Workhouse Britain

Tom1's upset that he'll be missing out on a party...

DWP Cancel Poverty Party: Week of Festivities to Celebrate Benefit Sanctions Scrapped

The DWP have cancelled a vile week long celebration of benefit sanctions due to be held to coincide with the Tory Party Conference the PCS Union have reported.

In a sign of growing militancy from the PCS leadership to oppose the vicious sanctioning regime (stop laughing) the union had issued a strongly worded letter to DWP bosses complaining about the upcoming shindig.

Iain Duncan Smith and his department had been planning to rejoice at the news that hundreds of thousands of people are being pushed into desperate poverty by the massive increase in draconian sanctions. According to the PCS, the DWP had said the week of festivities was about “celebrating how far we have come since the introduction of tougher sanction levels last year”.

It now appears that the week of fun has been scrapped with all mention of Conditionality Week disappearing from the DWP’s website except for a memo to Work Programme providers inviting them to join the party (PDF).

Benefits can now be sanctioned for the most trivial reasons, such as missing a meeting or being late for an appointment. A list of especially stupid sanctions, such as benefits being stopped because someone didn’t look for enough work on Christmas Day, has recently appeared online.

:devil: Personal note - yes, they tried to sanction me for non-attendence at a meeting with a Work Programme adviser. The reason I didn't attend was because they didn't tell me about it ! This is apparently a major cause of sanction attempts - they dont tell you, you dont go, you get sanctioned, they meet their targets.

I got it overturned on appeal, as the WP had no proof that they'd sent me the letter I never received (if you see what I mean). I subsequently put in an official complaint about the adviser who tried this scam.

In some cases benefit sanctions can last up to three years. Homelessness charity umbrella body Homeless Link last week released a report which claimed sanctions were driving some recently housed homeless people back to the streets. Foodbanks consistently report sanctions as one of the main reasons families find themselves dependent on their scant support.

The DWP are dragging their feet on providing the latest information on the number of benefit claims sanctioned this year, but it is believed to be likely to top one million.

That’s a million cases of children going hungry, people unable to pay their rent or sick and disabled people not having the money to heat their homes. And that is one million reasons to party as far as Iain Duncan Smith is concerned.

The Void
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/201...ties-to-celebrate-benefit-sanctions-scrapped/

 

Oh dear - two short straws !

Both A4e and Ingeus are pretty poor (I'm currently experiencing Ingeus). Partners = sub-contractors.

Then again, none of the providers are much good - they all miss the (remarkably low) targets they're supposed to achieve.



Re. Ingeus - You might find it instructive to check out -

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?309173-Ingeus&

 

Oh - and here's a little video game to help you experience life on the Workhouse Programme. Enjoy.

The Realistic Unemployment Simulator -

http://toys.usvsth3m.com/iain-duncan-smiths-realistic-unemployment-simulator/

 

And a little background on the A4e business model...

Nine charged over Action 4 Employment fraud probe


Nine people have been charged over allegations of fraud at welfare-to-work company Action 4 Employment (A4E).

The Crown Prosecution Service said the charges related to "numerous offences of fraud" between 2009 and 2013.

The company was contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to deliver the "Inspire to Aspire" employment and training scheme.

The six women and three men are due to appear before Slough Magistrates' Court in October.

The nine individuals are charged with a total of 60 offences, including conspiracy to defraud, multiple counts of forgery and making and possessing articles for use in fraud.

A4E's contract with the DWP was to deliver motivation and training and to assist people to find employment.

Under the terms of the deal, the DWP paid out when the scheme successfully found jobs for individuals.

Thames Valley Police began an investigation into the company's Slough branch in May 2011 after the matter was referred to them by the DWP.

Charles MacDonald, 43, of Derwent Road, Egham, is charged with seven counts of forgery, one count of possessing an article for use in fraud and two counts of making articles for use in fraud.

Nikki Foster, 30, of High Tree Drive, Reading, is charged with 10 counts of forgery.

Julie Grimes, 50, of Monks Way, Staines, is charged with 10 counts of forgery.

Dean Lloyd, 36, of Rochfords, Coffee Hall, Milton Keynes, is charged with 13 counts of forgery.

Aditi Singh, 30, of Elmshott Lane, Slough, is charged with three counts of forgery and one count of possession of an article for use in fraud.

Bindya Dholiwar, 27, of Reddington Drive, Slough, is charged with seven counts of forgery.

Zabar Khalil, 34, of Dolphin Road, Slough, is charged with five counts of forgery and one count of conspiracy to defraud.

Ines Cano, 37, of Madrid, Spain, is charged with one count of forgery and one count of conspiracy to defraud.

Yasmin Ahmad, 38, of Colchester Road, Southend on Sea, is charged with two counts of forgery.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-24291161

 

Mr. Frankenstein

Reading a handful of the comments a familiar pattern emerges - I have witnessed this myself: People that feel that they are quite capable of finding employment themselves, and don't wish for the 'provider' to take any (financial) credit if they do.

One of the comments was regarding watching a 'client' pushing a cursor around, and probably never being able to do the most basic of computer tasks.
That might have been true, or they may have learnt something somewhere along the line - who knows.

This seems like both ends of the spectrum: Some people will get something from it, and others won't.
The ones that won't - will invariably complain.

I had that issue at the National Careers Offices...
The CV they 'helped' me with was piss poor - but one of the advisors did help me a little bit (I hadn't put a CV together in about 7 years).
I can see that for somebody who wasn't that capable the CV they put together is 'ok' - it isn't going to wow the pants off any employer, but it is better than no CV at all.

I will hold complete judgement until I've been in the belly of the beast myself - but it's a good 'heads up'. Thanks.

 

A historian's view of current government plans for the unemployed, based on previous experience.

From: The Learning Professor
http://thelearningprofessor.wordpre...enefits-some-lessons-from-the-1930s/#comments



Work-for-Benefits – some lessons from the 1930s


The idea of demanding work in exchange for benefits crops up repeatedly. We therefore know quite a lot about how work-for-benefit schemes operate in practice. Looking back at the various schemes of the interwar years, it is possible to draw a number of conclusions that are worth considering before any such initiative is adopted today.

- Expect to spend a lot of money. The British government work camps system, which ran between 1929 and 1939, processed around 200,000 long term unemployed men. This might sound like a lot, but it was a tiny proportion of the total unemployed. And although successive governments considered a significant expansion, they decided that they could not afford to do so.


- Supervision is very challenging. Even at the best of times, the British Ministry of Labour supervisors found it difficult to keep everyday order in the camps, and in some respects they didn’t bother, but rather accepted that there would be a certain level of violence between the men. This was a particular problem between 1929 and 1931, when the Labour Government made attendance compulsory for the long term unemployed. As a result, the Ministry of Labour always objected to any later attempts to reintroduce compulsion.

- Training is minimal. The trainees are reluctant to be there, and therefore their motivation to learn is very low. This was again a particular problem between 1929 and 1931, during the period of compulsory attendance.

- The work has to have significance. The great success among interwar work camp movements was Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps in the USA. Here, the men undertook work of real national significance, which could then be publicised across the nation, and celebrated. Even today, older socialists in the USA remember the CCC with affection.

- Job placement rates are low. Men who went through the British government work camps were no more likely to find work at the end than those who did not. In some years, the job placement rates were lower for the trainees than for those outside the camps, presumably because the trainees spent their time working on the land rather than hearing about jobs.

So the bottom line is that compulsory work-for-benefits will only work if it is universal, expensive and prestigious – if we assume that its main aim is to get the unemployed into work and off benefits. In this context, it’s worth noting that the UK Government’s own mandatory work programme has similarly been judged expensive and ineffective – though this has not stopped them from extending it.

One other possible aim of mandatory work-for-benefit is, of course, to win political approval. There is always a constituency of voters who want government to be tougher on welfare claimants. Pleasing this group is a lot easier than it was in the 1930s, when the National Unemployment Workers Movement led a number of lively campaigns against what it called “slave camps”. No similar movement exists today, and politicians can accordingly expect little or no organised protest against their treatment of the unemployed.