Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Telly addicts

Related: Film discussion forum.

Original poster

Benefit Busters

206 replies

BertieBotts · 20/08/2009 20:59

I have a feeling this is going to be awful actually, they are focusing on lone parents

Just starting on C4 now.

OP posts:
TheChilliMooseTalksNonsense · 21/08/2009 16:40

The Poundland owners were onto a good thing, weren't they? Free labour for two weeks to set up their shop.

cheesesarnie · 21/08/2009 16:42

i thought that about pound land-and at xmas time too!

thanks expat.

ruddynorah · 21/08/2009 16:48

they didn't work for nothing for 2 weeks. they got their benefits as well as work experience which some of them had absolutely none of.

on paper none of them would have looked particularly attractive to an employer, so the incentive to the company is that they don't have to pay them for 2 weeks.

i'm at m&s and we do a similar type of scheme

TheChilliMooseTalksNonsense · 21/08/2009 16:50

Yes, but Poundland got a good deal out of it.

ruddynorah · 21/08/2009 16:56

depends how you look at it. quite risky to take on people who've been threatened with losing their benefits if they refuse to apply for work or sign up to these schemes.

these are workers with a fair amount of baggage, not used to the world of work, perhaps unreliable etc etc. like i said, on paper not the first choice. to get round this, the employer gives them a chance in return for not having to pay them. the government pays them instead.

TheChilliMooseTalksNonsense · 21/08/2009 17:04

They've proved they want to work by attending the course. I was pleased to see how happy they looked working though.

muggglewump · 21/08/2009 17:27

My Dad said that there was a huge change in me when I started working, I was so much happier and more positive.
He's right, there was.

The difference is that I wasn't made to feel small and patronized to get a job.

Nor was I made to work for free for two weeks to make some godawful company some money.
I was paid from my first day, as I will be in my new job.

freya11 · 21/08/2009 18:17

Was anyone shocked by how much money the women who invented the scheme made?freya11

expatinscotland · 21/08/2009 18:20

I was, freya. And it's not for nothing that Channel 4 kept showing her home.

I mean, DUH! Innuendo falls on deaf ears often enough these days.

TwoIfBySea · 21/08/2009 18:25

Like I said at the beginning of the thread, there was more than a hint of Pauline from League of Gentlemen about the "tutor."

I'm hoping this £40 per week also applied to part-time shift work?

I couldn't get a place for my dts at the one local after school club and there arent many childminders around. That hinders job searching in an area where another problem is that the majority of jobs include shift work and weekends. However, I'll be hopefully starting work within the next few months only because my mother is moving in with us. That way I can do evening shift and continue on with the voluntary work I've been doing in the meantime.

They didn't mention that option did they?

Hmmm, anyway, as per usual the lone mother is beat around the head with a stick. No mention of the feckless fathers like my xh who doesn't work because if he did the dreaded CSA would dare to take a share to help bring up his firstborns. Because children apparently can look after themselves for free.

expatinscotland · 21/08/2009 18:33

I'd love to have social housing, TIBS, because I think it'd be nice to become a childminder who offers non-traditional hours like evenings, weekends and even overnight care.

But I can't do that in private lets and there's no way we'd ever be able to purchase anyplace.

ruddynorah · 21/08/2009 18:33

the founder has had a very interesting life, i think from being a governor at her own school aged 15. high ambition from the start.

expatinscotland · 21/08/2009 18:36

yes, ruddy, i've read about her before.

she doesn't exactly come from humble beginnings.

nor do i.

but then, i don't make a living off getting paid by the government to hire people like haley to treat the most vulnerable in society the way she does.

muggglewump · 21/08/2009 18:38

She's been on Secret Millionaire.
I didn't see that episode though so I don't know how she was it in.

TwoIfBySea, The £40 is if you work over 16 hours. You get it for a year, and it can be stopped and started again.
I will get another 5 months as I had to give up my job after 7 months as my hours were cut to under 16.
If you work under 16 hours, you can keep £20 of your earnings and that's it.

drosophila · 21/08/2009 18:59

Expat there is a scheme in Ireland -FÁS- similar to welfare to work but it seems to be a sucess. It was for my brother anyway. He hadn't worked for years and then he started working for this scheme whereby you worked one week off one week on and got reasonable money (more than benefits. I'm not sure if his work was typical but he did a lot of maintenance work in local old folks home and general work of that nature around the locality. Usually the work tried to improve the community - clearing graveyards, building playgrounds etc.

thousandsplendidsuns · 21/08/2009 20:46

I don't think anyone warmed to Hayley in that programme but from a background of working with a similar client group, sometimes the 'tough love' (or in middle-class terms, 'patronising') approach works. The women seemed to benefit (no pun intended) from it anyway. Of course, the whole programme is edited to illustrate the extremes of Emma 'chief exec' in her castle and poor old Dawn on her council estate. Maybe Emma has got where she has from listening to the people she employs and inviting them home to hear their views; however patronising that seems to some. It obviously works!

And yah boo sucks on Hayley's behalf - Donah was on the juice. Why would she say she could smell it if she couldn't?

And finally, one more example (apparently from my sadly lacking experience of 'reality'), one of my cases living very nicely on 10 hrs a week part-time job and the rest of her income from benefits told me, despite all my suggestions that she didn't want to do any more hours because she wanted 'time for herself' (all her kids now at school). Yeah love, we'd all like more of that wouldn't we? I'll remember that the next time I'm picking my kids up from the childminder at 6pm.

Also why I can only post after bedtime!

CloudDragon · 21/08/2009 21:06

I've worked for years with people who have been long term unemployed and I would agree with the premise of the scheme. The majority of people are lacking in confidence, motivation and expectation. I think a confidence building course is a good idea.

I have managed to assist a few people back to work through confidence building and pointing out that to get a good job you need to do a few shitty ones.

So I like the premise but they should have started with single unemployed people then looked at how to get around the problems with single parents/people with disability.

My collegue is a single parent with major disablilities and gets riled at how many of our clients use either or one of those as an excuse not to work during school hours.

She breaks even on money terms but refuses to claim on principle.

Also that woman need a good slap, I would have hated her.

muggglewump · 21/08/2009 22:11

She pulled Donah (is that how you spell her name?) in after the first week to question her, yet she went on for 6 weeks and started the job at Poundland.

Why?

If Hayley knew the problem was there, and was so sure then why let it go on?

Not because she got a bonus for getting her into work or anything right.

The whole thing was a money making exercise for the company and it showed.

MrsBonJovi · 21/08/2009 22:19

These types of schemes are being rolled out nationally under the pathways to work programme. The amount the providers are being paid is scandalous. Not just lone parents but long term sick are being targeted.

If anyone wants to know about the £40 pw incentive its called "in work credit" (if lone parent) or return to work credit (if sick)

The £250 is called a Job Grant not a back to work bonus as called in the programme...they finished two years ago.

Not offering an opinion as we will be here all evening!

MrsBonJovi · 21/08/2009 22:20

Check out directgiv website if you want more info about above....not available to all!

ruddynorah · 21/08/2009 22:22

i don't think you were meant to NOT think it was a money making exercise for the company were you? they were up front about it. the company got £100 a week for each 'client' and a bonus for if they got them into work. part of the getting them into work would be to tackle as best they could whatever barriers those clients had, such as a drink problem, or child care issues, or er..no taxis past 1am.

nanninurse · 21/08/2009 22:35

donah denied she had a problem, thats why she continued on the course, she was later sacked from poundland for drinking..

muggglewump · 22/08/2009 00:16

Yes, I saw that, but isn't it a tad suspicious that they didn't deal with it on the course, and got her into work instead and then made a point of it, once she had a job and they had made their money.

It's a company preying on people.

Yes, some got jobs and were happy, but the aim was to make money and that's what I object to.

expatinscotland · 22/08/2009 01:08

I couldn't agree more, mugggle. You put it so much more concisely.

Dros, I hope Ireland is handling it better than my native country, because I find their attitude mostly horrible where I am from and I don't stay there for many reasons but this being chief among them.

I get a rep on here for being hard, and much I am for my own life in adulthood's been no bed of roses but in all that is my own fault, and I'd think black burning shame of myself if I were the likes of Hayley or the on yer bike type.

For the love of God, there are children behind every lone parent. There but for the grace . . .

A country that has no compassion for its own children is lost, IMO.

muggglewump · 22/08/2009 01:36

Expat, I have a rep on another board for being hard.
Nobody likes me and even if they agree with me they have to point out first that they don't like me, because I say it how it is.

In the latest benefits thread I was told 'My husband pays your benefits' Nice eh?

Yep there are kids there, but there's women there too, women that need help.

OK £75,000 of debt is madness, but why is she in that much debt?
I'll bet she didn't borrow that much, and I'll bet she just wants her DD to have what the other kids do and then the repayments and interest got out of control.

The woman needs help, not condemning.