Here’s more evidence of how totally jobcentres have lost the plot/jumped the shark etc:

The Kilburn jobcentre now tells ESA and JSA claimants who need help with their claims to seek advice from the local campaigning group that battles jobcentres. I shit you not. The Kilburn jobcentre is now so utterly unable to solve people’s problems that it tells claimants that a good bet is to get support from the group that regularly protests outside the jobcentre about the jobcentre.

So – we have a scenario where sometimes, the jobcentre staff call the police on the campaigning group when its members leaflet out the front of the jobcentre. Other times, jobcentre staff refer people to the campaigning group for the help that the jobcentre isn’t giving – ie the sort of jobcentre failure that often leads to the protests. What a world. It’s as though some staff at this jobcentre have decided that people will get the best advice in their battles against the DWP and jobcentres if they ask people who actively campaign against the DWP and jobcentres. And you know – although it’s weird, maybe it does make a certain kind of sense. The people at the unemployed workers’ group do have a great deal of expertise and give excellent advice and support to people who have problems with their claims.

They certainly give people more help and support than they get anywhere else. Here’s an example: yesterday, I spent a long time talking with a guy called Tony (there’s a transcript from our discussion below). He hadn’t been able to find assistance at all until the jobcentre sent him to the campaigning group. He definitely needed help, too – he’s 60, unwell (he looked cold and very pale) and he is totally without income. He used to work as a mechanic and restoring cars, but then his health deteriorated and – yeah. This is how it happens. This is how it happens if you age and get sick and forget to get very rich first. Tony was thrown off ESA recently, when Atos found him fit for work. He appealed that decision and has been languishing in the no-man’s land that is mandatory reconsideration ever since (people who challenge a fit-to-work decision can’t go straight to appeal now. They must now wait for the DWP reexamine the original decision at its leisure – that’s mandatory reconsideration). Like most people, Tony has no idea how long he must wait to find out if the fit-to-work decision will be overturned.

In the meantime, Tony has absolutely no money coming in at all. To survive, he’s living with his mother and borrowing money from his brother (his brother, who is retired, turned up at the jobcentre yesterday morning when we were talking to loan Tony some change for phone credit). Tony was trying to find out the best way to hurry up the ESA mandatory reconsideration decision and/or to sign on for JSA. He’d traipsed all over north London (he’s 60, as I say, and has epilepsy and a heart problem) trying and failing to get help at a CAB. He went back to the jobcentre, which was when an adviser told him about the unemployed workers’ group.

“They were sending me from one place to another…then [the jobcentre adviser here at Kilburn] saw me sitting down and said “What’s wrong?” I said “they’ve taken me off ESA.” She said the best thing for me to do was to go to the [unemployed workers’] group. So they [the jobcentre] are saying themselves that they don’t have the people to help.”

He’s probably right about the jobcentre’s lack of staff. I spoke to another guy yesterday morning who was signing on for the first time (he works in removals for an agency and the work he had just ended. His agency could only offer him one day of work this week). His first sign-on session yesterday was due to take place in a group with 12 other people, because “there weren’t enough staff to do one-on-one assessments.”

So that is where we are at.

Here’s a bit more from Tony. Read this to understand what we do with citizens in their 60s who are down on their luck. We punish them for not scoring large when they were working. We cut off whatever tiny income they have, regardless of their health, and make them go and live with their very elderly mothers. We force them to cadge money from their elderly retired relatives and to hike around town to CABs (and I do mean hike – Tony walked between CABs last week, because he couldn’t afford the busfare). And that’s it. These are the people who are being targeted by charming DWP initiatives like sanctions and mandatory reconsideration. My question here – do we really, really want to see older people in this sort of situation? I don’t actually care how people end up with no money, or whose “fault” poverty is, or any of that crap. I just don’t want to see people in this situation at aged 60. We can afford better. We can easily afford better:

“I was on ESA and then I got a letter saying that I was no longer eligible. I went to see one of their (Atos) doctors. I said – “look, you know I have to go to hospital on January 5. Wouldn’t you rather wait to do my assessment until after I’ve been to the hospital?” They said “No no no. We’ll do it now.” The [Atos] doctor stood me up against some wall and said – “okay. Read those letters.” I said “I can’t read the small ones. I’ll read the big ones.” Then he lifted my legs up. He made me lie down and he lifted my leg up and then my arm and I said “that’s not really why I am here.”

“So, they said [I’m fit for work]. I’m in mandatory reconsideration now. I’ve got no money. I’m borrowing it all the time. My brother is just coming now to give me some money to make some phone calls, because I just can’t afford it. I live with my mum and my brother, and they’re supporting me foodwise, but that’s it.

“I’ve signed on now. [Well] I haven’t signed on yet – what I done was I phoned the signing-on people, the 08 number, and they said to me – when is your starting date? I’ve got an appointment here [at the jobcentre] next week, to see one of their people. I can’t use the computer. They told me to go the Citizens’ Advice Bureau [to get advice and help]. First, they said to go to Camden, but the one in Camden doesn’t see you unless you have an appointment. They sent me from Camden to Kentish Town. I went to Kentish Town. They couldn’t do that much for me. I had to walk back from Kentish town to Kilburn, because I didn’t have the bus money.

(Tony’s brother arrives then to give him change to make calls). “They try and help me, my family. They can’t help me much. I borrowed a fiver off me mum. She wasn’t pleased, because she only had a tenner.

“They were sending me from one place to another and quite honestly, the only one who helped me here at the jobcentre was [one adviser]. She said “What’s wrong?” I said “they’ve taken me off ESA.” She said the best thing for me to do was to go to the [unemployed workers’] group [the group protesting and leafleting outside the jobcentre right at that exact moment]. So they [the jobcentre] are saying themselves that they don’t have the people to help.

“I’m not allowed to drive, because of the epilepsy. The doctors said you are best not to drive because if you collapse, you won’t be insured.

“They cut off the money last December. They came back and said you’re fit to work. They said go and sign on. I said what’s the point of me signing on if I can’t work? They said, well, as far as we’re concerned, you can work.

“They said to me – they will make me work. I have to do a jobsearch and all these things. The way I see it is – who the hell is going to employ me at 60 years of age with epilepsy and a weak heart?”