I haven't committed any crime like this woman has, so why do I have to do 120 hours of unpaid work?

[DeadWomanWalking]

Woman sentenced to 215 hours of unpaid work for committing benefit fraud. I'm currently having to do 120 hours of unpaid work (30 hours a week for 4 weeks) or I'll lose my benefits. So what's my crime? Being unemployed? Being poor? Completely baffled by this governments policies.

Free water?!

Yeah, right. That's why I pay £35 a month for it. And I'm incredibly tight with my water. Most if my friends with 4 DC's pay more like £50 a month!

We mostly sink wash because a sink of water is far less than a bath full. I have bought the most economical washing machine I could find. I never fill the sink more than halfway to wash up. I collect the water from my condenser tumble dryer to use in the iron. Not a drop is wasted.

Yet I still have to actually PAY for it.

It's not the same as in Scotland where your water is included in your rates.

When I was paying rateable value, I was paying £50 a month. Now I'm on a meter I've managed to drop that to £35 a month.

Sock - so does that mean that though I'm not yet getting CA, I am still an official Carer because DS3 gets DLA?

It is on the cards to apply for, but due to the reconsideration on my DLA, I'm already waiting for the DWP to add my own disability premiums back onto my IS, and I don't want to confuse them!

(Two changes at once does tend to mean that your payments arse up).

Once I have my backpay, and my disability premiums are in payment, I am going to claim CA. God knows how they will work it out, mind you.

If I get IS + disability premium + severe disability premium, then they - CA but add a bit on?!

I'm very as to what to do - tbh I think that claiming CA will be a massive headache when I get disability premiums for myself!

I disagree in principal with workfare and think that incentives in tax/ni to business would make sense to create real jobs.

However OP - 100 jobs a week is either a major exaggeration which is very counter productive to a reason argument or you are incredibly crap at job hunting - either way I think you have been given some great help on this thread if you choose to take it in a positive way

Also what jumped out at me was the fact you have been a sahm for 10 years and complain you have nothing to put on your CV - if nothing else this workfare solves that to a limited degree.

Personally I think ALL job seeckers should do voluntary work 10 hours a week - with things like charity shops, meals on wheels, feeding/reading/talking the elderly in hospitals and homes. But nothing for profit making organisations that we subsides enough with wtc.

And not as punishment or payment to the tax payer as they are tax payers but to keep people engaged in society.

an interesting document about workfare

"Personally I think ALL job seeckers should do voluntary work 10 hours a week - with things like charity shops, meals on wheels, feeding/reading/talking the elderly in hospitals and homes. But nothing for profit making organisations that we subsides enough with wtc."

I agree with Raspberryroop, who said this^^

There are lots of worthwhile "tasks" (rather than paid jobs) needing done in society. I think it's fair to ask people on benefits to spend a few hours a week doing these tasks.

But it's not £1.50 an hour is it?

Because her rent , council tax etc is also paid in benefits ? It's not just the JSA that should be taken into account here .

'Personally I think ALL job seeckers should do voluntary work 10 hours a week - with things like charity shops, meals on wheels, feeding/reading/talking the elderly in hospitals and homes. But nothing for profit making organisations that we subsides enough with wtc.'

You'd be happy with those with criminal records going into hospitals or working with elderly and vulnerable people?

No, not those with criminal records. I'd expect the usual CRBS checks to apply. There are a lot of job seekers without criminal records - probably about 99% of them.

I am not a jobseeker as my son is autistic and as such I am exempt from seeking work. However, I do carry out some voluntary work as a parent supporter and I think many jobseekers who are parents could give valuable support to other newer families.....and it could go on a CV too.

Far better than benefiting a profit making business which could afford to pay a proper wage to someone rather than getting labour for free.

Sites like this can be enormously helpful in working out the financial consequences of government-subsidised work placements.

Slap £6.19 (the minimum wage) into the weekly earnings box, and you find that a full-time employee would be generating roughly £1650 of revenue per year for the government (taking into account income tax and NI contributions from both employer and employee). If such a worker is made redundant and replaced by someone on the MWP, that is the amount of our taxes that is being wasted. In fact, it would be more than that, because the existing worker would now be unemployed, so our taxes would have to pay their JSA as well. Assuming the basic rate of £56.80 per week, that's another ca £3000 a year of our taxes down the drain. So that's about £4650 per worker per annum net cost to the public purse, which - for comparison - is a few hundred quid short of a secondary school place. So, if you were minded to be deliberately disingenuous, in the manner of a Daily Mail headline writer, you could spin this as "each workfare placement depriving my child of an education".

On top of this, a company is getting a gift in kind of £11,600 (gross salary plus employer's NI contributions) per worker per annum by being permitted to allow people to work for free in this way. There are many good reasons for paying taxes, but subsidising companies that were already extremely profitable (Tesco: £2.8bn pre-tax profit in 2012; Homebase: £41.2m in 2010; Poundland: £12m in 2009) doesn't seem to be one of them. What makes these companies more in need of our taxes than the two million people who, even if all job vacancies were filled, would still be unemployed?

Either the work needs doing, in which case these companies should be paying for it, or it does not, in which case we're simply wasting peoples' time and depriving them from gaining experience for work they might actually want to do.

This policy makes no sense from either a financial perspective or from the perspective of helping people into employment.

Couthy

Sock - so does that mean that though I'm not yet getting CA, I am still an official Carer because DS3 gets DLA?

If your ds gets DLA care at the middle or higher rate and if you wrk less than 17 hours a week or not at all( and obviously provide more than the minimum hours care req) then CA is a formality as soon as the dwp (CA) send you a letter saying you are entitled to be classed as a Carer either via payment or underlying entitlement then yes.

CA is a separate dept from the other ones you are trying to sort out but they do feed info in to each other. Its in your interest to claim if you haven't and receiving payment or status protects you from many of the income related issues you and I have talked about in the past. CA is paid mon-mon and a eligible week has to start on a Monday so if you apply online today unless they backdate ( max of 3 months off the top of my head but mega reason needed) it will be granted from coming Monday.

Oh and no you being disabled does not cause any problems being a formal dwp accepted Carer and if you are a Carer for a child then that child's money does not get reduced in any way.

Adults requiring a dwp accepted Carer do have there IS/ESA reduced but children do not even if that Carer is also receiving the same benefit or disability premium

Jakebullet - exactly the sort of thing I think people waiting for jobs could do brilliantly.
Love most of what you say Expat but don't like the implication that loads of people on JSA have criminal records or are unsuitable for voluntary/community jobs. may not have been what you meant.
If this Gov used some bloody imagination rather than whisperings from Big Business there are so many opportunities to increase quality of life for everyone that don't involve free labour for Tesco's. The conservative £3,000 that each workfare place costs on top of JSA etc , could be spent so much more creatively than subsidising BB. Stuff that really impacts on peoples lives rather than nice neat forward facing cans in date order.

The reason why it is £1.50 an hour despite getting HB is because if she were a normal employee being paid the NMW she would still recive HB and due to the employment disregard and the current system with wtc it would not be much different.

So if you have a job going pay them the legal minimum wage ( or gosh a fair living wage) and actually increase someone's income above the absolute minimum that unemployment benefits provide let them be treated as a employee rather than expect them to act like one but not be respected like one.

"Personally I think ALL job seeckers should do voluntary work 10 hours a week - with things like charity shops, meals on wheels, feeding/reading/talking the elderly in hospitals and homes."

Thanks for wanting to exploit me and my disability in your plans to improve the moral fibre of the unemployed, but actually when I'm vulnerable I don't particularly fancy being subjected to random strangers in my home.

Even if you reserve your plans for institutions, are you prepared to pay for someone to supervise these coerced randoms who don't actually want to be there while they wander round a building which is the home of dozens of vulnerable people?

This, and the impact on real, paid jobs, are the rocks upon which workfare-type schemes have foundered since time immemorial. The cost of supervision outweighs any benefit.

Hi OP. I work for a union and therefore, like lots of other people, think this whole workfare thing is rubbish. I'm a bit on the fence with parts of it-I like the idea of charity shops etc getting volunteers for a time in return for the volunteer getting some work experience and a reference. However, I know that doesn't happen! If the job centre was saying to you look, we feel maybe you need some recent work experience, here is a list of local suggestions, what do you think about doing something with them-and letting you either say no or say yes, I'll contact such and such-so your choice and voluntary then for me that's fine. Giving you a list of Tesco, pound land etc-not fine. If they need staff they should be bloody paying them at least NMW and giving them a job! Even if that's a 6 month contract.

Keep your chin up OP. as an aside, my mum did one of those job centre CV courses. The CV they made her is shit. It may be worth you starting a thread for people who work in HR and asking them to look at your CV (obviously name and address etc taken out) an critique it-they'll know what the people your CV goes to are looking for.

Sorry if you've already done similar and I'm preaching to the converted, but I know some people really struggle with CVs (generally some of the best people once IN a job too)

Good luck

*Also what jumped out at me was the fact you have been a sahm for 10 years and complain you have nothing to put on your CV - if nothing else this workfare solves that to a limited degree.

And not as punishment or payment to the tax payer as they are tax payers but to keep people engaged in society*

I agree with this. Can you not see the positives OP, small though they are - you will get to meet people, engage, show yourself willing, make contacts - compare to a student who is paying for their degree and own living costs and often desperate to get unpaid work experience because of the contacts they make. Even at my level of experience in my profession, I sometimes take on work that isn't really worth my time doing - because it allows me to create a good impression, allows me to make contacts and can be a bit of a loss leader.

Alternatively, if you don't want to do the unpaid work, don't claim benefits? Problem solved.

YANBU it's just free labour. Britain 2013 has slavery!

ParsingFancy - I have a disability plus two kids with SN - I also till recently cared for my disabled mother and husband with long term PTSD but both died last year - so have a passing perspective on disability. I at no point suggested random strangers coming into your house or forcing things on people and once again have a real bad taste in my mouth at this disrespect for people waiting for jobs. MOST people on JSA I think would be pleased if a suitable volunteer job could be found or found for themselves and was 'allowed' and covered under the legation - many as the OP as told that its not permitted. And its not to improve their moral fibre I personally think that is condescending in the fucking extreme.
Unemployment is sole destroying and isolating for the bloody majority of people, 8/10 hours week would give people some social interactions and a sense of worth which some people seam to think is worth nothing. There is a minority of scum out thier sitting on their arses just waiting for dole day but most people want a job and want dignity and would see community volunteering as worthwhile if presented in the right way with good traing, expenses paid and some recognition they are contributing to society.
And so what if it costs more than sending them to Tescos?

I want to suggest that whenever we're thinking of scenarios or solutions for other people, we're doing our thinking wrong if we're thinking of these for other people and not for ourselves. I'm guilty of this too.

It's very easy to see from our own perspective and easy to have an opinion. It's hopelessly disempowering to have your daily life decided by people with opinions and without your life experience.

Suggestions such as raspberryroop's seem reasonable in many ways:

'Personally I think ALL job seeckers should do voluntary work 10 hours a week - with things like charity shops, meals on wheels, feeding/reading/talking the elderly in hospitals and homes. But nothing for profit making organisations that we subsides enough with wtc...And not as punishment or payment to the tax payer as they are tax payers but to keep people engaged in society.'

HOWEVER...

I challenge you to replace words such as 'job seekers', 'people' and 'they' with words like 'me' and 'I':

Personally I think I should do voluntary work 10 hours a week - with things like charity shops, meals on wheels, feeding/reading/talking the elderly in hospitals and homes. But nothing for profit making organisations that I subsides enough with wtc...And not as punishment or payment to the tax payer as I am a tax payer but to keep me engaged in society.

It sounds different then. It sounds like you're talking about yourself.

I don't see why people on JSA shouldn't do some sort of work as a part of receiving it.

But it's obviously too open to abuse.

It should be done on a basis of what is beneficial to the JSA claimant-a new skill being learnt for example.

So if its beneficial and there is a job going then give it to the person pay them a legal wage and enable them to come off Jsa

Murky - I advocate for 2 disabled adults and have good connections with in a volunteering environment. I am lucky that I work for myself and have the flexibility to do this. We have enquires for lots of 'job seekers ' who have been told they are not allowed to have set times or dates for volunteering as they have to be immediately availed for work , others who cannot take part in extended training as it a contravenes whatever the word/policy of the week is at the job centre - many of which seam to be made up on the spot as they vary between advisors. Lots of thease 'people' are 50 + and may never work again if the Etonian posh boys, who couldn't spot a good economic policy if it was put up their bottoms, stay in power. They would be fantastic doing meals on wheels ( not domiciliary care) particularly in rural areas which would enable many older people to stay in their homes longer and would probably save money in the end.

I have no problem outing the word I or my children's names in anything I have written. I happen to believe if you live in a house you contribute to the house work , you live in community then the same applies.

It feels as though it isn't really going to address the problems of middle and senior management who have been made redundant

I think if I had been made redundant and was looking for work being made to do a "workplacement" might drive me over the edge