What’s Wrong With Benefit Sanctions?

Picture this: you’re ten minutes late for a meeting at work. You’re very sorry. You explain to your boss how the bus was on diversion and took half an hour longer than usual. Your boss has no time to discuss it and simply tells you that you won’t get paid this month. That’s it, not a fine, or some kind of reduction, but nothing, no pay, absolutely nothing.

Or this: you’re home based. You’re on flexible hours. Today you had an appointment to check in with the team. But just as you were leaving to go to the office, your daughter’s school called. She’s in the sick room, they say. She isn’t well and the school needs you to fetch her home right away. You phone your office and explain there’s an emergency and head off for the school instead. Next thing you know, your work has written you a letter telling you, you won’t get paid this month: nothing, no pay, absolutely nothing; four weeks without a penny. No investigation; no checking the facts; no phone call to the school to see if your story added up.

Of course, in the UK, today, this would never happen. There are laws to prevent it. If anyone tried to justify anything like this in the workplace, they would be told just how grossly disproportionate a sanction like losing a month’s pay would be. And the idea the punishment could be put into action on a first offence, no yellow card, so to speak, would make it all the more far-fetched. Far-fetched that is, if we are talking workplace and employment.

But foodbanks in the Trussell Trust network deal with this type of situation with welfare recipients every day. A pregnant women who was working part time (less than 16 hours per week) but was ‘not looking for a job hard enough’ and sanctioned and left hungry. A construction worker on a zero hours contract who was sanctioned because he found work that day and had to cancel his appointment. Just two of many examples.

Somehow, the nation has got itself in a place where draconian action like this happens to tens of thousands of citizens without most of the rest of us batting an eyelid! Not when they are in work, but when they are out of it.

And this benefit sanctioning is even sometimes justified by saying it prepares people for the real world of work. How unreal is that. It’s like a parallel universe where the well-honed principles that govern relations between employees and their employers have been ditched in favour of a system that seems to have forgotten justice and proportionality.

I’m left puzzling. Why does behaviour we would think outrageous if it were a business owner trying it, get given the okay when it’s people administering the benefits system that do it? What justifies the rules being so very different?

read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/chris-mould/whats-wrong-with-benefit-sanctions_b_8055036.html

Sanctioned for not writing long enough sentences and new shiny windows at the Jobcentre.

The poor side of life

Yesterday when I arrived at the Ashton Under Lyne Jobcentre I thought I was seeing things. They had taken down the paper that was covering the windows. Great I thought, the claimants will feel much more secure knowing that they can see outside now. I would have thought that they would have felt very intimidated upon entering a building that you can’t see out of. I walked. Up to the building and I noticed that they had placed some kind of reflective film on the glass, presumably so we can’t see inside. We don’t look inside anyway we are too busy helping people and handing leaflets out. My question is this. At what expense was this decision to put up reflective coatings on the glass? And who’s decision was this? Once again we come in peace and this is not needed at all.

Whilst standing outside a young woman approached…

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Conservative benefits policy: Not merely cruelty, but also incompetence.

Mylegalforum has posted these 2 interesting infographics on Twitter. The current UK government’s campaign to throw people off the benefits they need and qualify for seems to be backfiring. Thousands of people are being made more ill and / or destitute by his punitive policies, and they aren’t even achieving their stated aim of reducing the benefits bill. Not merely cruelty, but also incompetence.

Hartlepool : Benefit claimants struggling to survive while they wait over appeals

UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR

A Citizens  Advice leader in Hartlepool say benefits claimants are struggling to survive while they await the outcome of appeals.

Hartlepool Citizens Advice Bureau says more and more sick and disabled people are getting into debt while they wait for an answer from officials for their Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claims.

Research found some claimants are left without money as they wait between six and 14 weeks for the outcome to a second opinion from benefits chiefs.

And the advice service says switching claimants to Jobseeker’s Allowance while they wait for a decisions is costing taxpayers almost £30 million a year.

 The Hartlepool bureau is joining a national campaign calling for the appeals system to be reformed.

Joe Michna, manager of Hartlepool CAB, said:

“We see very many people coming to us with problems about Employment and Support Allowance.

“The mandatory reconsideration process (review process) is leaving people desperately…

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You must do your JSA jobsearch online, even though we know you can’t

This is from Katebelgrave.com

…………….Eddie must go to the jobcentre every fortnight to sign on and to show that he’s searched for at least 14 jobs. This post will show you how difficult and pointless this jobsearch exercise is for him. One of Eddie’s main problems is his struggle to read and write. He can write letters out if people tell him which ones to choose (for example, he asked me how to spell “Customer Service Advisor” when applying for one job, then wrote it as I spelled it out), but has trouble with more complex words. He also finds computers challenging. He doesn’t have a computer at home, which means that he rarely uses one. He wasn’t sure what a browser was when I took my laptop around to his flat to help him with his jobsearch (you’ll see some of this in the videos below).

Nonetheless, a couple of weeks ago, Eddie’s jobcentre adviser instructed him to choose and apply for at least three jobs online as part of his fortnightly quota………..

Read what happened next in the full article on Kate Belgrave’s blog here: http://www.katebelgrave.com/2014/10/you-must-do-your-jsa-jobsearch-online-even-though-we-know-you-cant/#

Thanks to DWP incompetence, I risked killing both myself and my unborn child

 

Rachael Bradley has posted this on the facebook page ‘The People vs The Government, DWP and Atos’

………………………
In January of 2012, after a temporary work contract ended, I signed on to Jobseeker’s allowance with my then partner. I sent in everything I was supposed to, and around three weeks later, was told my claim had been approved and was ready to be put into payment. Two weeks later, no payment. We got in touch. “Don’t worry about it, it will be paid in the next three days.”
This went on for ten weeks. By this point we had run out of crisis loans. There were no local food banks in the area, so no food. Our electricity had gone out weeks previous. Our gas had been cut. We were summoned to court and a CCJ for rent arrears was imposed. It got to the point where we were living on one pack of 11p noodles a week. I lost 2 stone in three months. On Mother’s Day, despairing that things would never get better, I took 60 painkillers in an attempt on my life.

It took from January to the 28th of May, when I discovered I was pregnant, before things got moving. I explained I was pregnant and was very curtly told, “Pregnancy is not recognized by the jobcentre until you reach 29 weeks pregnant.”

Two weeks after this, after using local libraries to get some legal advice, I called at 9am on Friday 16th of June, and immediately asked to speak to a manager. I explained the abysmal service and said I had recorded the names of every person I had spoken to. I was very blunt in stating that I planned on suing under The Human Rights Act and they had three hours to provide a solution. Then I hung up. Finally, two hours later, after six months and weighing 3.5 stone less, I received the following text:
“Your claim has been processed and will be in your account within 3 hours. There is no need to call.”

Thanks to their incompetence, I risked killing both myself and my unborn child, now have a Court Judgement for rent arrears, and have fought crippling depression ever since. Please share this as I know I’m not the only one who has suffered the indignation of being treated so poorly because I had the misfortune of being unemployed.

“I didn’t want my first JSA meeting to be in a group session with a G4S guard.

from Kate Belgrave’s blog

 

I spent a couple of hours today talking with someone who is a new JSA claimant in North London. This man started his JSA claim a couple of weeks ago. It’s the first claim he’s made. He filled in an application form online and then was sent a text by the DWP some days later which called him to a meeting at a London jobcentre in the first week of August.

He assumed that the meeting would be one-to-one with a jobcentre advisor – a meeting where an advisor goes through the application in detail with the claimant and jobsearch requirements are set – but instead found that the meeting was a group session with about ten other new claimants and one G4S security guard who sat in the room the whole time. This man was shocked to find that this first meeting wasn’t private. He found the experience confusing and worrying, and wasn’t sure what he agreed to in it.

He said that he was certainly concerned about asking questions and sharing personal details and financial information in front of a group of strangers. He wasn’t the only one. He said that “a couple of the people there looked very nervous and anxious at the prospect of a group meeting,” and that people were worried about confidentiality.

He also said that the two jobcentre staff who ran the meeting “said that the new claimant meetings were now ‘unfortunately’ group meetings rather than individual meetings.” He has another meeting coming up soon and thinks the new meeting is a one-to-one, so he wasn’t sure if the group session was a direct replacement for a new claimant one-to-one. He was hoping that his claim would be finalised at the upcoming meeting. He was concerned about papers that he signed at the group session though. He was worried that he may have agreed to a claimant commitment without properly talking about it, or having time to think things through. He wasn’t sure if that had happened and hoped to find out at the upcoming one-to-one. He didn’t want to make a fuss and not sign papers at the group session. He also didn’t want to ask many questions or reveal his financial situation in a room full of strangers.

I’ve put a transcript of our discussion below. I’ve found some evidence of these new claimant group meetings online and a woman I know told me today that she’d accompanied someone to another London jobcentre where new claimant group meetings were held. The woman she was with was excused from that group meeting, because she didn’t speak English well. She was given a one-to-one session with an advisor instead that day.

The man I spoke to today said:

“Beyond the complete lack of confidentiality and privacy in a group meeting, it proved highly impractical and inefficient to address questions of ten different claimants. New claimants obviously have very different and unique cases. I can’t imagine how anyone would want to talk about sensitive or difficult issues in that environment.”

People were also told to put their identifying documents and bank statements into a box for photocopying and had their names read out for all to hear when the documents were returned.

I’ve asked the DWP for more on this and I’d be interested to hear from anyone who knows about these meetings. You can contact me here. People I’ve spoken to about this have real concerns about confidentiality and also about the appropriateness of a group environment for people who need to discuss sensitive personal information. I’m also interested to know why these meetings are held at all and why a G4S security guard gets to sit in listening to people’s personal stories.

read the full article here: http://www.katebelgrave.com/2014/08/i-didnt-want-my-first-jsa-meeting-to-be-in-a-group-session-with-a-g4s-guard/

Newly Unemployed To Be Forced To Wait FIVE Weeks For Benefits Under Universal Credit

Most people who lose their jobs will soon have to wait five weeks before they get any cash help,

according to small print in the Universal Credit rules uncovered by the TUC as it launches a new campaign today (Wednesday), Saving Our Safety Net.

A YouGov poll reports opposition of almost four to one (pdf) to the five-week wait.

Currently most newly unemployed people have to wait two weeks they get their first benefit payment. But under new Universal Credit rules people will not be eligible for any help for a week and must then wait a further month for their benefits to be paid in arrears. This means that, other than the few who receive emergency help, any new claimants will have to wait at least five weeks for any cash.

Read the full article here:  http://welfarenewsservice.com/newly-unemployed-forced-wait-five-weeks-benefits-universal-credit/

How the hell is that making work pay?

This was posted n the facebook page 4UP

 

Just got off the phone and I’m left feeling really angry. I’ve got a permanent job that starts on Monday and I’ve just been informed that I’m supposed to survive on just over £140 until i first get paid, which is august the 5th. How the hell is that making work pay? I’ve also been told I’m not eligible for the 4 week run on for housing benefit because I haven’t been unemployed for more than 6 months. Slightly at a loss as to how this is making work pay

‘Mandatory reconsideration’ – more money-saving by sending the sick to their deaths

Mike Sivier's blog

National disgrace: The green benches were almost empty during yesterday’s debate on the DWP’s new ‘mandatory reconsideration’ regime – and the potential number of deaths it is causing.

It is hard to know where to start. Perhaps with DWP minister Mike Penning’s failure to answer the questions raised in yesterday’s adjournment debate on the ESA ‘mandatory reconsideration’ process, despite having prior notice of Sheila Gilmore’s entire presentation? Perhaps with the DWP’s failure to release accurate statistics, which is especially appalling as press officer Richard Caseby attacked a newspaper for inaccuracies very recently? Perhaps with the DWP’s continuing denial of the deaths caused by its increasingly-bizarre and unreasonable attempts to save money?

(Apparently they’re “anecdotal” so they don’t count. Does everybody recall when Iain Duncan Smith used similarly anecdotal evidence to support his claim that his benefit cap was “supporting” people into work, last year?)

The debate was brought to…

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