On the topic of Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP “helping” sick or disabled people into work:

I’ve posted below a recording of a jobcentre adviser shelving a diabetic JSA claimant’s concerns when he says that he is ill, that his blood sugar is high and that he needs to get to his GP. I want to show you how quickly some jobcentre advisers can bat talk of sickness away.

I think this is important. As you will know, there’s a great deal of discussion about Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to push more and more sick or disabled people into work. There’s also a great deal of It’s All Fine bollocks coming from government and the DWP about the sort of support that sick or disabled benefit claimants receive from the DWP as they look for work, or are pushed into work (“jobseekers now have access to dedicated Work Coaches, who are trained to provide tailored support specific to their individual needs,” the DWP waffled in an email to me when I recently asked the department about jobcentre support for disabled claimants).

I hope that the recording on this page demonstrates the realities of some of this “tailored support.” The truth is there are times when advisers seem pretty indifferent to a claimant’s problems, or to tailoring a jobcentre meeting to a person’s individual needs. (To be fair, I suspect that many advisers are too busy to find time for this “tailoring.” Advisers have told me as much: “I used to see about five people a day. Now I see about 15.”). I think that the DWP has one aim and one aim only: to push people into voluntary work, or onto work programme courses. Everything else comes second – including health, I suspect. That message came over loud and clear at the meeting I am talking about. The JSA claimant’s ill-health was canvassed (briefly), but he was absolutely not excused from the meeting until the adviser had made a very considerable effort to sign him up for voluntary work and courses.

The JSA claimant in this post is an older man (he’s 52) who has a learning difficulty and is diabetic, as I say. He injects insulin three times a day (I’ve been to his flat many times and seen his fridge full of insulin). As soon as we arrived at this jobcentre meeting, he told the adviser that he felt unwell because of his diabetes. He certainly seemed unwell: his face looked sweaty and greasy, and he was irritable. He had recently been sick with the flu. The adviser clearly had doubts about this story – or, at least, decided that this man’s ill-health wasn’t as big a priority as signing him up for voluntary work. This claimant had cut the previous week’s appointment with the same adviser short for a similar reason. He told me that he’d been ill for a while. (We went to his GP’s surgery to make an appointment after this jobcentre meeting). The adviser instructed the claimant to manage his food intake properly in future. Then, she got down to the real business of the meeting (and presumably of the DWP): to push this man into signing up for voluntary work, or the work programme:

Transcript:

JCP (Jobcentre Plus Adviser): “Hi, are you all right?

Claimant: Not too good.

JCP? Not too good?

Claimant: Not too well.

JCP: Oh. Okay.

Claimant: Not feeling very well at all.

JCP: Oh. The diabetes, you mean. You had lunch?

Claimant: Not yet, no. I will have to shortly soon.

JCP: What time do you normally eat then?

Claimant: Sometimes, it’s like one, or two, or three o’clock, like.

JCP: Aren’t you supposed to stick to a bit more regular…?

Claimant: Yeah. I should have…shortly.

JCP: [looking at me] Yeah, okay…Is this the same lady as last week?

Me: Yeah… hello [Recording edited here to remove a name]

JCP: Right, so how long have I got then?

Claimant: Not very long.

Me: Do you want to get to the doctor?

Claimant: I have to go to the doctor shortly, anyway. And check my sugar, because it is so high.

JCP: Right, right…okay. Because we booked it [this appointment] because we didn’t have much time on Friday (sic), but obviously, if it’s the same sort of scenario…

Claimant: [unclear] Hyper…hyper…it comes just like that. Sometimes, it just comes, you know.

JCP: Yeah. You have to stick to regular mealtimes…you know that, don’t you. You have to stick to really regular times to eat, otherwise you’re going to get issues… Right. So we haven’t got much time. You sign on next week… Did you have any more thinking about doing the voluntary work to help you? To [get] paid jobs?”

————-

That was basically it as far talk about the illness went. The interview carried on for about half an hour from there. You can read about the rest of that session here. You’ll see from the longer article that the adviser was pretty relentless in her attempts to sign this man up for voluntary work and the work programme. There were points where I thought the interview seemed almost designed to increase the stress levels of someone with a diabetic illness: the adviser pushed applications forms for courses across the desk and insisted on finding and giving us the address of a work programme provider so that we could visit the course site in advance. As I say, the adviser kept that line going for quite some time before finally saying that this JSA claimant could leave.

You see my point. This is how the DWP’s “tailored support” for sick or disabled people can look on the ground. The health problems are put to one side. The priorities are clearly elsewhere. You get the impression that the assumption is the claimant is swinging the lead. I don’t particularly like picking on individual advisers, but it is clear to me that this sort of incident needs airing. Iain Duncan Smith likes to give the impression that sick or disabled people who attend DWP interviews always find a welcoming environment and concerned advisers with the time, patience and inclination to meet people’s support needs. I think we’re all supposed imagine that this system works brilliantly and future is rosy as more people are made to attend these sorts of interviews. I sit through these things and I think – yeah. Right. If only.