Weekly JSA grillings are a waste of time

[feellikeahugefailure]

My jobcenter is asking people to come in every week, my advisor rolls her eyes at it and apologises for dragging me in (pretty much 3 hour round trip with rubbish local buses and waiting times) and it really cuts into my time.

Its almost like they are trying to make it difficult to put people off.

Lanark...I'm outraged on your behalf. Was there someone you could complain too. You've paid into this system after all.

They want sacking...you can have their job!

Lanark2 (and others) I would love you to write a blog for Mumsnet about your experiences because there are far too many mumsnetters who have No Idea what it's like signing on these days. I've just come from a thread where a family is struggling and it's all - why can't ds get a job, why can't the dad get more hours, why can't the mother work? etc etc.

When they're all 60 and looking forward to another 15 years of working life with not enough jobs to go round maybe there'll be more sympathy.

Agree. It cost me £6 on the bus to get to my appointment. Obviously too far to walk and that really ate into my £73 a week. Horrible experience all round.

My advisor once complained to me that the JC was really busy at the moment and he was probably going to have to work late.

Everyone is entitled to moan about their job but it felt like a kick in the teeth at the time.

I found my own job.

Why isn't there a campaign about this? I can sort of understand why as whenever I have tried to do somwthing it just sinks into the murk? Surely we at Mumsnet can start campaigns to make jobcentres WORK for the unemployed?

When you are unemployed you are at your lowest ebb and could really do without being kicked when you are down. On the surface I look comfortable but I damn near dodged a bullet last year. Despite other former colleagues having PhDs and years (decades) of engineering experience some are still unemployed after 6 months.

Jobcentres should not be places which rub salt in the wound then spit on it!

It's awful, there must be easier ways of doing it in this technological age. Our job centre is 7 miles away, we have one bus there a week so unless someone has the money for a car, or a taxi, they're limited to that one day and a set time.

It must cost people who live rurally a lot of money to get there weekly.

i don't do it now because I'm cutting down my working hours but I used to attend a lot of appointments with people.

I never said I was an actual advisor unless I had to,used to just imply I was familŷ of the claiment I was often shocked by the lengths the staff went to to try and break the rules and cause issues for claims.

I now utilise the double record DWP policy and advise people to do so

I never got as far as signing on back when I was genuinely unemployed. It was so demoralising, particularly the bit where they explicitly said that my PhD write-up was less important than applying for ANY job, no matter how unsuitable. It wasn't enough to actually apply for jobs you had a reasonable chance of getting.

YABVU, don't you know that Jobseekers must be punished for being poor? That lovely Mr Iain Duncan Smith says it's true, so it must be so.

My original advisor drove me mad with his lack of umph.

I signed up online, was given an appointment. Went said I was trying to start a new business... "Oh, we can help you with that" he said... I waited, that was all he said.

2 weeks later, I go back... how many jobs have you applied for? "Well, none, I told you I am starting up a new business and the government website said you could help", he replied "Oh, yes, we can help you with that"

That one sentence was all the help he offered me for 8 weeks. When I asked dif it would be easier if I just signed off - which he helped me do.

I found the NEA, went to a meeting, got their advice and went back... same advisor... "I want to sign up for the NEA" "Oh, we can help you with that" was repeated so I sat there and waited... he checked his watch... I waited... he smiled nervously and said "Would you like me to help you with that?" I refrained from responding with the obvious!

I'll just add, you can only get NEA if you have been claiming JSA. It is a nationwide, government scheme, has been around since 2011 and when I asked it had just been given a reminder of the last round of funding, they had all had new training and there were telly adverts for it!!!

People wanted it to be harder to claim benefits so here we are. Claimants, including disabled people are dying after having their benefits sanctioned.

As anyone who has actually claimed benefits knows there are no jobs in some areas and this is all make work bullshit.

Everyone should be forced to live on benefits for one year IMO. Then we'll see how bloody right wing and sanctimonious they are about being poor.

Stop benefit sanctions

It's true that your benefits can be stopped if you are 2 minutes late, ill in hospital, attending a parent's funeral or have a job interview even if you tell them in advance

I agree that this should be the subject of a Mumsnet campaign. And it's going to get a whole lot worse.

The whole point of these 'interviews' is to cause you suffering and distress. They are a) looking for any excuse to sanction you, ie stop your benefits, so they will be as obstructive as possible in the hope that you will lose your temper, answer back or give up trying to claim and b) determined to make sure that you 'know your place': you are less than human and need to be coerced and bullied into abject submission. This is why you are ordered to use a website which contains only non-existent jobs, told to apply for jobs that you will not get because you are either unqualified for them or overqualified for them, sent on ridiculous 'training' courses that are aimed at the functionally illiterate even when you have a degree in astrophysics. It is all about crushing the poor. The agenda in the background is to build up a large pool of utterly desperate people who can be made to work for no wages and without security, so that private businesses profit from free labour with no responsibility towards the workforce.

DH was sanctioned because the bus he was on was involved in an accident. No serious injuries, but 7 miles from the JC he rang them, emailed with the local news link and made it in an hour and a half late.

His advisor said he'd have to wait until 4pm that afternoon, this was at 11 am. DH asked if that was necessary and his advisor asked if he was asking to withdraw from 'the service'. DH asked if he was being sanctioned and his advisor said 'if that is what you want'.

I don't know how rude DH was, but he did tell them that no matter how hard they tried they wouldn't be able to find him work, his sector is very specialised, he was signing on a) for the NI payments and b) he had been working full time for longer than his advisor had been alive, he was claiming what he was entitled to and their attitude was disgusting (probably not using that word though).

It really doesn't seem to be an overstatement to say they try very hard to get you to stop claiming or that they do all they can to make you feel like shit!

Lanark2 i agree! My so called disability advisor was constantly pushing me for jobs that i could not do!!
Mystery shopper when i have trouble walking.
Or a bookies when i can't work late ( due to medication) and extreme anxiety. She told me to just state i can't work lates
The fact that i wouldn't manage all the cleaning, the responsibility and being on my own with customers didn't register, nor did the fact that she hadn't checked the requirements and i didn't have them....
She told me to apply for ones when i didn't have anywhere near enough what they wanted
All interviews i got on jsa were all off my own back, not one was from any she 'found'.

From a blog by a jsa adviser..:

'Sanctions of customers were encouraged by managers daily, with staff being told to look at every engagement with the customer as an opportunity to take sanction action. I was personally told by a manager to “agitate” and “Inconvenience” customers in order to get them to leave the register. The staff performance management system was used inappropriately in order to increase submissions to the Decision Maker and therefore to increase sanctions on customers.'

The Serco company handlng work programme arranged appointments on signing days so you couldn't possibly attend both, then tried to sanction for it. And adviser cancelled because of her car troubles, but the appointment was on the system as not attended as a result, so they tried a sanction. They were also conning the government, as their 'one day induction' was compacted to 15 mins copying answers in your handwriting and going. (This was useful as I took photos and used it to threaten them when they tried to sanction me)

Ds got sanctioned (not this year) when the buses stopped running due to snow closing roads.He phoned them up and was told to walk (10 miles in a blizzard then back home). He appealed when he found out from a fellow claimant that the staff then got sent home because of weather, so office was closed just after he called.

This is disgusting.

So our one bus to town a week, what happens if a person goes but the bus is 5 mins late (as can happen), they offer an appointment slot for a time after the return bus leaves?

They'd be sanctioned?

Yes.

The NEA was interesting. Of the class more than 50% were sanctioned off it as soon as the JSA reduction figures were announced. One because his mum bought him a drill for his new business and he 'should have declared it as additional income' and me because 'they had spoken to my business adviser who said I wasn't doing a business plan' I had to get the business adviser to declare in writing that he hadn't ever spoken to the person who wrote this, in order to stay in the programme. They are such absolute shits.

My local job centre has one of the highest sanction rates in the uk.
There is a weekly demonstration held outside by a green MP as the things they are getting away with are unbelievable.

A JSA claimant was tricked and told they had to attend workfare at the Salvation Army . Salvation Army denies they use workfare anymore. This claimant had been on workfare and knew the drill with the paperwork they needed to sign to prove to the jobcentre they had been attending but upon arrival at the charity shop the forms stated 'volunteer'. When queried they said this was the new form. The claimant phoned the jobcentre and they got shirty with her saying just sign it or be sanctioned. Basically Salvation Army denying they using workfare but the jobcentre is sending people there on workfare but they are ordinary 'volunteers'.

People are told they have to attend a work focused interview and an address is given verbally and the claimant writes down . The address
Doesn't exist and the claimant is told they missed an appointment and they must have wrote the address wrong.

Letters with appointments are supposedly sent all the time but claimants don't receive so are sanctioned.

There has been direct suicides as a result of this jobcentre , a man set himself on fire in the jobcentre after being sanctioned.

A pregnant lady was nearly sanctioned for telling a workfare employer she was pregnant and needed lighter duties. Apparently she shouldn't have told them she was pregnant!

People are told they can't challenge sanctions or apply for hardship.

People have had their weekly sign on times changed to avoid the day of the demonstrations and to stop them getting help from this MP who has been asked to move by police despite not being aggressive or shouting chants etc. They have a table with signs about knowing your rights.

It's disgusting that this is happening as it seems anything is fair game to sanction people.

This is another mandatory activity the jobcentre trialling in my area.

Claimants have to attend a radio job xfactor audition thing where they have to give thier name and skills over the air.
I don't understand how this isn't breaking confidentiality laws!
It is designed to humiliate them.

Oh it probably is breaking confidentiality laws but claimants are too scared to speak out for terror of losing their pittance. It's power thriving and an abuse of power. Out and out bullying. Some of the stories on here are horrifying.
It's a bad day when we have a government who care more about the rights of peodophiles and rapists ect than they do about the unemployed.

This is awful, I've been lucky and not needed jsa but we shouldn't be treating humans like this