Iain Duncan Smith, planner extraordinaire, aims to have the majority of Universal Credit claims made online. Here’s an example of someone who will be completely excluded from claiming because of that:
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about Eddie (name changed) and the problems that he was having with his online jobsearch. I’ve met twice with Eddie since then.
Eddie is a 51-year-old Kilburn man who has mild learning difficulties. He struggles to read and write. At the moment, he signs on for jobseeker’s allowance. He has worked for most of his life as a catering assistant in hotels, pubs and in kitchens, but was made redundant about four years ago. He has been unemployed ever since. He is very keen to get another job, but has not been able to find one. He wants someone to help liaise with potential employers on his behalf – to ring people who take staff on, put him forward as a candidate, promote him and his work history and to talk through any problems that employers may have with his literacy difficulties. Eddie has taken CVs into businesses all over Kilburn. He never gets called back.
The upshot of all of this is that 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. He was given this sheet of paper – you’ll see that it lists job ads and links:
Eddie was concerned about this because he was not at all sure how to tackle an online application. The jobcentre didn’t show him. His jobcentre adviser actually conceded this when I accompanied Eddie to his signon appointment last week. Eddie and I explained to the advisor that we’d worked through the online application process together. I’d typed his CV for him, because he didn’t have an electronic version and couldn’t submit an online job application without one. I ended up completing a couple of the online application forms as well (to Argos and Superdrug). The adviser, who seemed a reasonable person, at least on the face of it, was quick to say that she knew Eddie had literacy problems, that she had never sanctioned him and was unlikely to do so because she felt that he did his best to meet his jobsearch requirements.
The problem is, of course, that people can’t rely on a forgiving adviser. Advisers come and go, or take leave, or go off sick, or move to new jobs. New managers come in and apply target pressures. Jobcentres shut down and/or people are sent to different jobcentres to sign on. People can’t just rely on scoring a nice adviser. Sanctions are the ever-present threat. There is always the chance, too, that advisers behave in a more concilitory fashion when a JSA claimant brings an advocate along (“never attend anywhere official alone!” says the Kilburn Unemployed Workers’ Group. Indeed). None of that should matter. Effective and consistent support should be in place wherever you go. On this evidence, it isn’t.
Eddie and I asked if someone at the jobcentre could help him with online applications in future. The adviser said that finding the time was difficult. She said that in the old days, she would have called employers and helped Eddie apply for work until he found a job. That sort of service was a thing of the past. “I used to see about five people a day. Now I see about 15.” Courses and endlessly useless work programme training sessions are supposed to plug that gap. Apparently, Eddie is booked to go on a computer skills course. That won’t exactly change the fact that he hasn’t got a computer to practise on.
Anyway. Here are some short clips from the afternoon round at Eddie’s flat when we went through the online job application process together. I have mixed feelings about putting these videos up – this feels an invasive and gratuitous exercise in many respects – but then again, this is what things are like. Let’s not forget that the great Iain Duncan Smith wants most Universal Credit claims made online. I guess the idea there is to drop people in Eddie’s situation at the first hurdle.
Here we are looking through the list of jobs Eddie needed to apply for (we’re sitting on the bed in Eddie’s tiny single-room flat here):
Then, I asked Eddie if he knew how to get online.
“No I don’t know anything about this online at all,” he said.
“So you wouldn’t know how to open a browser,” I said.
“No, because most of the jobs I just go in person with the CV and things like that.”
I opened the browser next and ask Eddie if he knew how to type in a url to get to a web page. He didn’t. The links were very long and a pain to type in. I messed this one up several times: https://www.superdrug.jobs/vacancies/vacancies-christmas-temp-554667-31.html.
Then we got to the job ad (the listed job had gone by then, so I had to find a similar job by going back to a general jobs page and then running a customer service advisor job search. That obviously required some familiarity with general site navigation and a basic search).
Then, I asked Eddie if he knew how to scroll down the screen and then what to do next to make an application:
And then I ask Eddie which button he would choose to open the online application form and apply for the job:
And so on. You get the picture. I’ll remind the world of it next time I hear Osborne or Reeves or whoever making snide remarks about the feckless long-term unemployed. In my experience, the reality of long-term unemployment is a lot more complicated, unpleasant and unfair than the lying, disingenuous political class would have you believe. The destruction of our social security is based on a monumental political lie – that people who are on JSA are taking the piss. Actually, it is the architects of the destruction who are having the laugh.
On a more positive note, I like to think that we got somewhere with the jobcentre last week when we raised this. We’ll find out in a fortnight. The adviser we spoke to agreed that Eddie wasn’t getting the support he needed and said she would try to block out a morning to devote to Eddie and three or four other people who had the same sorts of problems using a computer. Of course – that doesn’t solve things for other people around the country who are in a similar situation and doubtless getting sanctioned because they can’t complete a jobsearch. This is an issue that needs to be thrown at the DWP, so more on that soon. For now – this is long-term unemployment for you, people. It isn’t about laziness. It isn’t about hanging out for the lulz. It’s about being stuck in a racket where the house always wins.
Pingback: An Update On Eddie- Who Must Do Jobsearch Online Even Though He Can’t | Same Difference
Pingback: You must do your JSA jobsearch online, even though we know you can’t | Kate Belgrave | Britain Isn't Eating
i dont think it is mandatory to apply/search online. you have the option of filling in your activity in the ” my work plan booklet”, but i do agree that the jobcentre are a waste of time and that most of the time they are trying to find ways of imposing a sanction. If they are trying to force Eddie to use computers etc and he finds it difficult due to his learning difficulties, there may be a breach of the disabled discrimination act
Like the government give a stuff about that Jeff. How many human rights atrocities is our government responsible for now. Just another statistic to add to the ever mounting range of statistics regarding the poor, needy, educationally deficient and disabled and how they are being illegally abused by the very government we voted in supposidly to protect them…..we should all revolt they’d be stuffed then….. The problem with that is there aren’t enough people with enough of a spine to fight it.
…..except that we didn’t vote for this government.
Pingback: You must do your JSA jobsearch online, even though we know you can’t | Benefit tales
Hi again, Kate
Aside from the matter of computerised input accessibility for various disabled people, there is also the again worrying matter of where the data will be processed and stored. As I understand it, the database for Universal Credit will be based in India — how secure is that?
Is it sound financial sense to offshore a contract to a country where wages are much lower, and staff may therefore be less immune to bribery?
Pingback: The Power to Sanction Drives People Mad. | Ipswich Unemployed Action.
I think this is clearly an unreasonable decision and that no reasonable decision-maker would make such a decision. Trouble is, there are very few reasonable decision-makers working for in Jobcentres anymore.
it seems that the job centre plus staff nationwide sanction people not because they want to its because they have been told to,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aAQGWRrV8A
its all they seem to care about, they don’t see the knock on effect that it has, you would think after a spate of suicides after sanctions the government would investigate this…
Pingback: Daily JSA sign on: more sadism for the hell of it from the DWP | Kate Belgrave
They can deny it, but they have quotas. It’s not about help and support into work, and hasn’t been for some years now. When I was signing on I was sanctioned even with a jobsearch and recorded diary that was in excess of my jobseekers “contract”. casting aspersions with comments such as ” I’m not satisfied with your Jobsearch Diary” and “This is just a paper exercise”. This advisor knew nothing about me or my qualifications, Skills etc and was not in a position to make such judgements. I made a formal written complaint and though never got an apology or acknowledgement of the bad attitude and discriminatory nature of this act (I did get a reply but it was so wishy washy, and gave no real conclusion to the complaint) I did find all my benefits back paid into my account. It was a quite pathetic exercise, and I feel for the frontline staff as they are being forced to behave this way, incurring huge stress along the way. The people at the top need to learn some swift lessons about treatment of their fellow humans. And also creating proper jobs with living wages wouldn’t hurt.
Pingback: You must do your JSA jobsearch online, even though we know you can’t | Kate Belgrave | OccupyAutoCoordinate
I had this conversation with one of my pre-entry literacy students today. She has to fill in the form saying what she has applied for but she can’t read and write and has to accost people in the street to get them to scribe for her. I have told her I would write an official letter from us to them. I forgot today! You have reminded me and I must get on with it. She was in tears with the enormity of it all.
Let me know how it goes for her if you like. I’m trying to get a lawyer to look at this. It’s a major issue.
i would like hear wht the law say coz i know someone like tht n i would love to help him n it about time we should stand up to them n r rights
The Law IS “a person shall be expected to have to take more than two steps in any one week unless taking one or two steps is all that is reasonable for that person to do in that week”
(I think Social Security Act 1995??) /..Regulation 18(1)
(see Mr Commissioner Williams who j held at para 10 & 143 of CJSA/1814/2007 (Case Law)
.
and
” a person is actively seeking work if he takes in that week such steps as could reasonably be expected to have to take in order to have the best prospects of securing employment”
Jobseekers Act 57(1)
So the Job seekers Agreement has to agree with the Law not as they try and deem is their ‘Law’. They should focus o the postive’s you have done not punish the negatives not done, as long as you have taken 2 reasonable steps each week. Illegal sanctions illegal DWP
Pingback: Learning difficulties, signing on for JSA and hoping for a merciful jobcentre adviser | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: Threatened when we complained the “work skills” course was useless: more stories from the jobcentre | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: Learning difficulties and signing on? The system definitely can’t be bothered with you #jsa #sanctions | Kate Belgrave
How true this article is.There is the odd decent advisor out there but they don’t have time to spend helping people find work,what an irony!
In my local library there is a guy employed by the local council to help people get online and use jobsites etc but his time is limited and every Monday morning,there is always a queue of people waiting to see him.
Pingback: Pretty sure the government wants death, depression and crime for people who are out of work | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: Jobcentre to man with learning difficulties: Do as we say or we’ll force you to sign on more often | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: When exactly did it start being okay to treat people with learning difficulties like trash? | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: When exactly did it start being okay to treat people with learning difficulties like trash? | Benefit tales
Pingback: More IDS bollocks: getting rid of Disability Employment Advisers at jobcentres | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: You must Think Positively about work! Even if work is likely to kill you, etc. | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: Sick with diabetes? Too bad. Get on the work programme. More recordings from the jobcentre. | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: How the DWP actively humiliates sick and disabled benefit claimants. More stories from the jobcentre. | Kate Belgrave
I was not surprised to read this about eddie. I am fighting a sanction on my ESA due to a letter not reaching me over chrismas/new year holiday for a appointment that fell with in that time also. After weeks of NO money and finally hearing i have to go to court to resolve this i was forced to go on JSA. I am in debt over this and many accounts because i was not able to pay anything are in the hands of recovery agents who have now added a fee. Returning to JSA after not being on it for over a year is hard as the rules are changed and it appears they are intent on spying on us to see we do what is needed. I don’t have all day to find the one lead for a job so i can follow it up and keep them happy. My home needs cleaning every day and pets need caring for. Up to this issue with the letter my problems started to come under control for the first time now i am back to square one. I suffer with stress, insomnia and depression and my nearest centre that provides help i need is over 1hr away. the travel time would undo any good work done. I am now looking to move nearer this centre so i can get the needed help as no help in covering travel costs is provided.
Pingback: Video: jobcentre adviser says disability support is wrecked. Fix this, Mr Green | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: Ever tried to call a council or the DWP? People in need MUST be excluded by these hopeless systems | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: Can’t use a computer, or read or write very well? Tough. No benefits for you. | Kate Belgrave
Pingback: Learning/literacy difficulties and can’t use the online Universal Credit? Erm – “find a friend to help,” says DWP. So much for support. This is dire | Kate Belgrave