Lies, Damn Lies and the Work Programme part 2

Here is an article, found on Twitter, from the Shaw Trust commenting on the first year of our beloved Work Programme. Some parts of this I do not like.

"I can best describe the Shaw Trust and its Work Programme by talking about our new office in Stafford. From that base – so new that we can smell the paint on the walls – we operate the Work Programme (a government-supported service that helps clients prepare for, find and remain in work) and Work Choice provision (the government’s specialist employment programme for disabled people)."

I can also describe the Shaw Trust: they were happy for me to self refer to them a few years ago and have me sign forms enabling their funding. But when it came to actually providing real help, particularly when I asked about making a living selling stuff on Amazon (hey, I thought it was a good idea!) they didn't want to know. In fact they did absolutely nothing. Still what do I know? Mine is but one experience.

Work Choice is just a lighter, 6 month, version of the WP for people with disabilities. I have commented on almost being referred to it in January. I refused after realising that a) it wasn't what it was cracked up to be and b) if I didn't get a job after 6 months of this I'd end up on the WP anyway. It's just another scheme with another buzzword title run by the same old providers. Business as usual.

"We provide what we call ‘person-centred’ support to our clients, helping them into jobs and the increased independence that employment brings. Our Stafford base includes a café and a charity shop – one of 50 that the Shaw Trust runs throughout the country. The manager of our shop is actually an alumnus, and both our shop and café provide work experience opportunities for our clients to develop skills in a real-world setting."

I have no idea what 'person-centred' actually means. It's just more americanised corporate sounding buzz-bollocks. Every provider will claim they are 'person-centred'. It's meaningless. 

Lucky how the Shaw Trust has a ready supply of 'volunteers' for it's cafe's and shops. Nice to know you don't have to pay them a wage!

"In the West Midlands, Serco is the prime provider of the Work Programme provision. Combining forces means we can add range and scope, plus commercial nous, to our shared enthusiasm for tackling unemployment."

So you aren't providing it there at all then, and all your buzz-bollocks and hype is meaningless to the people of the West Midlands, victims of the Serco Work Programme postcode lottery. This business of being able to sell your commitment seems to me wholly at odds with the enthusiasm for supporting people you talk about in this article. I find this whole ability to just shirk your responsibilities by means of subcontracting really quite odious. Perhaps I could subcontract my commitment to someone else?

"Is it perfect? Well, no."

Says it all really.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests that we’re seeing clients on the Work Programme – especially those with both diagnosed and, more often, undiagnosed mental health or learning problems – who may be better served by Work Choice."

I'm not sure I like where this is headed. You providers all jumped at the chance to get your fingers into the public purse through this scheme and now when you find it's not quite the golden goose, the cracks start to appear. We all know this was a scam, and here you are telling us that vulnerable people are finding it tough. Well blow me down, really?

"However, when you take into account the continued stormy economic waters and weak labour markets in many of the areas in which we work, we’re proud of what we’ve achieved over the past year."

Why didn't you lot take these factors into account instead of placing claimants into precarious positions where they can find themselves the victims of a draconian sanction regime at the whim of WP staff?

"One key part of our goal is to help people stay in employment. During the first 12 months of the Work Programme, we’ve seen a customer on ESA (Employment and Support Allowance) start and stay in employment for 11 months in the same job – and counting. "

I suppose it would be churlish for me to criticise - but seriously? A month into the WP's existence and one person finds a job (with no evidence provided by you that he found this directly because of your intervention) that has lasted almost a year. Sorry but that's not good enough at all. Not compared to all the hype we've had to listen to from the industry and from the government. Especially when we're told we need tough love and not actual support and protection from vicious economic backdrafts caused by capitalists.

"But on the other hand, we’ve seen JSA (Jobseeker’s Allowance) customers start six or seven jobs, simply to obtain the milestone of six months in sustained employment."

Now this is the reason I'm posting about this at all. This is disgraceful; it seems to be saying that the provider (and probably a lot of them) is able to claim their payment from a customer if that customer has managed a enough jobs to meet the 6 month requirement. That is not how this is supposed to work; it's meant to be a single job that's sustained long term (6 months). This is a scam!

"We need to exploit every opportunity to support our clients in the right ways, so they develop the right skills for the right long-term jobs for them. "

An unfortunate choice of word - exploit. But it's clear to me that the industry and the WP is not remotely interested in developing anything, let alone the right things. Evidently, even from this article, it seems they are more interested in making a fast buck.

Lies, Damn Lies and the Work Programme part 1 (edit)

Today is signing day. My appointment was 9:55, booked for me by the adviser I saw last time without asking me if it's convenient given the bus schedule. I'm supposed to be seen by a particular adviser called Hilary at a particular time called 10am. Quibbling over five minutes isn't really a big deal although it does mean I turn up a couple of minutes late. Ironically, and typically, the JC is also running late. This is because they are routinely short staffed on Fridays and don't seem to have much interest in rectifying that - as a Jobcentre! Quite why my appointment was set at 10am when they knew full well they have to rebook it, adviser too, each time, I don't know. Their computer systems are a joke, but what's the point in arguing.

Anyway I get signed, but in the process I'm asked about the Work Programme. Stupidly, though I didn't feel I had much of a choice, I told them I hadn't been seen since April. I don't really like bullshitting anyway, it always comes back to haunt you - and why should I, I've done nothing wrong. Apparently however that's not the case: I was warned that I could be sanctioned if I didn't contact them. The adviser explains to me that it's now the case (again, apparently) that, even if the provider does nothing to help you nor contacts you, that you can be sanctioned! Fortunately for me, I suppose, she didn't do this.

I asked for evidence of this and was provided with this form. However the notice I was given is supposed to be provided when you are sent to the Work Programme (so not new then), it's WP01MA4 (v1.1 August 2011 - so again not new then).

Essentially it's a broad and vague 'contract' that tells you what you are meant to do on the Work Programme:

"Your responsibilities whilst on the Work Programme are to:

• make the most of the help your provider gives you
• treat the provider and other participants politely, fairly and considerately
• attend meetings or take phone calls at the times agreed
• completely any activities the provider tells you to do
• tell JC+ about any change in your circumstances, and
• if you claim JSA, attend the Jobcentre every two weeks and continue to be available for and actively look for work. This is on top of anything that your provider tells you to do. You must still meet all of the usual conditions to get your benefit.

Your benefit may be affected if you don't meet these requirements."

So again we have the threats, vague but obvious (there's no 'may' about it; if you don't do these things - you will lose your money). Never mind the contradiction in being told you have to be available for work and still sign on while also having to do whatever your provider tells you to do (i.e. workfare). This is so much shit.

No mention of the word mandatory here. It simply says you must do as you are told; it doesn't explain that mandatory requirements have to be made thus according to specific procedures, nor does it say that ma mandatory activity has to be part of the action plan (though they may well have changed that. Best to look here and here to find out more). It also doesn't say, in any way, that I have to contact them. Not at all. I knew it wouldn't, but I wasn't going to argue the point.

So the crux is again that the JC can just accuse you of not 'engaging' with the process through the most vague and broad definition of non compliance, even though there are specific rules put out by the DWP to providers to follow. You can easily it seems be accused of non compliance, have your money stopped, and then referred to a proper decision maker who may (or may not - if you're very lucky!) concur. This issue of 'not engaging' seems just broad enough of a brush to cover anyone for anything (or nothing). This is wrong. 

What the document says about sanctions:

"What do do if you get a sanction

Even if you have a sanction and your benefit is affected, you should still attend the Jobcentre and meet your Work Programme provider every time you are asked to. If you fail to do so, you may lose your benefit for a longer period or your claim may be closed.

If you keep in touch with your provider, they will still help you to find a job. We want you to stay with the Work Programme because we're committed to giving you the best possible help to find a job."

So how do i afford the bus fare (never mind if it gets refunded by the WP) to sign on and see my provider while my income is taken away from me? Also it says here that I have to meet my provider when they ask; again nothing about me contacting them. What's this about closing claims? Sanctions aren't meant to do that, they are simply a period within which you get no benefit. I know you are (somehow) meant to sign on in order to maintain your claim though. That must be what they mean. Bit of a joke really; you have no money so how can you sign on?

"How a sanction affects JSA

A sanction means that your JSA is stopped for a fixed number of weeks. Sanctions last longer if you've already had a sanction before.

Your sanction could be ended early if your provider can give us evidence to show that you are serious about meeting your responsibilities for the rest of the Work Programme. To do this, you should meet with your provider.

The earliest that JC+ can review your sanction is after four weeks."

So that's a month you have to starve and somehow find bus fare to even be in a position to grovel to your new master. This is appalling.

"How a sanction affects ESA

ESA is made up of two parts; the basic rate and a work-related part. If you get a sanction, the work-related part will be cut by half for the first four weeks and in full after this until you complete the activity set by your provider."

Note that on ESA providers are supposed not to compel claimants to do things they can't cope with (why that doesn't apply to everyone I don't know). The activity must be 'reasonable in your circumstances'.

Finally I'll post this:

"What you can expect from the Work Programme

As part of the Work Programme you can expect to:

work with your provider and discuss what help you need to prepare for and find work as well as things you'll do to improve your chances of getting a Job, and 

be treated politely fairly and considerately.

Additionally the provider will:

keep your personal data secure and will not share it with any unauthorised third parties

comply with current legislation including the Equality Act 2010, and

not discriminate against you because of your age, race, gender, disability or sexual orientation."

Hilarious. We'll ignore the Salvation Army's biblical view of sexual orientation. Of course it does none of these things. Which is why I won't be contacting them.

Chewing the fat

Taking a break in between rainstorms to do my shopping on a different day, I'm on the bus (when it eventually showed up) listening to the dull witted tones of Radio Bristol's cretinous weekday morning current affairs phone in. I really don't know why I do this to myself, but I like to believe that one day we'll get a sensible discussion, or at the very least a sensible caller. 

Not today though. The topic comes from the news that local school teachers are feeding kids out of their own pocket because there are so many, now, that aren't getting fed properly. There are also over subscribed breakfast clubs as well. But instead of a sensible objective discussion we get the usual right wing cliches propagated at the very least tacitly by a moron presenter. It seems as though the only people that ever get through are just right wing curtain twitchers in their later years who hark to a golden day that never truly existed outside of the populist press. One cretin even suggested docking the benefits of those that didn't feed their kids properly while every caller was asked 'is it responsibility or poverty', because of course these issues are so simplistic. Of course all the parents of these unfed waifs are lazy. Of course they spend their benefits (what else?) on Sky/Fags/Booze/Plasma TV/Something I Don't Approve Of. So of course these kids are starving because their parents are schmucks.

On and on it goes. It's so simplistic it beggars belief. Why do they even bother? But of course they are all hard working (that can't be called into question either) and in this age of austerity these people are all beleaguered hard workers programmed to resent where their taxes are going. Blah blah blah.

And this is the level of discussion we get: points of view as insane as docking benefits to people that aren't feeding their kids - apparently. How would that even work? No doubt 'the caller' will volunteer to check on those whose curtains are not open at the prescribed hour and tick his list under that address so as to set the sanction in motion. For fuck's sake.

Then there's the luxuries myth: Sky TV subscriptions where people have then are set up yearly. If a claimant has a Sky dish (which is no guarantee they have an active subscription, we don't) then it's likely the account has already been paid for the year, and that could have been when the person was working or could otherwise afford it. Tearing down the dish and ringing Mr Murdoch won't achieve anything because the money has already been paid. Fags and booze are addictive and yet we are quite happy for the government to profit from their sale - and yet we criticise people that partake of these legal vices when it suits us. I find the criticism of people that smoke and drink entirely hypocritical. Now of course there is some truth to the argument that people shouldn't smoke or drink particularly if they can't afford it, but that, again, is rife with ignorance. These are addictions and not just physiologically but socially. It will take more than the punitive attitude of the curtain twitching prudes that call local radio to change this. What about some support or compassion; some carrot and not stick. Oh, but that costs money. Any perceived luxury, such as a TV or a games console (no matter how cheap or when they were acquired) is seen as undeserved.

Meanwhile and finally I'm in Tesco doing my shopping wishing to god I had the money to afford all the foods that the idiot on the radio considers 'cheap'. They are not intrinsically cheap. The prices set by supermarkets even within their own brand vary depending on the area, consequently I have to travel to town because a) it's cheaper and b) the local shops out in the sticks don't have enough anyway. To cap it all off Tesco have ruined their cheap chicken legs so that now they cram as many as they can into a pack. Instead of 3 decent cuts for a couple of quid, there are now at least 4 skanky fatty yet tiny cuts for the same amount. That's the choice we on the dole have to make and most of the time it's hobson's choice. Budgeting is out of teh question for reason's I've explained before: that is, the sanction-happy presumtpion of guilt regime means I can't spend as much on weekly shopping as I want because I have to put some by on the assumption that I will get my benefit stopped next time I sign on. This can happen even on the basis of just a doubt, before a decision to sanction is made so if I don't put some by (for all the good it will do, I may have to wait months before a decision is made leaving me in financial limbo) I'm screwed. 

There's your breakfast. Choke on it, BBC.

Where is the change?

What is happening? Over the weekend I've been overloaded with negativity from the press. I feel punch drunk. Last year the Occupy movement was beginning to blossom. This year it's all but gutted. Where is the change? All the seems to exist are fringe activists who either bicker amongst themselves or believe rabid conspiracy/racist (ie anti semitic) rubbish? I've watched a bevy of youtube clips of people who claim to be free men on the land; people that think the law doesn't apply to them when it comes to driving without proper registration or insurance. People that have no idea of the law who often end up in the nick or espousing other rabid conspiraloon views, like 911 was an inside job. I don't want anything to do with crazy views, yet who else is providing an alternative, something - anything? I want truth, I want honesty. I can't function without it.

It began with the news that the government is going to be introducing a mandatory 35 hour a week jobsearch requirement off the back of its new job website. So it seems that claimants, perhaps even before Universal Credit launches, will have to register onto a website and submit all their personal details so their 35 hour requirement can be monitored and recorded. This is found in the jsa-draft-regs-2012-memorandum (no link sorry):

"18. We expect claimants to do all they reasonably can to give themselves the best
prospects of moving into work. In line with this, in order to be treated as meeting
the work search requirement, we propose that claimants are expected to have
spent 35 hours a week (or their number of hours, if less, as agreed by the
Secretary of State) looking or preparing for work. Claimants are required to spend
their expected hours of work engaged in work-search with deductions for the time
a claimant spends improving their employability by:

carrying out paid work
carrying out voluntary work (for up to 50 per cent of their expected hours of
work search)
carrying out a work preparation requirement."

I don't know when this is due to come online; whether it's part of the Jobmatch project or whether it's going to be part of the Universal Credit regime. I find it pays to assume the worst with the DWP.

How the fuck are people going to do this? Even if you lived in a bustling metropolis with state of the art Internet access and a reasonably good pc you'd struggle to fulfil this in any meaningful way. Never mind if you live in the middle of the countryside and only have access to the Internet, and health issues that make looking on these often piss poorly designed sites a fucking nightmare. 

I spent Friday evening (as I do every evening) looking on the DWP website and something snapped. We all know that site is a load of poorly designed shit, but for someone that has ADD or similar (and doesn't read off of screens very well - i have to write this on over sized text and it takes me fucking ages) it's horrendous. After about 30 minutes I just couldn't take it anymore. I don't expect this to make any sense to anyone nor to even be believed - these days any excuse is seen as scrounging so why bother. But if I had to do this for 7 hours a day I'd jump off a cliff! And to do it every weekday at least! This just goes to show how out of touch these people are; they don't consider anything other than 'people out of work should work, ergo jobsearching should equate to a full time job', which is a fundamentally flawed premise, yet one they've used to design policy. A lot of people will fail this and I suspect even front line staff will struggle. I can't imagine most Work Programme providers will offer 7 hours a day every day jobsearch to all their claimants, but I guess the DWP expects that's what they will do (it will certainly increase the costs of running the Work Programme).

Then we get Gategate - the Andrew Mitchell affair. 

What a squalid little man. He has some history behaving like a tyrant (he is a Tory after all; the sense of self importance is inbred). Now I wouldn't care about someone losing their temper and swearing, I do it often enough. But when this government is happy to lock up kids as it did last year for the exact same thing, then I have a problem. Yet again we aren't in it together; it's another case of 'do as we say not as we do', even though Boris Johnson thinks people that abuse the police should be incarcerated.

And for the libdems sorry seems to be the easiest word to say. Yet I notice that he isnt' apologising for failing a decent pledge, he's apologising for having made it in the first place. Great stuff. Not only that, but his apology is delivered with dreadful acting and complete insincerity. He isn't just false, he's pathetic. It's a facile laughable performance like an amateur actor with no clue as to his lack of talent. That he's happy for a parody version to be released 'for charity' just shows how stupid he is. It's all a bit of a hoot. No, Nick, we're laughing at you, and we're doing so because you and your cabal of supine liars have singularly enabled the Tories to decimate the country.

Just this morning I get an email from 38 degrees telling me about impending local NHS privatisation with the forming of a CCG to replace, presumably the PCT. Virgin have already got the go ahead to provide child care locally. This is unacceptable to me, completely unacceptable. When it reaches your local services then it really starts to hit home just how serious this is, but what power do we have? Where was the opposition when we needed it? Where were you then Clegg? 

It's a real struggle right now. I hope I'm not the only one. I just feel so powerless against this awful government. Have a look at this; it's a fantastic video but it leaves a sour taste. Not because of the genius of the UKUncutters involved, I take my hat off to them totally, but that the venal cunts they are mocking just don't care. They don't care, in fact they are happy to regard the protesters as trespassing scum, looking down on them with naked contempt. A bunch of toffs including Britain's top tax avoidance expert who's being toasted on the eve of his retirement all enjoying a nice expensive meal in a large manor estate; the kind of food and lodging the rest of us will never see the inside of (except through the lens of a UK Uncut camera). This is wrong, so very deeply wrong. These people just don't care!

Doubtful

This is a story I came across a couple of days ago, though it's dated from last month. Consequently I don't know the final outcome and hope the person concerned has gotten a proper resolution. It's an interesting insight into the nature of the sanction regime. 

What seems to have happened is that Mrs Wilkes, in falling foul of the increasingly ubiquitous jobsworthian mentality at the DWP (I guess it's easier for these people to sleep at night this way), has been sanctioned by default. 

Firstly her claim is called into question for no good reason, but the adviser is apparently allowed to just 'question' it as they see fit. Querying this only makes their opinion harden and so the 'doubt' is sent behind the scenes upstairs to a decision maker. Yet in the meantime her benefit is stopped. I have long suspected, having been told this by the DWP years ago, that this is now normal practise: guilt is presumed and, before even a decision can be made officially, the customer is effectively sanctioned. This is wrong on every level and must be opposed. Yet, despite all their claims to Labour being the party of the scrounger, it was Labour that introduced these tougher rules.

But it gets worse, at the time the article is written Mrs Wilkes is still waiting for that decision. She was 'sanctioned' in May, yet by August all she knows is that she should hear a decision in September. This is extraordinary: if they decide(d) against her she would only get sanctioned for two weeks. This is because it's her first 'offence' and we know what the rules are because that nice Mr Grayling wrote to us all a month or so ago telling us (in the wake of the court hearing about workfare, remember?) that a first transgression is a two week sanction. So where is the justice? Doubtless the DWP will argue that all due benefit will be backdated, but that doesn't help the claimant in the here and now - especially one with a disabled husband for god's sake! How can it be right that the DWP, through its own mealy mouthed feckless shirking, can simply call a halt to someone's claim on the basis of a 'doubt' without even an official decision first (this of course assumes that the decision maker will find in the claimant's favour).

The nasty part of this is that it allows the DWP, deliberately or otherwise, to circumvent the sanction rules. Thus a two week first offence bears a much more punitive consequence, all because of the DWP's intransigence, ignorance and incompetence. Will the adviser in question bear any liability? Will the DWP throw claimants like this a bone in lieu of a decision that should have been made 4 months earlier? I think we can guess.

Of course this all assumes that Mrs Wilkes is indeed innocent. But then why should I assume otherwise? I don't know her, but I, like you, know what the DWP are like. Perhaps this is a deliberately punitive tactic? Maybe it's just the system unable to cope anymore, no thanks to the Fuhrer, IDS. Either way it matters not. What's important is that people are being adversely affected by a heartless system.

Karmackenzie

I hope I'm not the first to post this, but who cares. This is fucking glorious!

Payback's a bitch Kelvin, enjoy!

Better Than That

Last week the people of Walthamstow, somewhere i've never been, stood against the knuckle draggers of the EDL. They made a stand against fascism and in particular the confused, media manipulated, ideology of a group of idiots and thugs who lack not just the intelligence buyt more importantly the will to stand up and think for themselves. Unfortunately this happened.

Understand this: I have no sympathy for the EDL and their shady leader 'tommy robinson' (which isn't his real name either, it's Stephen Yaxley Lennon). I am not going to waste my breath excoriating his ignorance and the antics of those that idolise this clown. Their actions are worthy of the same criticism as the moron that threw a brick that could have killed someone. There is no excuse for this. 

Of course I must caveat that by saying I do not know who threw that brick; I am open to believing it could have come from someone that had nothing to do with the UAF, it could have come from a Muslim just as it could have come from a non-Muslim. It could even have come from an agent provocateur - I've heard too many stories about such behaviour to regard the existence of such people as political myths. 

However there is no excuse for stooping to the same level as the sort of neanderthal scum that behave like this. That's what the EDL are capable of, we don't need to become them to fight them. I get that the left has a serious disadvantage in this day and age, after decades of capitalist right wing propaganda and divide and rule. But if we play their game their way, we give them all the ammunition they will ever need. That, in my view, is a price worth paying. Maybe, as a white non Muslim person, that's easy for me to say; I can only speak for myself. 

What will happen is this: the EDL will call the protesters, tarring the whole community with the same brush (they aren't smart enough to do any less), apologists for terrorism and 'islamists' (whatever that actually means). The attitude of the right towards the Muslim community is typically fascist (and I am no fan of any organised religion, by the way). 

In the post 9-11 climate it has constantly demanded that it police itself. The right always demands that moderate members of the Muslim community do the job of rooting out the radical elements. This is a dangerously alluring argument but ti's pure divide and rule; it's the same argument that's used to justify confidential phone lines to shop people that might be committing benefit fraud. It's the same that informs people attacking their disabled neighbours. And of course the right doesn't believe there are moderate Muslims precisely because, in their eyes, the Muslim community doesn't police itself.

Of course there are radical elements in any and all communities: the EDL is proof of that. Consequently the brick throwing could be easily explained if not completely justified. But if the left is going to allow such spectacular own goals then it opens itself to that kind of fascist criticism and that cannot be allowed.

Don't get me wrong; don't ever make the mistake of thinking I'm not hardline when it comes to revolutionary politics in this country. We need a sea change in just about every aspect of society; we need better attitudes toward everyone. We have got to move away from the politics of envy, scarcity, fear, division and competition, and toward a society where people do not judge each other, do not seek to set people against each other and where there is abundance and compassion. Those are values I find at odds with throwing bricks at cretins. 

Don't also make the mistake of thinking me naive. I don't claim to be a scholar of any kind of political thinker or expert. I have never read Marx. I know what I know from my own reading and experience and from there I make my stand. I am intrinsically aligned to the left because I find the politics of the right to be fundamentally flawed and destructive: exactly the qualities I list above. I also understand that getting rid of those qualities will be difficult precisely ebcause the left is at a disadvantage thanks mainly to the power of the media and the politics of the forces that dominate and control it. But we cannot resort to street thuggery, we really can't. That's the purview of the EDL and groups like them, and they alone are more than enough.