Monthly Archives: January 2015
The Upsetting Reality Of Modern Day Poverty.
This is a post about a subject very close to home. My home. It is about politicians who wouldn’t know poverty if it chewed on their overpaid arses.
It’s about Jamie Oliver.
Now, to put this out there, I loved Jamie. For years and years, I idolised the man. He taught me to cook, when I could barely operate a Pot Noodle and we lived off Smash (dehydrated potatoes) and pasta (we even overcooked that). I would watch all his shows and learn, slowly, from the TV. In less than a year, I was able to cook a three course meal for 15 people. Gourmet became easy and I was soon laughing my way through 3 meat roasts and cooked-from-scratch curries. I owe my skill in the kitchen to Jamie. I have a lot to thank him for.
Jamie Oliver was good to watch, when I had money. Before I had…
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Making people ill is written in to the DWP Decision makers’ guidance on sanctions.
According to DWP advice for DWP sanction decision makers,
“it would be usual for a normal healthy adult to suffer some deterioration in their health if they were without
1. essential items, such as food, clothing, heating and accommodation or
2. sufficient money to buy essential items for a period of two weeks.”……
“The DM must determine if a person with a medical condition would suffer a greater decline in health than a normal healthy adult and would suffer hardship (DMG 35142 et seq)”.”
Read the full text of Rev Paul Nicholson (of Taxpayers against Povery)’s letter published on the Kilburn Unemployed Workers’ blog at http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/health-and-costbenefits-analysis-of-dwp.html,
THE DWP SEEMS TO THINK THAT MAKING PEOPLE ILL “IS A PRICE WORTH PAYING” TO “ENCOURAGE” THE UNEMPLOYED INTO WORK.
The DWP never thinks about the additional costs in the NHS when the DWP makes people mentally and physically ill by shredding or even stopping their incomes; and then enforcing inevitable rent and council tax arrears, overpayments etc……….
This is a clip from a government document for Decision Makers (re Sanctions) in the DWP. You can find the full article on the Ekklesia website, It was sent in by a TAP supporter.
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/21360
Guidance for hardship payments
“Comparing the decline in health with a healthy adult
35098 The DM must consider if the health of the person with the medical condition would decline more than a normal healthy adult. The DM should make this comparison based on a normal healthy adult who is in similar circumstances to the person with the medical condition.
35099 It would be usual for a normal healthy adult to suffer some deterioration in their health if they were without
1. essential items, such as food, clothing, heating and accommodation or
2. sufficient money to buy essential items for a period of two weeks.
See Appendix 6 to this Chapter for further guidance.
The DM must determine if a person with a medical condition would suffer a greater decline in health than a normal healthy adult and would suffer hardship (DMG 35142 et seq)”.
read more here: http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/health-and-costbenefits-analysis-of-dwp.html
Private Eye: A4E Using Untrained Advisers Working With The Disabled
Many thanks to campaigner Pat Onions, who shared this on Facebook:
Private Eye this Fortnight: A4E Using Untrained Advisers Working with the Disabled
In the ‘In the Back’ section of this fortnight’s Private Eye, 9th-22nd January 2015, is the piece ‘Welfare Gap’. This reports the claims made by a former employee and whistleblower, Chris Loder, at an employment tribunal in Manchester, that the ‘welfare to work’ provider is using untrained or inexperienced personnel to deal with claimants with a variety of mental and emotional problems, such as the mentally ill, those with learning difficulties and people who are drug or alcohol dependent. According to Loder, he was recruited by A4E to work helping unemployed people find jobs in 2012. In February 2014, the Blackpool office started using untrained advisers to deal with clients with the above problems.
The article quotes Jessica Pilling, a former ministerial adviser with 14 years’…
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Universal Jobmatch: Not Good Enough for Civil Service Jobs!!!
Ironic isn’t it? The Government ploughs millions of pounds of taxpayers money into ‘developing’ Universal Jobmatch by tendering it out to Monster who modified their pretty-poor job board (no, not the one they use for monster.co.uk, one even worse than that!) into “DirectGov” colours, just to add functionality of CV upload and tracking for jobseekers.
They replaced the ‘jobpoints’ with computers to enforce the use of Universal Jobmatch, no work coach mentions the words “job board” nowadays… the new buzz word is “Universal Jobmatch” (emphasis on new, its not new by a long chalk, excuse the pun!) and they are overly proud of this despite this matching “technology” being widely used for the last 10 years – back then the average broadband connection speed was just 512 kbit. The average Ipswich 3G speed is 4 times that. If advisers do not mention the…
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Benefit tales 