Voluntary work or lose benefits

[Marjoriew]

Government intend to cut benefits of claimants on JSA who refuse to do voluntary work of 30 hours a week over a 4-week period.
Benefits could be stopped for up to 3 months if claimants refuse to comply.

My sis it currenty doing voluntary work as she has been out of work for some time. This forms part of the the back to work programmes. Don't know what its called. Unbelievably she has now been reported by someone for working!

For those of you who think this is a great idea..

Would you do 30 hours a week for £2.18ph? Last time I checked paying someone under the minimum wage is illegal, apparently the rules don't apply to this government's new idea. Would you like to lose your job then be forced to do that job for £2.18ph? Would your employer keep you on if there was free labour to do your job instead?

Violet

If you have never been on benefits how can you possibly state there is no stigma.

You can have no idea how demeaning it is to be on benefits. No idea at all.

Jobs are being lost in their thousands and people on benefits becasue they have just lost their job and can't find another are going to be brought in to do the same f*cking jobs for almost nothing.

It's certainly about as far right as you can get.

The tories don't really want a minimum wage though do they.

I'm sure they would love to get shot of it - this is just going by the back door.

You have no idea of whether I've been on benefits or not, or whether anyone in my family has - no idea.

I don't understand any of the arguments against it tbh.

30 hours a week might be too high, because it does take time if you are seriously looking for work, but other than that, of course it's a good idea.

The ones I would feel sorry for are the charities that then have to manage this. If they are provided with ppeople who are eager to learn and have skills of some sort, fantastic. But if they are provided with people that don't want to work, and don't want learn new skills that will look good on their CV then it's going to be a nightmare for them.

Years ago when the New Deal for Lone Parents came out. I was working at a small charity, which had 6 employees, but they simply wouldn't have have been able to survive without it's volunteers. The volunteers did loads of reception and admin work, looked after the charities disabled beneficiaries by getting them drinks, helping with lunch etc, so that they were ready for the treatments that the employees provided or so that they weren't left starving while they waited for transport home. We had a girl come to us on the New Deal, and it simply didn't work. she was constantly having childcare issues, and the paperwork and job centre visits around the whole thing made it really hard for her. As a result the poor girl was completely drained and it sucked all the enthusiasm she had out of her. Plus the endless form filling in that the regular volunteers had to do for her made thei job even more difficult.

They will have to arrange this system very well for it to actually work and somehow I don't trust the government to do that.

Being discussed on Politics Show BBC2 now

Thanks nomdeplume

You're right Violet, but from the statement you made that there was no real stigma I assume not.

There is a massive stigma. Perhaps you or your family members have been fortunate enough never to have experienced it.

But I think it's endemic.

Kaolki - no I wouldn't, but then, I don't much like paying £2.18ph for those being targeted to actively take the piss and do feck all all day either (and no, I'm not talking about genuine claimants).

It is quite simply untrue to declare that if you work full time and have children 80% of your childcare is paid by tax credits. None of my childcare is. It is all paid out of our net income.

This scheme is aimed at the long term unemployed, not skilled people who have lost their jobs and will be on JSA in the short term, but let's not worry about the facts amongst the "Tory scum" hysteria, eh? That would be much less fun.

So what constitutes 'long term' then Georgimama, because I've missed that detail.

Yeah! You really want ex-cons and people who fail CBT checks working with the vulnerable.

Besides, people on JSA already have to go t mandatory work placement for 12 weeks every 12-18 months, depending on their age.

Danny Alexander discussing the issue now.

I forgot to add under the New Deal scheme there is a massive amount of money being handed out to companies who don't get vetted and provide no help at all, it's all a very lucrative business, take Job search companies for example, Skills Training a god awful lot have an exclusive contract with the government for that service, in which they provide CV writing services by immigrants who can't even write properly, job search services where you get half an hour a day (if you are lucky) to use a really old PC that has so much security on it you can't even fill in an online application form because they are blocked, and other resources which consist of printing up half a tonne of CVs and trying to hand them into shops who refuse point blank to accept them and tell you to apply online, sending out spec letters which no doubt go in the bin and reading news papers that are 3 days out of date and are obviously the staffs old ones.

They get millions for providing that "service"

The training schemes are no better, no one cares about people with In-house certificates in basic computer skills, in-house from Scum Computer Training LTD is not going to impress anyone, the people need real training but then they would have to give some of that lucrative government money to proper registered training body and they are not going to do that.

After all if they did actually help the unemployed get proper training, decent CVs and the like they might actually find work and that would be one less person on the gravy train they are getting £150 a week for stringing along, am I right in saying David Blunket is a shareholder in SkillsTraining or A4E? he has a hand in the pocket of one of those things.

I agree with the idea but not the 30 hours. Perhaps it should be 10 hours per week or whatever works out at minimum wage? It should be within school hours perhaps if you are a single parent.

Personally, after childcare, I work for about £1 per hour.

I am presuming that if someone is on JSA they probably also qualify for housing benefit, tax credits etc? That would give them more money overall, more money given to them 'per hour' as such. These are things someone gutting chickens for minimum wage probably does not get.

We used to employe Office Juniors, until the boss figured we could get someone cheaper on YTS, with no obligation to keep them on if it didn't work out.

In other words, a disincentive to invest in training up the individual.

"This scheme is aimed at the long term unemployed, not skilled people who have lost their jobs and will be on JSA in the short term"

So the unskilled who are stuck as long term unemployed through no fault of their own don't concern you? We should only look out for the skilled workers?

NomDePlume But this wont discriminate only against the scroungers, it will affect the genuine claimants, most likely more than the scroungers as the scroungers know how to play the system and will just find another work round. Bearing in mind the genuine claimants are a larger group than the scroungers, are you honestly happy for the genuine claimants to suffer?

CRB checks, expat ?

Thye're probably not going to dump the peeeeeeeeedos in the schools to do reading with the kiddies....

Of course people on minimum wage get benefits, CTC, WTC, housing benefit, CTB etc.

I think 30hrs a week is too much, even volunteers don't do that much! Maybe 20hrs a week and that will fit in with kids at school and give time to commute.

It's about giving something back and stopping everyone just sitting around feeling sorry for themselves.

If they help out, then they can see that others can be worse off than themselves and some people may even find that they have new skills that they never knew they had.

My brother spent years not applying for jobs as they were not 'perfect' and was almost unemployable as he is almost 40yrs old with no proper work record. He wanted to design computer games .

But since working in a charity shop for the last 3yrs he has proved to be an asset to them and ended up being offered a paid job.

Four hours a day would be much more manageble for everyone.

When I heard about this, I initially thought it was a good idea but the more I think about it, the more I believe it's a morally shoddy thing to do.

This isn't voluntary work, it's forced labour. It's also not the sort of work that is really going to increase somebody's skills - from what I have read and heard, they'll be doing the same sort of work as criminals on community service orders, but these are not criminals, they are just people who have the misfortune to be poor and unable to find work.

A scheme such as this could be reasonable in times when there are plenty of jobs for people to move on to, but only if they are paid at least the minimum wage. As it is, I think the scheme is highly exploitative.

In a year or so, we may hear of the first cases of public sector workers who were made redundant being forced to do their old jobs for nothing.

I do think, though, that genuine voluntary work can be extremely useful in helping people back to work but it should be matched to the individual so that they can use the skills they already have and build on them.

"CRB checks, expat ?

Thye're probably not going to dump the peeeeeeeeedos in the schools to do reading with the kiddies...."

CRB checks don't just check whether someone has abuse convictions. It's for all criminal activities, do you want someone known for theft or fraud helping in a charity for example?

"This isn't voluntary work, it's forced labour. It's also not the sort of work that is really going to increase somebody's skills - from what I have read and heard, they'll be doing the same sort of work as criminals on community service orders, but these are not criminals, they are just people who have the misfortune to be poor and unable to find work."

That's exactly it, it's treating people like criminals. (Because you don't get bad enough treatment on benefits already)

'Thye're probably not going to dump the peeeeeeeeedos in the schools to do reading with the kiddies....'

I wouldn't trust them not to, tbh. Not for a minute.

Stupid idea. Like YTS.

I can imagine someone like DH getting made redundant to be replaced by 'volunteers'.

Then everyone banging on about his becoming a 'scrounger'.

Some people with learning difficulties have a really hard time finding work. Guess it's cheaper to sack such folks and then force them to do it for cheaper whilst continually kicking in them in the teeth for scrounging.

Not to mention a lot of folks made redundant in their late 40's and 50's who are having a really hard time getting anything at all.

Good friend of mine, a career admin assistant, was made redundant at the age of 52 from RBS.

She has really struggled to find work at all and now is an office cleaner.

This is the type of person who'll be sacked because the JSA claimant is cheaper.

Nice.