Fraser Stewart: What my job in a UK job centre told me about today's benefits system

[blacksunday]

CommonSpace columnist Fraser Stewart recalls why he left the "best job" he'd ever had in a UK job centre

I WORKED in the job centre, in a previous life.

To this day I maintain it was the best job I've ever had, as short-lived as it was. After just 18 months, I handed in my notice and left a workplace that had, until that point, felt like home.

I left for one reason and one reason alone – the coalition government taking office in 2010. In a matter of what seemed like seconds my role had changed from getting people into work, to cutting the welfare bill by any means: from merciful to mercenary; helping hand to hired gun.

As orders began to trickle down from the new regime we were given a series of targets, one of which I couldn't swallow with any amount of sugar. I was told I had to sanction a certain number of benefit claimants per month. Sanction. Not "get in to work". Sanction.

I handed in my notice immediately and the following week was my last. This was never supposed to be a badge of honour. I do not write this out of indulgence or self-righteousness, but as a person with experience on both sides of the desk.

Quitting my job was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do because people should not be treated as targets - nor should they be unjustly tarred as lazy and subjected to universal and indiscriminate suspicion.

There are remarkably few people in this country who don't want to work. My own claimants ranged from joiners and cleaners to neurobiologists and architects and beyond: of the thousands of people I met within various capacities in the job centre, not one struck me as being proactively idle.

To label such a diverse group of individuals as parasites is to dehumanise millions of our own citizens with a repulsive ignorance. Of course, anecdotal evidence will only take any argument so far.

There exists no coherent evidence to support a "culture of worklessness". Collating research carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and TUC, The Guardian reported that roughly 80 per cent of JSA claimants are off benefits and into work before becoming "long-term" unemployed.

Less than one per cent of all UK households had two generations of the same family who had never worked.

This contrived notion of "Benefits Britain", then, is founded on a series of hyperbolic falsehoods, forced relentlessly at us by a seedy and sensationalist media intent on demonising out of context those who cannot reasonably fight back.

commonspace.scot/articles/1887/fraser-stewart-what-my-job-in-a-uk-job-centre-told-me-about-today-s-benefits-system

'There are remarkably few people in this country try who don't want to work's crap crap with a coating of crap. Get a job in a Post Office for six weeks you'll meet loads of them.

I'm really not interested in debating the ins and outs of whether New Labour or Tories are more to blame for the current state of borrowing (as Squidzin said, it was the bankers). I'm interested in finding an end to sanctions immediately. They are a state crime as far as I'm concerned and I am absolutely appalled that they have been permitted by our august rulers to remain in existence this long.

This. Sort out the job centre jobs site so it has real jobs and people aren't sanctioned for not applying for brain surgeon jobs
Dh applied for a job via the job centre site and only part of his application made it jn to the company. Luckily he also emailed his cv/letter in and got the job. Hey said they weren't using the job centre as no ones whole info got in. When I've looked it's all agencies who are all advertising vague jobs. Also needs to be an allowance for 'I've got a job but can't start til my dbs comes through' as during that time you have to sign off or still apply for jobs.

"But then again, what would the whinging lefties who STILL believe in the viability of a huge Welfare/Benefits/Tax Credit State whether annually the UK is STILL spending £70 bil a year we don't earn, have to complain about?"

I believe in the viability of a welfare state redistributing the huge wealth of over-privileged elites who have done nothing to deserve their huge comparative wealth to those who also have done as little to deserve their comparative poverty partly for that reason and partly because it is proven to result in a better standard of living for all on the whole and a more active economy for all. As far as spending is concerned, the entire welfare bill could be paid out of the huge amount of tax avoidance going on, the huge subsidies we are still giving to those orivate companies who have bought public services for a pittance and are still taking money off the state to fund their shareholders, and it could be reduced drastically by stopping buy-to-let and encouraging home ownership, thereby stopping a hell of a lot of funds going straight into rich idle landlord's hands.

If you want to complain about public spending, look at how much is heading straight into the pockets of the rich first.

Wow that was long.

On the subject of people who don't want to work - you could try offering decent jobs for good pay that work with the needs of raising children instead of soul-destroying crap which takes people away from their families for little more than what they'd get on benefits (which are, remember, the minimum amount deemed necessary to survive.

But I do think there is a deeper problem, one we might be able to agree on - a society has been created which values only money and status, not people. The work ethic is one more victim, though I would blame the people at the top who control the media, government and disintegrating public services for that loss, not those at the bottom.

NotechnologicalBreakdown .... god you've got all the leftie head-up-bum-ignorant-of-the-facts-mantras.

Firstly, based on the links I provided earlier, do you understand that the UK versus any other country increased its Welfare/Benefits/Tax Credit 'fixed costs' more than any other country in the 2000's, so this was a new unproven experiment?

Next do you understand that allowing 3 million more citizens to work in the UK and leave our citizens unemployed was dumb, as paying foreigners tax credits to work here and unemployment benfits e.g. Housing Allowance to those stuck on the dole - significantly contributing to our annual tax shortfall/deficit?

Do you understand that THIS government has done more to curb Corporate and Tax Evasion than Labour and that it is a GLOBAL problem that should get better by 2018, so just SAYING a new administration will stop it now is wasted bum wind???

Do you understand companies do not exist for the social good, they exist FOR their shareholders e.g. Pension Funds, for those who can't rely on Labour's State rises based on their last 13-years.

Do you understand that there is more to businesses than just the top 100 global companies, and many of them were on their knees in 2010, getting no help from Labour and now we have nearly 3 million more private sector jobs (2 million net) because something was done to help business, rather than keep taxing them?

Do you know that 'the rich' are paying far more tax under this government than the last, and penal tax rates e.g. our 50p rate and the 75% in France has been proven to have failed?

Are you aware of Labours piss poor home building record in times of plenty and all the encouragement they gave to the private sector to take up the slack e.g. Capital Gains Tax down to a 10% tapered low, so now for the first time ever they make up over 50% of our rental provision, and if sold those properties, we'd have a rental crisis???

And as for right wing rumours of fraud, skivers, over claiming etc etc, here was 900,000 sickies who didn't want to provide themselves for a medical check up - so might have worked, reduced the migrant numbers and housing shortage housing those migrants - something Labour never got their head around, even by May 2010.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9963012/900000-choose-to-come-off-sickness-benefit-ahead-of-tests.html

I remember seeing a short series by the 'foodie' Huge Firmly-With-a stall, or something like that, travelling around the Scandinavian countries looking at their society.

And I was so impressed when in a high tax society that I think was Denmark, might have been Sweden, where he met school children, they understood that they when going to work would pay high taxes, so wanted to try very hard at school to ensure they got good value for future taxes they were going to pay - and the chance to better themselves to obtain a higher skilled/salaried job, to limit the effect of those taxes on their living standards.

Where as here, we were offering a mediocre education to the masses, and many of whom grew up, seeing older mates, understanding work didn't pay and they'd be better off having a jollie at school and then getting benefits - waiting for their big chance on Britains Got Talent.

All the while the lefties who would not understand 'personal responsibility' if slapped it around their face like a wet U-kipper, like to quote rich versus poor stats and say when the children finally wake up (or forced) to work, why is this person on the minimum wage or low wages due to an EU policy of free movement that will always dilute the workforce/salary levels in the lower 50% paid jobs?

Compounding this ballshit, you then hear socialists, who wouldn't know how to create a private sector job if it didn't involve UPPING their taxes, say, under us we WILL provide high-tech jobs for the educationally challenged under our watch.

We have to have joined-up-policy-thinking and then everyone that can plays their part, on education, the size the State needs to be, not just a source of taxpayer employment, private sector job creation, new housing, and immigration - as what we had by 2010 was an unsustainable policy driven shit stack, with £1 trillion of National Debt and a £153 bil annual overspend - which if had not significantly changed direction, god knows where we'd be.

Has anyone else simply been skipping past each of isitmebut's recent posts? What rude and patronising way to address others.

On the topic of sanctions/job centres, it does seem to hark back to the very Victorian notion of the deserving and the undeserving poor. You only 'deserve' to be able to feed and clothe yourself if you jump through all the hoops.

For the ideology that like to think everyone not rich is 'a victim', I think I'm being victimised. lol

This thread would be interesting without isitme and also the constant copying of other people's posts.

isitmebut is only here to derail threads like this and take the arguments away from the opening post into something they want to discuss, eg. slate labour and Gordon Brown and throw in as many links that support this as they can

then the thread turn their way as posters engage in their argument and forget what the op was about, which in this case is something well worth discussing

AndNowItsSEven ... an interesting accusation, I don't post anywhere else, I don't even have a Twitter account, so to someone who has been consistent with their views for the past 40-years, 2-years on here, PROVE IT.

ssd ... alternatively, there are many, many people who get their jollies and even electoral success by constant misinformation and/or taking a new 'victim(s)' story to portray a politician/party in a bad light e.g. as uncaring - not wishing for others to understand the enormity of the problem, as it suits their politics for the 'big picture' not to be understood.

Indeed they'd have you believe that there were no problems pre May 2010, and getting back to this thread, the OP has made a serious accusations post May 2010 that are "founded on a series of hyperbolic falsehoods"- and I'm sorry if it does not suit your politics, it is important to understand HOW we got to the state of the State and what is false and what is not.

so do you think the banks had anything to do with the state of the state then?

or was it all GB's fault?

ssd .... I've just see your "unhinged" comment on the other page.

You see I see masses of posts and politicians still on their platform talking about 'the bedroom tax' as an unhinged waste of time.

There were 5 million people needing social homes by May 2010, there were around 800,000 or more spare bedrooms within social housing, so with the money all gone - any attempt to try and free up all those spare bedrooms for the even needier poor with children, as a perfectly viable policy to try as a sensible reorganisation of our social housing stock.

But for political gain, instead of focusing/worrying about the 5 million a socialist government left needing social homes, its was a socialist 'lets look for victims' who need their spare bedrooms - that SHOULD be allowed not to pay the 'spare room subsidy', if their local authority was worth their salt.

Unhinged, hypocrisy, politics, it seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

ssd ... 'the banks' happened after 9-years of many suspect Labour policies.

And those banks, lending to anyone with a pulse helped form the financial bubble that Labour thought those (via the tax receipts) would pay for the massively increase in the 'fixed spending cost' on the State, services, welfare/benefits/tax credits - which with about an annual £30 bil plus borrowed overspend, did so, right until the bank bubble burst and the recession began - creating the huge annual budget deficit.

I tired of explaining it, may I suggest you read there three links, the 'bullet points' at the end of the first economic link explains better about the reliance of a 2007 fat State, on the proceeds of a financial bubble.

www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/

metro.co.uk/2011/04/11/gordon-brown-i-made-big-mistake-on-banks-before-financial-crisis-650630/

www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/12/labour-regulations-city-rbs-collapse

P.S As the first link is long winded, here are the two main comments I mean, I'd forget GDP measurements based on the then structure of our economy, which was unsustainably tilted towards public sector/spending, and reliant of the 'growth' of a financial/consumption bubble.

• If the government had entered the credit crunch with a budget surplus and lower public sector debt, the government would have had more room to pursue a real and sustained economic stimulus.

• A budget deficit of 3% of GDP may have sounded relatively low. But, in hindsight, this exaggerated the underlying deficit because tax revenues were boosted by tax revenues which evaporated during the credit crunch.

AndNowItsSeven, ssd, sorry, will try to get out of competitive mode. Sanctions. Here is the report from a parliamentary inquiry into sanctions, efficacy, effects, etc. I am not quite sure how they came to the conclusions in the introduction from having seen the oral evidence presented and had a cursory glance through the rest of the report, but I have yet to read it fully. Hope it's of interest.

notechnologicalbreakdown no need to apologise , I was a bit rude. Another poster causes me great irritation on thread of this nature.

Just the ONE, think yourself lucky, there's a small army of the outspoken and factually ignorant, often acting in concert using Mail, that gets my goat up.

Bloody hell Isitmebut, your a nause man. Your rants hurt my eyes. I find it impossible to read. Why cant you discuss the topic in hand? Why does everything have to come back to your hatred of labour. Its tiring. Everytime there is a interesting discussion on the politics board you derail it.

Does anybody else just scroll right past isitme's posts on these threads?

Oswin .. I have discussed 'the topic' just based on the accusations within the OP quoted below, and I'm sorry if you lot want to fester in anti Conservative self righteousness rather than remember WHY a party had to get a grip on benefits etc, but there we are.

"I left for one reason and one reason alone – the coalition government taking office in 2010. In a matter of what seemed like seconds my role had changed from getting people into work, to cutting the welfare bill by any means: from merciful to mercenary; helping hand to hired gun."

"This contrived notion of "Benefits Britain", then, is founded on a series of hyperbolic falsehoods, forced relentlessly at us by a seedy and sensationalist media intent on demonising out of context those who cannot reasonably fight back."

The politically opportunist sad fact is that Labour knew we couldn't afford the monster they created, and sometimes, usually in the middle of electoral cycles, they 'kin ADMIT IT.

October 2013; “Labour will be tougher than Tories on benefits, promises new welfare chief”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare

“Rachel Reeves vows to cut welfare bill and force long-term jobless to take up work offers or lose state support”

August 2013; “Labour to substantially cut benefits bill if it wins power in 2015”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/21/labour-to-cut-benefits-bill-2015

”Labour will cut the benefits bill "quite substantially" and more effectively than the Tories if it wins power in 2015, the shadow work and pensions secretary said on Tuesday”

”Liam Byrne, a Labour frontbencher, said the coalition's welfare reforms were failing to cut costs enough, and called for cross-party talks to "save" some of the government's key schemes.”

"“Rachel Reeves vows to cut welfare bill and force long-term jobless to take up work offers or lose state support”

In football parlance 'it's all gone quiet over there'.

Did the quote above BURST the false self righteous 'bubbles' of the anti Isit hooligans, acting in concert?

No wonder you don't want factual links, you've relied on board mob rule to drown others opinions out.

Laters folks.

See your doing it again. Derailing into anti labour. We are talking about sanctions. Have you ever been in that position?

This isn't the coalition's fault.

I was signing on well before the coalition came into power. Treating the unemployed like parasites, patronising them, talking down to them and acting as if they were lazy scroungers was de rigeur.

I hate the job centre. Useless morons.