To think job centre are setting people up to fail

[upontheroof66]

So I have a 63 year old sister who is currently on jsa. She worked in factories since school and had no qualifications. For a while she attended a special school so does probably have very mild learning difficulties. She also is living with the after effects of an eating disorder so is not in the best of health .
Anyway she does voluntary work in a charity shop and is by no means lazy
So. She had no internet or mobile phone but is expected to job search daily. This involves a 3 mile round trip walk to the library which is closed one day a week.
Once every 2 weeks it costs her £6 to sign on and see her advisor. Her advisor does nothing to help her. This week she was told that there were loads of suitable jobs she can apply for. In actual fact their was one. Full time kitchen work starting at 5.30 Meaning she would have to leave a 5.00 arem and walk 1 1/2 to get there. Plus it is only temporary.
Anyway She spent her whole hour if internet use trying to apply for this job but it could not be done on the job centre site
Ain't to think that job centre staff are targeted to sanction as many people as possible so set vulnerable people up to fail..

GarlicShake yes I was happy she got in the support group and she gets indefinite dla too. I am trying to work up the energy to help her apply for pip as it will be more money. I keep waiting for the letter to make her swop but it's not arrived yet (probably because they know she will get more). My other daughter gets pip but never wanted to apply for esa and carried on trying jobs till she finally got one she can do with help at a university that has a great equality and diversity policy.

My daughter got travel money to the job centre. It was four years ago though and we live in Wales and she couldn't get there without the bus. It was about 10 miles to the nearest job centre.

Yeah, I'm afraid you can't be honest at all with these morons if you need the money.

Just toe the line - apply for all the shitty jobs millions of miles away, keep your proof, make your cv shit, turn up to the pointless courses (and get sent home because you're over qualified), answer their dumb (repetitive) questions.

Don't tell them about the GOOD well paid jobs you're applying for in your field - keep feeding them the same old shit - until you get your start date of your (great) new job - and don't tell them the start date until about 2 or 3 days before because they'll keep telling you to start trying to find a shit job with a sooner start date.

Keep a shit cv for the shit (usually fake) jobs, and concentrate all your time and effort on the real job hunt.

In all honesty the whole JSA is a complete joke for people who might need to pay rent and bills in between jobs (I was made redundant in the recession, along with about 150 other employees in our branch).

I had a job lined up within 2 weeks, and they still gave me shit about needing the help.

As she may have learning difficulties, do you have Remploy in your area? They do fantastic work and can help in loads of ways. They totally understand that the job centre model does not work for anyone everyone. Highly recommend seeing what they can do to help.

Locations of remploy here

They're run by maximus, the company that are doing the assessments for ESA and PIP now. I don't know personally if that effects how they work now or not but a fuss was made of it at the time on some disability forums.

My experience of ESA and JSA haven't been great. i had my JSA stopped years ago because I was doing permitted work that I was told to abandon and attend an interview, I didn't abandon the work (had been left in charge on my own and needed a decent reference for doing that), found out later it was for manual labor - I struggle to walk and have severe arthritis. Then I had my money stopped for sitting a jobcentre arranged exam, luckily I got work soon after.

There's only one jobcentre now in my county, no disability advisors (must go to another county if on JSA and disabled) as the disability advisors were upstairs (no lift) and someone complained. There are many services they no longer do so aren't jobcentreplus anymore so for those things you go to another county. No transport isn't paid. Bloody nightmare.

My ESA experience has been awful.

I've found the job centre to be next to useless too. I have to pay a fortune in fares to get there and they have no advice or support for me whatsoever. They don't understand the field of work I'm in or how recruitment works. I do as I'm told to get the (pitifully small) fortnightly payments but my time would be much better spent at home applying for jobs rather than wasting half a day travelling there.

I could write a book on the many ways the job centre fucked up with my Dad.

Starting with the fact that he was obviously too ill to work for many years, but it fitted in better with them to collude in his denial.

Dementia symptoms lead him to make mistakes on his forms or forget meetings with inevitable sanctions on a monthly basis.

Signing up for "back to work courses" which was actually a bunch of blokes reading the paper in a room for a week.

Sending him on "job placements" which was basically cheap labour. My Dad was physically struggling with his health, very obviously. Whilst on one of these placements he fell down the stairs a cracked his head open, resulting in him being hospitalised. The next his "advisor" was on the phone calling him a liar and demanding he go back to "work". I got on the phone and gave her a piece of mind.

I help care leavers and usually do the first sign on appointment with them. Before i started the job i was unemployed and signing on.

I was massively shocked at the different way my clients were being treated to how i was (i.e the amount of things they had to do each week was easily double what i was being asked to do despite me being a professional with a degree and them having learning difficulties and no GCSEs).

I do have sympathy for the JCP advisors though, they seemed to be massively overworked and don't have the resources to do the job they used to do (actually support people)

Just a message of support to those of you on JSA. I was on it for 5 years- it's fucking hard work. Finally got my break earlier this year.

The feeling of signing on that dotted line while screaming "FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKERS" in my head almost beat the feeling of giving birth to my DDs. Almost.

Sinister was your dad covered in the work placements insurance policy.

I honestly don't know, it was 4 years ago. He is now in a specialist care home. It was the attitude of his advisor that appalled me.

Any workplace taking part in workfare has to have public liability insurance as well as Employers Liability insurance and workfarers included in the cover.

That's an important question, Helena. Last I saw, nobody with responsibility for Work Programme victims placements was answering the question about ... umm, responsibility for them. They aren't covered by employment legislation. One would hope the fuss that's been made has at least resulted in a standard insurance policy, but I wouldn't be betting this week's ESA on it.

Oh, xposted! Good - it's something.

When does your sister turn 63? It might be worth looking at pension credit for her when she does:

www.ageuk.org.uk/money-matters/claiming-benefits/pension-credit/who-can-claim-pension-credit/

Thank you but as she was born in 1954 she won't qualify. Only a few years ago her retirement age was 64. Now it has increased to 66. She have seriously shafted women born in 1954.
Thanks for other tips.

They have. Stupid phone.

Sadly no respect near us.

Sanction targets are just stupid. Given the nature of sanctions, they are supposed to be used solely on those who aren't following their agreement. How can you put a number on how many people have to be found to be doing that...when for all you know only 2 people could be milking it while everyone else is following it to a tee...but still as there is a target of 10 per week...8 genuine jobseekers are pulled up on stupid issues just to hit the target.

My friend was sanctioned last year over xmas as he wasn't following his agreement. To be fair he wasn't for a week or so BUT the reason for this was he had a massive house fire, lost everything, and being over the xmas period libraries and such were mainly closed, plus when trying to sort your life out after a massive disaster its hardly the first thing you think of to walk miles to find a public computer so you can get your quota of 2 fake jobs applied for that day.

He did appeal and win based on common sense, but come on...

Also during my brief stint on JSA a few years back..I was told I had to apply for jobs that required a driving license (I didnt have one) and various skilled positions that required NVQs and such also...just in case. Knowing I was wasting my time and the employers time. Its ridiculous.

The more I hear the more I despair.