Workhouse Britain

Caught me out trying to be clever, but I could claim it was just a typo.
I won't though...

I wonder what would be a 'politically correct' term for the Americanism I used....

 

Agh, I see. Ok. Maybe it was the 'Future Jobs Fund' or the 'New Deal' (that mentions someting about 13 weeks.) I get the point, though.

I've read a few of them. I suppose different providers are trying to draw people into their programme.
I dunno, I don't know if you get a choice in the matter.

The sound like fun You do understand why I asked, though, right?

Fair enough.

 

Yankee talk? Perhaps not. Not sure.

 

Them and Those.

http://grammarstars.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/41-them-and-those-and-problems-they.html

It isn't just a US problem. "It's them bloody combine harvesters put us out of work...."

"It's them fackin poles come 'ere an' put us out o work..."

:bobby:

 

P.S: I appreciate this. Thank You.

 

Adjectives. Pronouns. Subject and Verb Agreement. :willy_nilly:

I kinda instinctively know, somehow. Obviously not always. 'Whom' and 'Who' is a bit of a dilemma.

 

Let's leave that for another time. I have some idea that there are two grammatical cases, accusative and nominative, but can't exactly reconstruct my knowledge of which is which. I somehow think "who" is the nominative. The subject.

Back to google I guess

I only really learned good grammar because I used to listen to the BBC as a kid, and went to a grammar school back before labour abolished them. One of their mistakes IMO. I was one of the lucky ones. I can never over state how glad I am that I got the education I did back in the 60's.

 

Apparently so. Google tells me. Although, I've never heard the word 'nominative' before in my life

My over-riding thought about Grammar schools is that if you didn't get in you were thrown on a scrap heap. However, judging by your comments earlier, you can still find yourself traveling to the Jobcentre regardless of your education.

 

That is true enough. I didn't actually finish my time at grammar school, as I was a bit of a rebel. But it gave me a really good basis on which I could continue my own self-education.
I am fully aware of the injustice of the whole system, but as one who benefited from it, it's difficult for me to condemn it completely.
My daughter went to a comprehensive, and has actually done a lot better in life than I did. But whenever she wants to know anything, it's to me that she turns.

The education I got at grammar school was not very practical in some ways, but it enabled me to think for myself, and to never feel inferior to those toff public schoolboys.
Like them what run us now.:sunny:

 

*chuckle*

Well, there isn't a lot I can do about my formal education now, and I'm sure, boringly, there are pro's and con's in all systems. I, personally, seek to further my education - it might be a personal thing. I know friends who stay ignorant because they like to...

 

It's good IMO to know as much as you can about all the things that interest you, or are useful in the practical sense. The way I see it, the more you know, the richer and deeper your experience of life.

 

Being aware of - has helped. Stuff I'm not particularity interested in, too. Such as grammar I don't necessarily have to know about as much as possible. But, just keeping my mind open is good enough for me. I know, even so, my universe is relatively small. It's just people that stick to what they know that bothers me.

 

Some of you guys make me laugh!!!

Im a 'troll' just for putting up another side of the argument.

I don't have to tell you my exact position in the welfare system. I just have a lot more experience of it than you. As to how i know how people spend their money - again as a professional i wont be telling you either. You have only experienced what is happening to you in your position - i DEAL with lots of situations spanning all areas of the welfare system. Help people - you know without people who administer the benefits would you be receiving anything right now? And with regards to your comment about me doing something about it - i do. How it is not for you to know - you will just have to take my word.

It makes me laugh how someone has mentioned literacy yet they have been brought up on their own literacy. But as a human being i also understand that we can't always get everything right.

You guys really crack me up.

There are always 2 sides of the coin and i understand both. It is unfortunate that some appear to only be one sided in their opinions - maybe that might be the true reason why you cannot find employment - maybe you're the kind of person who makes very little effort but claims to be moving the world. Again maybe your attitude has a part to play in it.

If you cannot stand to hear both sides of the argument then why start a thread. You're getting honest responses yet you don't like what you are hearing.... i don't get it.

I'm sure your a nice guy, i mean that and i certainly dont want to fall out. but on this we will have to agree to disagree.

I wish you luck with the job hunt mate i hope things get better for you.

 

No - you are a troll because you are spreading rumours about the lifestyles and personal finances of individuals you claim to know all about, and by extension to all the unemployed but which you cant subtantiate. You sound like you're reading from a script written by Ian Duncan Smith's spin doctors.

Wasn't covered in the script, huh ? But as a professional you apparently dont mind spreading unsubtantiated rumours about a whole section of society.

Oh, probably - its a good sterotype, why waste it.

My CV, since 1977, runs to three pages and covers a wide range of jobs from A-W (archaeology to warehousing - sadly I've not been able to get a job in a zoo yet, so A-Z will have to wait). I have experience over a wide range of jobs spread over several decades, so I feel qualified to state this once more - THE JOBS ARE NOT THERE ANYMORE. There are far more people unemployed than there are vacant jobs. Very few new jobs are being created. This is likely to be the way its going to stay. It's the neo-liberal way.

What I dont like is all these unsubstantiated stereotypes being tossed around as if they are fact. You cant or wont say how you apparently know all these intimate details about people's lives, yet you're quite happy to denounce them here.

Both sides of the argument ? Perhaps it would be better if we could hear the side of the story of these people you're denouncing before we unconditionally accept yours.

You're very wrong. I'm not a nice guy.

And it's you're, not your

(Sorry BlackBill - intruding on your territory... :alien

 

We only have the one WP provider, so no choice at all.

Under New Deal we had two, the Job Centre would automatically send you to one or other, but you could request the alternative (although you wouldn't necesserily get it).

Might vary from area to area - google "work programme (name of your town)" and you'll probably get enough information come up to see who's who.

 

Listen mate im sorry to offend. I wont comment on this thread again. I wish you luck.

 

If you're working so hard, what are you doing on a forum at this time of the afternoon ? Does your boss know ?

 

from The Void
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/why-george-osbornes-workfare-plans-wont-work/


Why George Osborne’s Workfare Plans Won’t Work

George Osborne’s mass workfare scheme is so unworkable that even Iain Duncan Smith winced when it was announced during the Tory Party Conference yesterday.

Osborne claims that 200,000 people will be forced into either full time workfare or massively increased conditionality – such as having to attend Jobcentres everyday. This will apply to people leaving the Work Programme, the two year scheme which is already costing tax payers a fortune and failing miserably.

Already Osborne’s sums don’t add up. People are currently returning to Jobcentres after leaving the Work Programme at a rate of around 50,000 a month. If all of these people are sent on Osborne’s new scheme – as he promised they will be – then that will be 600,000 in the first year alone. One third of these are expected to be sent on full time workfare.

As even bungling Iain Duncan Smith knows, this is completely unworkable. The reason IDS knows this is because he just tried it.

The Community Action Programme (CAP) was a workfare scheme which was piloted in 2011/12 for long term unemployed people. It was claimed that the programme would go live in Summer 2013 to catch the tens of thousands of people currently leaving the Work Programme without a job.

In mis-directed revenge for the failure of welfare-to-work companies to help people find work , those who were still unemployed at the end of the Work Programme were to be sent on six months workfare for a community organisation. This is exactly the same thing that Osborne proposed yesterday.

The Community Action Programme even enjoyed a brief moment of fame as one of the schemes that was hauled through the courts and ultimately found to be illegal. Curiously, when Iain Duncan Smith rewrote history to make several previously unlawful workfare programmes legal, he did not include the Community Action Programme in the revised back-dated legislation.

One reason for this was presumed to be due to an evaluation of the pilot scheme which revealed the Community Action Programme to be a disaster. A DWP report found it had no impact on whether anyone was more likely to get a job, although this is hardly uncommon for one of Iain Duncan Smith’s crazy schemes. More importantly, it brought home some stark realities to the out of touch mandarins at the DWP. According to the report, it was unsurprisingly difficult for welfare-to-work companies to find placements for some long term unemployed people who are described as being ‘particularly challenging’. This included people who were homeless, had current drink or drug problems or such serious criminal records that in the words of the report they represented a ‘risk to placement providers’.

As things turned out the welfare-to-work companies who ran the scheme were only able to find 63 per cent of CAP participants a work placement. One reason for this was that many charities pulled out of the scheme after fierce campaigning from Boycott Workfare and other groups exposed the exploitative nature of forced unpaid work. Another is that most charities do not have the capacity or skills to employ chaotic individuals dubbed the ‘hardest to help’.

That doesn’t mean everyone who is long term unemployed is ‘challenging’, has ‘behavioural disorders’ or faces ‘significant barriers to employment’. In fact the opposite is true, most long term unemployed people live in areas of sky high unemployment where there are simply no jobs and that is the biggest barrier to work by far. But there is no denying that a certain percentage of the ‘hardest to help’ are hard to help for a reason. That reason may be that they sleep in a shop doorway, or are the first ones queuing up waiting for the off-licence to open as the physical symptoms of alcohol withdrawal start to play havoc with their nervous system. It may be that they have been given a dual-diagnosis – meaning they have a mental health condition and a substance use problem. In a very small number of cases it may be that they have a long and violent history of offending.

It is this group of long-term unemployed people that George Osborne thinks he can fix, on the cheap, with his workfare fiasco. Osborne genuinely seems to believe that Jobcentre staff or welfare-to-work companies can solve these desperate social problems where doctors, social workers, mental health professionals and probation officers have failed. Iain Duncan Smith used to think these problems would be solved by the magical Work Programme. But where that two year scheme has been little more than an expensive waste of time, Osborne’ wants us to believe his six month workfare fantasy will mean an end to crime, addiction, homelessness and unemployment amongst this group of claimants. And if that doesn’t work he’s going to stop all of their benefits. That’ll teach them. And us.

£300 million pounds is to be spent on this nonsense, most of which is likely to end up in the pockets of the fraud ridden welfare-to-work sector. Whilst some of the most exploitative charities, like @salvationarmyuk and @YMCA_England will be only too happy to force vulnerable claimants to work for free, decent and moral organisations are likely to shun the scheme. Anti-workfare campaigners are almost certain to begin a campaign naming and shaming those involved. Charities happy to exploit the unemployed in this way will pay for it, one way or another.

That £300 million could fund scrapping both the bedroom tax and the benefit cap, along with halting the closure of the Independent Living Fund for the most seriously disabled people and there would still be money to spare. Money that could be spent on projects for the hardest to help that genuinely do help and that people do not have to be bullied by benefit sanctions into attending. It could pay to provide a home for everyone who needs one who currently beds down for the night on the pavement, or be used to reverse some of the most vicious cuts to mental health services and the NHS.

Instead this money is being squandered on a crowd-pleasing shambles – something to appease the UKIP bound swivel-eyed right of the Tory Party. Osborne will be pleased with himself for stealing the limelight and humiliating Iain Duncan Smith in the process by announcing a new flagship DWP policy. But it may yet turn out to be one of the most expensive rounds of applause in history as the social consequences of this nasty little move will be felt for decades.

 

“The out-of-work jobseekers’ *benefits bill makes up just 3% of the total welfare spend and 94% of jobseekers find work within two years. So Osborne’s announcement will address just 0.15% of the total benefit bill.”

Is this an unsubstantiated claim?

There seems to be two 'Prime Contractors' in my area: A4e https://a4ecareers.com/ and Ingeus Deloitte http://www.ingeus.co.uk/jointventure/ with half a dozen or so training providers ('partners') - for e.g intraining and Leicester College.

 

Its called Annual leave. Now listen can you stop insulting and being downright rude? Ive tried to be nice and reasonable to you. You could be reasonable back.

If youve nothing nice to say dont say anything.

Lets leave it there before things escalate. I dont wish to be drawn into any further argument with you.