'a doubt has arisen as to your entitlement', without so much as a word of explanation. Don't think they will look to discuss things with you ahead of time, don't think they will be reasonable, and don't think they will be flexible, rules is rules guv.

Hollow

I got a letter from my doctor today. He wasn't happy that I'd decided to cancel the appointment with the Asperger people (this despite him telling me that he didn't believe I had Asperger's). To be fair, I think that it's more likely that I have ADD, not Aspergers. But it makes no difference. There's no point. Getting a diagnosis won't make a damned bit of difference, and as I said to the GP last time: if you think I need a sick note then write one now, because I won't be any difference post-diagnosis. 

All a diagnosis would do is tell me what I already know; wehter it's called Aspergers or ADD or whatever makes no difference, I know the issues I have and I know there's no support available. So why waste my time traipsing around town in pursuit of something that might not even come out in my favour? Even DLA is being canned by this government. The bottom line is that I would still have to face the WCA, which I would most certainly not pass - and, if by some miracle, that did happen, I would only end up where I am right now. The Work Related Activity Group. That means remaining on the Work Programme and getting zero support. Quite frankly given how the WP has no training or ability to deal with mental health issues, getting a diagnosis means nothing, and that is the point. It won't make a jot of difference. My GP even agrees that I should be in the WRAG, but at the same time he simply will not write a sick note. Even when I explain to him that in order to get into that position a sick note must be issued to start the process, he just will not. The system along with the media propaganda has convinced him that writing sick notes is signing someone's death warrant; that a sick note means the exact opposite of offering support - even when I explain to him the reality.

This is half the battle: people in key positions, like doctors, just do not understand the reality. They have an image conjured of what they expect from people and what people should do or how they should be, if they have particular issues. In his mind working is the cure to all these problems, yet he cannot even understand teh reality of the current labour market. Never mind how difficult it is for people with problems that have to compete in that inflated market for the few jobs that exist. Never mind that employers are not obliged to hire anyone they feel might be difficulty or a burden in some fashion. The reality of the situation just doesn't register; these people do not think for tthemselves. 

Instead you have to project yourself in an inanely positive fashion: I have to be seen as willing to undertake support or to find work (or both). If i say no, as I have done with this appointment, then, regardless of the reasons (which are of course ignored), then I am deemed undeserving. So despite having issues that might make being positive in this way difficult, and despite professional people that should understand this I am seen as lazy. It is almost a catch 22 situation: you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. So when I explain the realty of the Work Programme, the JObcentre and the general shit state of society it's received through the filter of 'lazy' and treated accordingly. 

The most galling thing of all is that it's been me that's made the effort to find out stuff. I made the effort to find out who could diagnose Aspergers, not the doctor. When I asked to go back to the Community Mental Health Team to see what they thought of it all, I was told they were rubbish - yet when that's perceived as my attitude I'm in the wrong! I was the one that engaged in a course of CBT that didn't work (CBT requires you develop awareness of your thinking in order to transcend and deconstruct it, but that's extremely difficult for precisely the reasons that require it in the first place), and consequently the GP then accuses me of not making the effort despite not knowing the first thing about it (I had a right go at him for that, as well). 

You have to play the game. You have to be seen to do the 'right thing'. Individual agents within all of this, be it Doctors or Work Psychologist or Job Life Coaches, however aren't interested in getting involved. They would rather fob you off to someone else. They each have their own notion of support that exists beyond them. They can't give you it directly so instead they assume it exists outside of them - go see your GP, speak to the JC, do whatever. The end result is you are sent back and forth, but no one can help, no one is interested. For all I know the CMHT may well be rubbish, but surely it's worth speaking to them? Nope, they are so rubbish that to question my GP on that is a waste of time; he's right, I'm not.

This would seem to be the Big Society in a microcosm; it all sounds great. Lots of people seem to want to help, but when it comes to the crunch it's just hollow. There's nothing there. That alone would be bad enough, yet it's exacerbated by the seeming need to blame that on you. It's as if it's your fault it's hollow: you are not making the effort. You are not doing what you should be. Yet no one wants to actually engage with you - instead it's your fault for not engaging with them.

So I won't be dealing with that GP anymore, though if I get sanctioned he will hear about it (and then some). After that letter previously I can't be bothered. Despite that letter saying that I need considerable support and despite it also seeming to say that I had failed to engage with the programme (I don't think my GP realises that has potentially real consequences, but that ignorance on his part is the problem), he still did nothing. I would never have seen that letter had I not asked him if they'd spoken to him. He wrote to them to ask what was being done to help me and that was his response. 

Again it affirms that, in his mind, I'm lazy. I would have gone and corrected him but he wouldn't have believed me so I decided not to bother. In the end it's down to me. Even though I have no power in this situation there is little point in pretending a diagnosis is going to mean a damn.

What's Wrong With Everything part 1 - Army Cuts

A new series wherein I roadtest material for my imaginary standup tour, entitled "Give me money, I'm a scrounger". 

Army cuts. Well we can't have that. Anything that threatens the esprit de corps and the proud history of our government's hired guns is a bad thing. These people serve, apparently; they serve queen and country. Ironically those are the two things that do not have a say in what they do. The country doesn't vote on wars or military misadventures, neither does the queen in whose name they kill funny looking brown people.

People say that the squaddies have no say in where they go and what they do, though I find that a bit spurious - what do people expect they are going to be doing when they are given a gun and trained how to use it. But really the idea that having no say in whom you kill and where strikes me as anything but a positive.

The government wants to cut the number of soldiers. Of course it could save money by not sending kids to fight and die in their political wars of convenience and resource control in the first place. Calling everyone back home would probably save a lot more, and also in the long run.

Actually though in lieu of common sense why not just leave them out there - or send even more people out there. The Taliban seem to be doing a good job of cutting the number of soldiers anyway; that and the complete inability of the MoD to properly resource the army in the fisrt place. I don't support the army but it seems wholly iniquitous to me to command them to fight and then give them no gear to work with - and then when they come home force them to live in shitholes and abandon them to psychological trauma, addiction, unemployment and family breakdown. Perhaps the government also thinks it can save money by leaving them to fade away in hostels, wethouses and living under bridges.

The reality of modern warfare, past all the Call of Duty style advertising, is that armies are largely a thing of the past. We aren't fighting an army in Afghanistan ('we', i hate that use of the word), we are fighting militia hidden in mountains. We didn't fight an army in Iraq (see Bill Hicks for that one) and we didn't fight an army in Libya (we dropped bombs on militia forces we hoped were the right target) - and we won't go into Syria because, actually, they have an army. 

In the era of modern terrorism, conflict comes from furtive sources - hidden bombs and suicide agents buried in crowds. How does a traditional army fight that? Do we carpet bombs on our own cities to take out a few suspected terrorists? Of course not. So maybe we don't need a large army. But we need to be fighting wars even less.

Disability and Unemployment

Today I received an email from a mental health group I had contacted to get some advice on. Unfortunately it wasn't very helpful. Not intentionally of course; in fact I have no doubt of the sender's sincerity or desire to help. It's because the prevailing wisdom, the 'pro-work' message is now fully ingrained; that arbeit macht frei. It's also because the unemployment gravy train has seeped into every aspect of the employment support 'product' that there is no escape. 

I was given a link to this: the British Association for Supported Employment, which you might think seems a noble cause. However on closer inspection it is full of unfortunate messages. The first link thereon I followed, as the email recommended, was to see what BASE could offer locally. This just sent me to a list of local Work Programme style providers, my nearest being Seetec, who already have a reputation among the Work Programme crowd. The name has popped up too many times for me to believe that here they will offer anything that is remotely different to the WP. It will be exactly the same thing, in fact as I'm on it with another equally useless provider, there's probably a conflict of interest anyway: two shit companies fighting over the same pathetic scraps of meat. Two cheeks of the same backside.

I didn't read everything on that BASE site. It may be that they are one of the exceptions in this whole mucky employment support industry. But I doubt it. They are clearly an umbrella group. But what interested me the most was watching these two videos, here, on their 'learning disabilities' page.

Ok, this may be because the page is about something specific and I accept again the good intentions behind these videos, but this just reinforces stereotypes. The first video nobly espouses the value of a job as synonymous with our needs as social creatures and our needs within a capitalist system (which is something unique to our current situation not a core part of life on this earth - a rod we have made for our own backs). There is a person with a mental health issue of some kind talking about how great it is to have a job. First things first, I fully endorse his and the rest of our rights to self determination and to feel good about the choices we make and secondly it is absolutely right that all people should be free from discrimination and prejudice within the world of work (and beyond). However this all presupposed a notion of the value of work that has reached fever pitch now. 

In this age of recession we are told to work harder and to be grateful for what slender opportunities our betters deign to favour us with. We are also told, by way of justification for the constant hammering of the welfare state, that both work, and the reduction of benefits/welfare, are for our own good. We are expected to believe that welfare is a shackle, a burden and that, if we would only rise up out of our sick beds or off our sofas, we would be better for it. This is a half truth. We are social creatures but that doesn't mean work is the only means to provide meaningful elevating interaction, nor does it guarantee that finding a job will provide healthy human contact; how many people sit at their desks ipods armed disconnected from a banal workplace? How many do jobs where there is little opportunity for such human interaction? We need money to live, so of course even the NMW seems a treasure trove compared to the pittance the dole grudgingly gives up each fortnight, accompanied by the incessant message telling us to feel bad for taking it. But again that's because we have a capitalist system that indoctrinates a belief in a lack of abundance and a need to fight for what's available, any way we can!

The second video showcases how happy a number of disparate individuals supported into work. Again each of them deserves as much respect and as much of an opportunity as anyone else. Let me make that clear, because my criticisms of this video are greater. Frankly the piece seems to reinforce a notion of people with mental health problems, or at least those with learning disabilities, as lovable simpletons. Not one of these people has a job that is anything beyond portering or wiping down tables. Even if we assume, and I'm happy to do so, that their employers (who may be acting as much out of altruism and social justice as for any financial bonanza the state offers for taking a quota of disabled employees) don't mean to sound as patronising as they do, these jobs are low rent positions. Not one of them is involved in the running of the companies in question; they are cleaning rooms, wiping tables or washing up in a kitchen. 

Ok there are going to be some that aren't going to be able to undertake more intellectually demanding positions (whatever that may mean), harsh but true. I'm not here to deny reality. But again why reinforce a stereotype? There are plenty of capable people of all levels of intelligence and education in all levels of society, and there are plenty of smart people whose intellect is not affected by the mental health issues they have. Does supported employment mean they are too going to be compelled into washing up pots and pans? Is this the best we can do? What if some of the people in that video were artistically bright, we all know that can be the case with some conditions or disabilities. Where is the support for that? I bet it's not even discussed. No chance of giving them a paint brush or a guitar and working with their talent in areas that aren't minimum wage skivvy jobs.

This depresses me. I'm not here to blow my own trumpet, but I like to think of myself as reasonably smart, even reasonably creative. But when it comes to looking for work and getting support the focus, where it exists (and it certainly doesn't on the Work Programme), is narrow. When I told my 'Job Life Coach' I was interested in writing, he couldn't dismiss it fast enough. Meanwhile you are compelled into an entirely passive, reactionary process we know as 'jobsearching', but there is no reciprocation; you are not seen by a proactive organisation that goes out to find opportunities in writing - or washing dishes, if that's your thing. They do nothing, while you are expected to find all the answers and support yourself entirely on your own. 

These videos also say that only 10% of people with learning disabilities (and that may or may not include myself, if the Work Psychologist's report, such as it was, is any indicator) will ever find work. Yet what do we do with the rest? Hassle them through JSA or through ESA until they are forced on to the former and inevitably onto the WP.

"Supported Employment is all about working out which would be the right job and becoming employed. Most people find interviews very stressful so ‘working interviews’ are often used as a sort of job trial. It’s a chance to show an employer that the person can do the job well."

Sounds great, but if there's one thing I've learned about the Work Programme and dealing with these providers it's that the reality falls far short of the rhetoric. At best I worry that the likes of the Salvation Army and it's Job Life Coaches (I'm sure every provider has it's own cute moniker for its advisers) think it's all a matter of 'confidence building'; just give them a gentle pep talk to bolster them to pull their socks up - ie it's nothing serious really.

If we continue to patronise mental health issues, even if it's now with love and not hate, then nothing really changes and people won't be supported into any kind of meaningful work. How are you contributing to society if all you are there for is to wash some pots or hoover a hotel room? Of course people need some help and of course, where limitations exist, they can't be wished away but don't presume that because someone has a learning disability or is on the autistic depression or because they are depressed or anxious or whatever it might be that the best thing they could ever hope to do is wipe a table in a burger joint and that that is all they would ever aspire to.

It's Still Great!

I chanced upon the Salvation Army's recruitment advert again yesterday and had a look at the advert details. I discussed this before here, but I don't think I looked at this stuff. 

Firstly I'll mention (again?) this trait as required by their 'Job Life Coaches':

The ability to work within the Christian ethos of The Salvation Army?

 Hmmmn. Well that ethos doesn't seem very Christian to some people, particularly in Australia. I'm not gay so I've no immediate worry about being stoned to death here, but it suggests, along with their ludicrous military affectation and archaic demeanour, they are somewhat out of touch. So anyone technically can work for them without being specifically Christian so long as they subscribe to Christian ethics. Of course ethics such as tribal Bronze Age views toward sexuality and equal rights are shared by many of the west's popular faiths, but they don't have Work Programme facilities except in church halls. How many Employment Plus services are offered in a mosque or a synagogue?

This is also definitely worth repeating:

The Job Life Coach will encourage, motivate and inspire job seekers!

...By telling them, right off the bat, they have no access to any of the things they promise, no training, education, or even computer systems with which to do the one thing they claim they do offer: good old job searching. That's something that statistically has been proven to be more effectively delivered by the jobcentre (if I could find the statistics). Thus the WP is demonstrably cost ineffective.

I certainly haven't been motivated: lied to and lied about, yes. I've had my benefit potentially put at risk (furiously hugs wood), but certainly not encouraged, motivated or inspired. Of courses these are ephemeral abilities that, when the service is pinned down, are the first to be abandoned - and how can we help those that don't engage with the system eh!

The Job description (here, it's a PDF file unfortunately) lists the following as key tasks for a Job Life Coach:

1 Manage a Case Load of customers referred by the Prime Provider
2 Prepare an Individual Action Plan with each customer, relating to barriers
identified as part of their initial interview and in-depth assessment
process

I have not received an Action Plan - remember this is the record of what is mandatory as required by the WP. That is, anything that isn't listed here isn't mandatory (assuming Grayling hasn't sneakily changed that). Of course arguing this with the DWP will probably mean you are 'not engaging' with the process. This is the dangerous part: it seems to be a wholly generic and vague phrase that can catch people out. Unfortunately that isn't how laws and systems work; everything should be clear.

3 Plan & deliver personal/life skills training (motivation, confidence
building, budgeting), work entry support - ‘Getting Ready for
Employment’

We've already seen this is non-starter: training? Life skills (What the fuck? And from a pretty traditional Christian point of view as well!) And of course more buzzwords: motivation, confidence (synonyms), building (huh?) and budgeting - what? Budgeting? They are going to tell me how to spend my £70 weekly JSA? Ok, I get that can be helpful to some people, but is that really what the WP is for? It seems that they want to extend their influence deeper into your life, which isn't surprising given that it's a faith based organisation. This is either insidious or bollocks, or insidious bollocks. Either way it's worth keeping their agenda in mind, and that they are listing services they clearly don't offer - by their own admission.

4 Carry out group and 1:1 support sessions as required by the customer and
contract

Such as? Is this the lessons on budgeting? Or the usual 'how to jobsearch' bollocks. Perhaps it will be some of the crazier shit that's going on in the WP, like offering NLP (though they'd probably think that's unchristian)! I wonder if this is the entry point for a little bit of preaching: get them when they are at their lowest and hook them onto the good book!

5 Carry out Solution Focussed Interviews with customer

Ok more spin. I have no real idea what they are talking about here.

6 Assist customer to carry out tasks to achieve identified solutions
7 Accompany customer to meetings/appointments etc if required

Er...what? Does the customer get a say in this? What sort of meetings/appointments? Do they mean signing on at the JC? Do they mean health/doctor appointments? Visits to the CAB? Where are their skills to act as advocacy in this matter? These people, as I have discovered, are not trained in these matters, and I don't recall seeing any such requirement being shown in the specifications on this same Job Description document. (3+ years experience of working with people facing multiple barriers in their life, Knowledge of barriers preventing people entering and sustaining employment, Good knowledge of local professional Support Services. Understanding of the requirements applying to working with vulnerable adults) - these are the requirements. Do you really want an advocate that is, at best, willing to work toward a 'relevant qualification' (they don't even have to have one in the first place).

8 Help build self confidence and develop life skills of customer

So far so bad. I'm not seeing much to inspire confidence yet.

9 Sign post/arrange more specialised/professional help if required (in
liaison with the Contracts Manager)

Well, I was recommended (not referred in any official capacity) to a local charity, which is fine. But that was on a false premise. I knew the charity wouldn't provide advisers to accompany me or anyone else to their WP appointments, and this was confirmed when I spoke with them. I've mentioned this before of course, but it's relevant here so I mention it again. The SA, and thus the WP, are adamant their information was correct and are using it against me - that's not paranoia either, the letter my GP received confirms this.

10 Support Customers & Employers within a employment environment with
the aim of ensuring sustained employment for the customer

Here is another sticking point: I said to adviser that the WP is meant to be about helping me find sustained employment. But what we think sustained means and what the DWP and the WP providers regard as a suitable period qualifying as sustained seems to be entirely different. 

11 Ensure all paperwork & electronic customer systems are accurate and
kept up to date, providing a quality audit trail

They failed right off the bat. In fact this is why the adviser got annoyed with me: he couldn't understand why I felt it difficult having to go through the same questions to which he already had the answers in an environment too open to discuss delicate personal matters. A lack of discretion, services and lying to my face about what he had been referred. I don't know whether him not having that info was because he chose to lie, or because his line manager (perhaps as company policy) didn't provide it, but it was ridiculous.

12 Maintain a positive relationship, built on trust, with the customer

Too late for that, sir.

13 Maintain good internal and external communications
14 To carry out any other reasonable duties as requested

So there's the SA, serving the victims of the Work Programme. The document ends with a list of specifications a suitable candidate should have, some of which I've already mentioned. Nowhere does it list any specific knowledge or training regarding mental health or health related issues of any kind. No required qualifications are needed, just, at best, a few years experience 'dealing' with people that have 'multiple barriers' (again, vague). Is this really good enough?

Help Annoy Grayling

That was all the invitation I needed.

Here's how.

The moral of the story (as I learned to my cost when I claimed ESA): you must attend the tribunal hearing if at all possible.