The bloody benefits system

[ItsNotChristmasInOctober]

Sorry, I'm annoyed.

I had my first 'work' meeting today. For anybody that has applied for UC, you know it's all about the expectations required of you. Fair enough.

I told my work coach that I've been offered a full time, well paid position, starting at the end of this month. She informed me that I'm still expected to look for work until my start date.

I've also been offered another 'sensitive' position in my local council. This position starts sooner but the pay is NLW and not a penny more.

According to the system, I need to accept this position even though I have a better one lined up that starts just over a week later.

As far as I'm concerned, accepting this position will not do me any favours, or the council! I'd practically have to hand in my notice on the day I start. They'd then have to spend time finding somebody else who can fulfil the role.

This isn't a complaint about my work coach, she is simply following orders.

However, if I were to turn the (sooner starting, low paid) position down, we'd likely be sanctioned.

It doesn't make sense!

Feel free to look at my previous post...

I just can't get my head around it. Maybe I need somebody to tell me the positives of this particular situation.

@MrsBlobbys My DP is currently out of work. He is a specialist in his field. Were claiming contribution based JSA for him.

When he went to his first meeting they spoke to him as though he'd never worked before. He was told 'really slowly' that he was expected to look for work and explained the various resources available. Surely a quick look at his CV would save a lot of time!? I was there. It would have been rude to stop them and explain 'we know'. It would have been rude to explain that he has worked consistently for the past 14 years without ever claiming a single benefit.

I think the system needs changing. He came home feeling like he'd been treated like he's been long term unemployed for no good reason.

It's on this page:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/advice-for-decision-making-staff-guide

Scroll down to 'Chapter K2: Good reason'

If you start your new job at the beginning of December, you won't get any UC before then anyway. It takes minimum of 5 weeks to come through and is paid in arrears.
They will offer you a loan "advance" on the first payment then deduct the instalment from the UC. As soon as you start work they will want the rest back. If your DH is/ has been on JSA they may also want some of that back too.
There is also no more council tax benefit, it's at the discretion of the local council, so you might not get much help, and that can also take months to calculate.
I speak from bitter experience here - we went into more debt on UC than we ever had before.
If you can possibly manage without UC, close your claim. It's much less stressful since you have a decent job lined up.

That’s absolutely ridiculous. I wonder which idiot made up these rules!

Tell them that the offer has been withdrawn -
either on the grounds that they know you have had a better offer
or - more straightforward as they can't blame you
That the previous person has withdrawn their resignation - or that they have changed the starting date to a month later as someone is staying on for a month or some other wording that gets them off your back.

This hasn't been my experience of the job center at all - I have signed on twice and both times they have been light touch. I wonder if the fact I work in recruitment helped. The last time was 5 years ago - prehaps things have got worse.

They don't give "leeway" because it gets abused.

Sometimes even the advisors don't understand how it works because things make no sense. They are just as baffled.
When I last got it, I was one of the lucky ones and the work coach had some common sense and didn't sanction me when I couldn't get in. He would arrange a call instead. One week he was off that day, his replacement sanctioned me because he didn't want to read all the notes my usual work coach had put on the system. There are some nasty bastards out there.

Good luck to anyone on this.

Oh and op. Did you know about the payments stopping because you happen to get a wage twice in the same month? Plan for that little delight if you are still on them when you start work.

I’ve just watched I, Daniel Blake this evening and then this was the first thread I clicked on after reading.

The whole system is just built on people being robots and following instruction to the letter. There isn’t any empathy, compassion or thinking by the people in job centres, it’s not their fault it’s what they are told. However it screams of incompetence and seriously needs looking at.

The scenes with the girl eating from a tin in the foodbank because she’d been starving herself to feed her children was horrible. It made me realise what a privileged position I’m in. Anyway yeah, benefits need overhauling and people need to be able to go outside the box rather than a computer says no attitude.

I want to know who the 5% of people are who voted YABU.

OP don't lie and tell them the offer has been withdrawn. Be upfront and do everything in writing.

'I believe I have a good reason for not taking this job because I have a firm offer of other, more suitable, permanent employment starting in the immediate future. Therefore I should not be sanctioned.'

I think it’s also down to individual advisers. DS was on UC for a number of months after uni and everything flowed pretty seamlessly around him being completely out of work, through a part time job and on into full time work. As long as he could prove he was job seeking (kept records of the 200+ jobs he applied for 😬) and turned up to the meetings that increasingly became telephone/ online check ins, they left him alone.

this one

More than enough

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9964767/Iain-Duncan-Smith-I-could-live-on-53-per-week.html

When my DH was on JSA years ago he was told to go on some kind of "learning basic work skills" course. It clashed with an interview. He was told he had to re arrange the interview as if he missed the course he'd be sanctioned. If he missed the interview he'd be sanctioned.

He ignored them, went to the interview, got the job, signed off. He still got a pissy letter saying he had been sanctioned and while they couldn't do anything as he was no longer on JSA, it might affect his ability to claim in the future.

It's a shit system.

There’s a new ken loach film out about child poverty called
Sorry we missed you.

You said your claimant commitment said you were looking for 16 hours per week. (The number of hours of job search is the same). I would take it that you either have a young child or a health condition and that is why you can only commit to 16 hours. As that's what you have committed to you don't have to take a full time job as the hours don't suit.
You can take a full time job if you choose to but no one can force you.

Call the council , say you’d love to accept the job but can only do it for a week as you have another job afterwards and ask if that’ll be ok. They’ll say no then you can truthfully tell your work coach the offer was withdrawn.

Can you write to the council accepting the job but saying you’d only be able to work there for a week, and explaining why you’re doing that?

Then they’ll withdraw the offer ( I imagine), you won’t be messing them about, but you’ll be fulfilling the UC requirement.

Please note though, I am no expert in this!