I've made a complaint about my Work Coach

[BobISMyUncle]

and now I've been sanctioned. I couldn't attend an appointment due to lack of petrol and a lack of funds to get there. I receive my Universal Credit on the 10th of each month, and my appointment was made (by them) for the 8th. I receive the princely sum of £324 per month. I wrote on my Journal that I could not make this appointment due to lack of money to buy petrol. I received a reply (it was heavy sighing, even in the Journal entry, if that makes sense!) and stated that she would "ring me on this occasion". This appointment is a 23 mile round trip and costs about £5.00
During my phone call, I was told that "you need to manage your money better". Sadly, I'm one of those people who think of brilliant retorts about ten minutes after I need them! Nonetheless, I was still quite surprised at her remark but didn't get the chance to answer as she was determined to move the conversation on. These meetings are mandatory. They must be attended otherwise sanctions will be applied.
Hey Presto! I'm sanctioned. I don't know by how much because the website is down (conveniently?) I can't appeal against the decision because the website is down. I can't do anything. If I call, it's a call centre and nothing is achieved, they appear to be message takers. I would like to talk with someone who has a little empathy. AND! YE GODS! I've missed another appointment! More sanctions coming my way! This, from a Civil Servant. I wonder, how much do I have to live on next month? My work coach suggested that I do care work. I wonder if it's because she will be needing it from her other clients? I am not rubbing my hands in glee because I'm far too busy making room for her in the patio and well tended gardens of my sheltered housing accommodation. LOL! This is funny, but serious. Advice please x

Not Impressed of East Anglia.

Cycling 23 miles is a ridiculous suggestion and I think the first post on it was meant to be light hearted.

I have been fortunate not to be in ops position and have no idea how I would cope, but common sense says if it was my only means of any money I would be making damn sure I put away a fiver to meet the mandatory requirements and make sure it kept coming in every month when the alternative is £0.

Whether you agree with sanctions or not, logically something else would need to go unpaid. Without a full insight in ops finances, where she indicates she can afford a car and insure it, no one can say if not having a fiver put aside was bad planning or really unachievable.

'Just get a bus'

Hilarious. Usually written by people who live in areas with very good transport services. And who can't conceive of the fact that you very often can't 'just' get a bus door to door.

I only live 10 miles outside a city centre. To get from my home to the office would be two separate buses and an hour's journey because of the route & timetables. Costing nearer £10 than £5.

They are just following orders are they ?
Actually if nobody was prepared to implement this nonsense it couldn’t happen.

If nobody was there to implement the benefits, people wouldn't get paid though wouldn't they? I am not sure what you're suggesting in practical terms, but benefit delivery workers are just ordinary people doing a job, have bills to pay etc.

It's not really the work coaches fault though, they are told to do this unfortunately. Some are just shit, but they do have targets and stuff to get sanctions. It is a no tolerance policy, but we voted in the government causing it. Vote better next time people.

@hellswelshy I’m not disputing they need to do a job, but as you said they work with vulnerable people and as such should show some human decency. A lot of these people are actually suffering. Just because you have to follow rules it doesn’t mean you have to be as cold as ice, there is no excuse and quite frankly, if my employer made me treat other human beings that way then I would be off there as soon as possible. ‘Just doing a job’ is a cop out.

I’ve known people to be laughed at down the phone as they were being told their benefits were being stopped, and for no good reason either. Or being told they’re not Ill enough not to work so stop being lazy and get a job. It’s as if they love it. Awful 😣

YABVVVU, you had so many options. You could have ridden your donkey, taken your unicycle or walked. There is really no excuse! You are getting all your handouts and you won’t even try a unicycle?! What is the point in me working very very very very very hard as an extremely important tax paying tax payer when people like you can’t live off that FREE MONEY?!!

P.S. I don’t condone sanctions. They’re a disgusting punishment on poor people, pushing them further into poverty.

If you don't agree with sanctions, how do you think benefits should work? You make a claim and then get benefits forever, without ever having to do anything?

My mother was looked after at home by carers (before moving into a care home). Some were good some were not so good.

I guess my only point is that I’m not sure that it is a reasonable long term option to refuse to go for jobs in certain sectors because you’d rather stay on benefits than do that type of work.

Well how it used to work was that you made a claim and you looked for a job 30 hours a week, entirely reasonable and if you couldn’t find one after a certain amount of time and support was put in place courses were offered, retraining, getting required tickets etc.

if you went through all of that and you still couldn’t find anything at all that you could do within a 12 month period I believe it was, then basically you got the absolute bare minimum.
The difference between now and then is that they at least tried to support you initially, not just financially but they actively wanted to help you to get back into work the people that you took the little cards to at the desk would phone of the employer for you and introduce you and basically sell you into the role.

job seekers £70 a week now and has been for nearly 20 years. In 1994 it was £45 a week so it hasn’t even doubled in 30 years but a loaf of bread in 1994 was 20p. That’s quadrupled in price

The website is “down”?

no, the universal credit site is not down

No,there has been no reports of the UC service being down all week.

And even if it was, the Service Centre is still open

Yes. If people need them, yes.

That's how it used to be . You got money because you were unemployed.

Can you request for your appointment to be moved to a date after you receive your money ?

Do you have anyone that you can borrow £5 for petrol to attend the next appointment ?

To be fair, if you were employed the same the rules apply; turn up on time, phone in if cannot get to work etc

So the OP is fibbing on this point

makes me wonder what else….

Disability benefits, yes.

Employment benefits, no.

There needs to be some skin in the game

I'm fairly sure you always had to attend the jobcentre once a fortnight to sign on, and if you didn't sign on, you didn't get paid.

I don't understand why in the OPs case, their appointment couldn't just be over the phone? When I used to sign on, (it was within walking distance) they rarely looked at my job search. It was more asking what I'd done.

The skin that was in the game during the 90s was the was at least an option to work hard and have a better life, now when we have the vast majority of universal credits claimants in Work the only people that took the skin out of the game was the government by allowing this whole force to escalate to the point that it’s that.

it’s basically the carrot or stick method. back in the day we used the carrot and people worked hard bettered themselves bought a nice house, saved for retirement.

Now the sticks out, absolutely none of those things are in there in the reach of your average person but you still need to work 40 to 50 hours a week otherwise you were going to be living in a tent with no food. some people are quite simply unemployable always have been always will be and we need that bottom 5% to remain unemployed and out of the way so that the rest of us can get on with building ourselves a better life apparently. What is wrong here is literally starving those people.

The last thing I actually want is for thousands of people to suddenly gain the skills that I have, that’s going to lower my value in the market. I’d quite happily give them £70 a week to not compete with me. There’s very little critical thinking goes on these days.

In many cases where there have not been multiple cancellations - it would be over the phone.

Given the op told a porkie in her OP re the UC website being “down”, I suspect DWP have suspicions about the OPand bloody well want her in! Fair enough in my eyes

That's all perfectly true, but it doesn't alter the fact that there are a few who behave like utter cunts.

One of my clients was nearly sanctioned for being 15 minutes late for an appointment. Her lateness was caused by a major accident on the route to the the JC, which delayed all the traffic.

The next time she had an appointment, she left half an hour earlier, and consequently got there 45 minutes early. They refused to let her wait in the JC, because she was "too early". They had a policy of not letting people in if they more than 15 minutes early, apparently. She had to stand outside in the pissing rain for half an hour before she could go in. She had no money to go to a cafe and the library was shut.

Oddly, I had 3 different clients who had significant issues with that people in that particular JC being arsey and inflexible, and all 3 were from BAME groups. I know coincidence doesn't prove correlation, but it does make me wonder.

I worked in a job centre pre-universal credit (left when UC started, sanctions are completely immoral and I refused to do it). In my experience the job attracts two kinds of people - sympathetic ones who really want to help and will bend over backwards to make sure people don’t go without money and are safe, and little Hitlers who get a power kick out of sanctions. Please don’t tar all work coaches with the same brush, most of them really don’t want to be stopping peoples money I assure you. Most of them are in the job because they want to help people. The pay is absolutely shit and it’s a thankless and awful job with a lot of pressure. A lot of the decision making in built into the system and out of the hands of the work coaches.

OP please appeal the sanction. It sounds like you’d have very good grounds. And ignore some of these comments, none of these high and mighty types have ever had to live on universal credit themselves but are terribly fond of telling others how easy it is and how much of a failure people are who can’t do it. You might be having a shit time but console yourself that you’re not a bitter and horrible person with no empathy.

also yes, I can confirm that there are not and never have been sanction targets.