And so we return to the DWP! – which seems to be holding Kick An Immigrant week. Again, that is. Why I am acting as though this week is special.
I’m at Stockport jobcentre and talking with M, an immigrant who has actually had British citizenship for a while. Possibly, this citizenship was one of those things that looked better on the brochure. So far, M’s UK experience has included the loss of his job during covid, homelessness and now a letter from the DWP which says he owes them £6000 in overpaid universal credit – a large and random sum that the DWP likely arrived at via incompetence and shit maths. Welcome to the West, my friend. This is the superior zone.
M is pretty sure that he doesn’t owe the DWP £6000. He is very sure that he can’t afford to repay it and still occasionally have money for food and clothing, etc. Nonetheless, the DWP is keen on the idea, so they’ve started taking money out of M’s now-miniscule universal credit payment each month to recover this “debt.” So here M is in a format that this government can’t get enough of – a bullied man with an accent, no home, no money and no hope. Talk about about a Tory hole in one.
Here’s the story. I can’t say it sounds a great ride. The DWP says M wasn’t living in his flat in 2020. M says he was. He knows he was living there, because he was living there. He woke up every morning and there he was. Still, the DWP says he wasn’t. M says he was. The DWP says he wasn’t. Round and round it goes.
It can be hard to get the DWP off these trips. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to convince the DWP that someone doesn’t owe a debt, or paid it back long ago, or, on really asinine calls, both. You can send paperwork, make calls and leave screenshots of bank statements in your universal credit journal which support and even prove your case, but your chances of a sensible interface generally settle around zero.
Still, M is trying. He says: “They [the DWP] said you left the house 2020. No – I left the house in 2021. I’m still there in 2021.” M has evidence that he was living at the address for which he was claiming universal credit. He has council tax and payment notices, and evidence from his landlord – “everything. I took in proof. [Now] I do not know what is coming tomorrow or the next day…I had family [in the home] before, I am still living there alone in the house, because of corona.”
M has managed to find an adviser at Stockport jobcentre who is helping him. He said that jobcentre staff were being decent to him. A number of people who come in and out of Stockport jobcentre say that today.
The problem that claimants and staff have got is the DWP’s benefits compliance and debt squads – faceless rows of We’re Shit Sherlocks who dream and doubtless wank over visions of themselves ambushing claimants. Hunting down and then slapping the poorest people with massive bills that they can’t pay isn’t my idea of a calling, but DWP compliance is hooked. They paw through benefit claims, truffling for inconsistencies, then fire off letters which accuse people of fraud, and then drink to that by walloping guys like M with clawback deductions.
The concept of fair trial is not woven into this process. Usually, benefit claimants find themselves accused of taking the piss and given a month or something and/or a one-sided appointment to prove otherwise. The fact that the DWP a) often gets its accusations wrong and b) religiously stands by its mistakes doesn’t particularly inspire.
I’ve seen compliance letters which accused people of having bank accounts which weren’t actually theirs, or of living somewhere they hadn’t been near for years.Let’s not forget either that during the pandemic, the DWP decided to relax its normal checking of people’s claims, which has inevitably led to serious payment and clawback buggerups. Naturally, people took the DWP’s sums at face value and spent the money they received on food and housing, etc. I think we can safely say that nobody thought to put money aside in case the DWP came back a year later to say that the sums they’d paid people might have been off, because in 2020, they’d run the application process as a crapshoot.
Which is not to say that the DWP’s hit and miss approach to interpreting benefits paperwork is only a recent initiative. Au contraire and then some. Long before 2020, I worked with people who’d had money for social fund and other loans deducted from their benefits and wages for years – deductions which seemed to continue well past the point where they would have covered a deposit on a Jag. Repeated entreaties to stop deductions were ignored.
Inevitably, the DWP begins clawback deductions before people can put their case and/or when people simply can’t afford to pay the money back (usually both). You can see why people object to a £6000 bill for this service.
M’s £6000 certainly hasn’t bought him much. Doubtless, the DWP will be pleased to hear that M no longer claims universal credit housing costs, because he is homeless. He is staying with a friend, because he can’t afford to house himself. He gets about £200 a month in universal credit, from which the DWP deducts £50 for the debt that he disputes and that he can’t afford to repay.
A quick calculation tells us that it’ll take M about a decade to pay the £6000 off: £50 a month x 12 months = £600 a year for 10 years.
Let’s hope that his friend is a good one.
More to come. We’ve been back at the jobcentre for a while, so I’ve got a lot of transcribing and writing up to do.
And here’s more on the many local services that Stockport United Against Austerity is trying to save/get back (the central library, the metroshuttle bus service, all district advice centres, etc – what a world).
How the fuck can anyone owe 6 grand in overpaid UC, (?), they’ve pulled that figure out of their arse, it’s the same thing that power company npower frequently do and have been fined millions £s for doing – slap someone with a bill out of the blue for a ridiculously random amount they allegedly owe for a flat they once lived in 5 years ago, they did it to me. The DWP once wrote to a guy I knew saying he had been overpaid a week’s JSA 6 years previously, but luckily he was able to prove that he wasn’t even claiming during in that period and had been self employed at the time! The fuckers don’t half try it on.
Big total innit. Johnson owes us fuck knows what in wallpaper so I hope compliance goes after him. They really need to keep it fair.
Trev precisely! They pulled that stunt with me once, claiming I’d been overpaid £2,500 in housing benefit and I hadn’t declared my income. What happened was, work didn’t pay me my 1st month they cocked up so next month I got 2 months money. DWP didn’t check subsequently and then decided I’d been overpaid. I was summonsed for council tax before even I’d got the letter. I fought it and fought it and guess what? THEY had underpaid me by £500! And I never saw a penny of it.. it went directly to my landlord!!
What we need is a modern version of Robin Hood to fight these latter-day ‘Norman Barons’ on our behalf, but where is he? Keir Starmer? Nah. Jeremy Corbyn? Past it and more fight in a lettuce. According to Plato, Democracy was supposed to give rise to the popular champion, suppose for some that would have been Farrage, or in U. S. the Donald Trump, are there no Left-wing super heroes, no latter-day Ch`ez? No Lucy Parsons?
Other than our very own Kate B of course! 🙃
I thank you. Probably getting a bit old for the fancy stuff but I may yet challenge Liz Truss to a shootout.
A duel with Kung Fu throwing stars would be good.
In Feb 2016 the DWP said I owed them £2500, I appealed this and threatened them with court. After a while they reduced the amount to £400, which after doing my calculations seemed about right given that I rarely took money out of my account and the DWP had to take into account both PIP and ESA when working out any overpayments or my bank account being over £6000. I let them take the repayments at £11.30 per week even though I could easily afford to pay a lump sum.
I have been fighting the DWP since 3013 for an alleged overpayment of £9780.26 in Pension Credits, because of an alleged failure to declare a benefit which in their own documentation did not count towards the receipt of Pension Credits. I am still demanding proof (and include my own proof) every time I write and they entirely ignore me beyond insisting I do owe the money. My MP is involved and I send my letters via him. The DWP is beyond corrupt, they ignore the law and are a just a vile criminal department of a vile criminal government. The government has entirely abandoned the law and the presumption of innocence and do whatever the hell they want to do. The UK is a fascist state.
I agree. The DWP went rogue years ago under IDS/Fester McVile and are above the law.
I’ve just been referred by the Jobcentre to the ‘Health & Work Programme’ run on behalf of the DWP by a private company called Reed, and judging by the initial mammoth questionnaire I’ve been asked to fill in I can safely say the level of intrusion into my private and personal life is way beyond anything I’ve ever previously experienced. They literally want to know what I had for breakfast. How many friends or family members do I have that I am in touch with and how often do I speak to them. Do I cut the fat off my meat. How often do I consume alcohol and how much. Do I sleep well or not. Do I smoke. Do I exercise. etc. ending up with a section on my life goals, identify a goal, and what triggers detract you from achieving said goal, and how you will plan to overcome that to achieve your goal. Blah, blah, blah. I don’t have any fucking goals other than to live from one day to another and Retire as soon as is possible.
Trev, is it “mandatory “ to fill all those personal information? Surely how many family you speak to does not affect your employability one way or another?
An update: I was yet again illegally evicted from the HMO I was living in, the owner was arguing with the agent and us tenants were in the firing line, owner was saying I’m a squatter and he’d put all my stuff and me out. I couldn’t find another room nearby, and I couldn’t afford transport to work. In the end I rang my adult daughter and asked her to come and get my cat, and I would just go and live on the street as I’d had enough. She persuaded me to come and live in Wales with her
So at 58 I’m dependent on my daughters charity and claiming universal credit?!
So far I have found 10 hours cleaning a week
I’m so fed up
And of course, the council were telling me to rent privately and as a single person I wasn’t a priority. And I had been renting private. And even had I found another substandard over priced room, probably in another year I’d have been evicted again….
God knows, I signed a load of paperwork so I guess once you’ve signed you’ve signed away your rights to some extent, but if you refuse to sign you have to explain your position to the Jobcentre who will probably slap you with sanction, so I just signed, I think the course/scheme is mandatory far as I am aware. The extra questions are because of the so-called “health” element but it’s a load of crap.
Sorry about your housing issue and work situation, sounds awful. You’d be better in a private flat like me or HA, if you qualify for HB and Council Tax reduction. Sharing houses is for students.
Trev it was finding anything at all locally where I was before! And my unwillingness to claim UC! The benefit cap did for our town, it was considered cheap so places UK wide dropped their tenants on us. This meant a shortage of accommodation for the poor ppl already in the town…
Wales isn’t so bad, it’s great in fact. Even though I have a family connection, I’ve been knocked back by 2 housing associations. So far UC has been ok, but then I have already found some hours cleaning without their input! I’ll keep you all posted. But as well, no one seems to want to rent to UC claimants, especially with a cat…..
DWP ramping up the pressure on UC claimants
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/universal-credit-rule-change-see-24746913
None of which makes any sense in light of the Bank of England’s prediction of a coming Recession and therefore rising unemployment. But it is the DWP’s job to hound and persecute the poor, to scapegoat, sanction and punish, and make lives as miserable as possible.
One post I’ll be putting up soon is with a guy who has to attend the jobcentre 3 times a week. Fuck all happens when he gets there. He says here I am and they say there you are, and that’s it. Dayrider tickets on the bus in Stockport ain’t cheap so this bloke is doing a far bit of walking. This exercise is doubtless preparation for being yoked to a plough
I can only conclude that these sorts of things are acts of Class Warfare simply because there is neither rhyme nor reason for it. On the one hand we’re supposed to have the lowest unemployment figures in many years, the fullest employment, yet those who remain unemployed are hounded relentlessly, whilst on the other hand predictions of imminent economic collapse are on the horizon which would mean fewer jobs available anyway. All of which still leaves us with a national shortage of HGV drivers and fruit pickers because they all returned to their own countries due to Brexit. I’m blowed if I can make any sense of it all. Roll on Retirement, or Armageddon, whichever comes first.
And here I was thinking I was the only one! In 2017 an anonymous report to dwp saying I was living with my boyfriend- I wasn’t. In the July of 2017 I lost 2 jobs with in a couple of months (not by choice nor was it my fault just circumstance) I had worked for years in 16 hour part time jobs, I was 48 at the time, I didn’t want to go onto u/c but had no choice, in the September of 2017 I had to declare my self bankrupt, I was so ashamed I felt like I had let me kids down. My health started to affect my daily routine & life, turned out I had/have fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety and stressed out (I was diagnosed by a rheumatologist in June 2018). March 2018 had to go for an interview under caution, I went alone no legal representation as I knew I wasn’t guilty, the guy that interviewed me recorded it, he contacted Wigan council, he lied to them, he told them I hadn’t declared my earnings from 2 jobs (Asda & a sandwich shop), I had, and had proof, they also told wigan council I had been living with my boyfriend since 2015! – I hadn’t!. Wigan backed the lies up, didn’t bother checking just went along which generated a couple of grand “council tax benefit overpayments” and £6214.04 in “housing benefit overpayments” of course dwp said I was guilty and owed them just under £9000.00!. In June 2018 my u/c payments were stopped. I received a letter from dwp, saying they had decided I had been living with my boyfriend since 2015 as husband and wife and I had knowingly committed “benefit fraud” and had to pay back the amount, and would be contacted separately about that. I also was told that until we made a joint claim I would not receive any more u/c. My boyfriend ended up moving in as we felt we had no other choice, he moved in at the end of June and we made a joint claim. I put a mandatory reconsideration in, it was refused, no surprise there, again in the letter it stated they would contact me again regarding recovery of my alleged “benefit fraud “ that was September 2018. Meanwhile, at the beginning of August 2018, my boyfriend was invited into dwp in Wigan for an informal chat, which turned out it wasn’t there were 2 men and they wanted to record the “informal chat” he refused and said if they wanted to do it again he would take a solicitor, they never asked again. At that meeting my boyfriend gave 2 previous addresses, names & numbers, and told them he would ask permission to give another 2 names, addresses & phone numbers and get back to them which he did the following Monday. I passed the same information to Wigan council a long with wage slips, p45s and proof that I had declared my earnings which Wigan council confirmed the income used was correct and matched what was on my claim form. But they still were upholding their decision!. They also said I hadn’t given enough information regarding my boyfriends addresses, I sent a statement that was written by my witness, confirming dates when my boyfriend was living at his address, he also gave his phone number and told the council if they needed anything more to contact him. Nobody made any attempt to contact my witness.
I had no more correspondence from dwp until 2nd April 2019 when I received a court summons telling me I had to appear at Wigan magistrate court on the 24th April 2019. I was horrified and extremely frightened, I contacted a solicitor and was told I had to pay almost £500.00 for the appearance, we had to borrow that money, the solicitor advised me to plead not guilty and to opt for trial at crown court, which I did. I made a few appearances and my trial was set for 3rd March 2020.
I was made to pay extra money to Wigan council tax against “my council tax benefit overpayments” even though I explained several times that I was going to court and was pleading not guilty. The housing were happy to wait, and told me to contact them in a few months, I genuinely forgot to get back in touch, and true to form I received a letter from housing saying they had instructed dwp to begin taking deductions, this was the end of November beginning of December 2019. I contacted Wigan and received an email from them saying they would suspend the deductions until after my court appearance, and they would contact me again.
18th February 2020 I had a pre trial review (making sure everyone had done what was needed, and tied up any loose ends). Cps had nothing, the judge was the same judge that set my trial date, was not impressed and passed comment to cps, he gave them 1 more week.
19th February 2020, dwp hand delivered a letter to my witnesses home, asking for him to contact them.
20th February 2020, my witness rang dwp, he was asked to go in, he refused as he is self employed and was working, after trying to intimidate him by saying he could face prosecution for giving false information they took his statement, took it to his home and he signed his statement.
25th February 2020, I received an email and phone call from my solicitor, saying that cps had contacted her saying
“I confirm that the prosecution proposes to offer no evidence against your client who is awaiting trial. The reason for this course of action is that further evidence has been obtained in the form of a witness statement from a witness named *** ********* which significantly undermines the prosecution case and effectively means this case no longer satisfies the evidential stage of the code for crown.”
26th February 2020, I received a letter from my solicitor stating that I still had to appear at Bolton Crown Court on rd March 2020, the hearing would be for the Crown to formally offer no evidence in respect of the charges you face.
3rd March 2020, I appeared at Bolton Crown Court where the Judge officially declared me not guilty.
I immediately wrote to dwp and Wigan council informing them of the outcome, I included letters from cps & solicitors, I also put a complaint in to dwp & Wigan council about the way their investigation was handled, the length of time it took and the fact that the evidence that stopped my trial was given to both parties 18 mths ago!, I asked for the 2 payments of universal credit they had stopped to be reimbursed and my accounts updated and cleared. I asked Wigan for the extra council tax money they forced me to pay refunded. I had a telephone conversation with dwp to discuss my complaint and to be reimbursed the stopped payments, he sniggered and advised I put a mandatory reconsideration in, I queried that info because I knew the time had gone past and I didn’t put an appeal in as they took me to court, he confirmed that was what I had to do. I did what he advised and was refused and basically they could over rule the decision.
Wigan council tax ignored my letters, emails and phone calls when I asked for my money refunding, I was eventually refunded in June 2020, after having to contact my local councillor, with in the hour of contacting her, I had a phone call from Wigan council saying it was being sorted and I would be refunded, hooray!. I was refunded and I received a 23 page letter with various dates and amounts that cleared the “alleged benefit overpayments”. End of the story you’d think, but no….
April 2022, I checked our universal credit online account to check our next payment amount, to find a £127.47 deduction for “housing benefit recovery” and every month since £131.43 has been taken totalling £521.76. I rang Wigan first in April, spoke to a lady who told me there was no outstanding money owed. Next I rang dwp debt management where I spoke to a lady who was foreign and we both struggled to understand each other, but she told me the amount £6214.04, she said she would speak to her supervisor and get back to me, she didn’t. A couple of days later I rang again this time I spoke to a man, who told me that Wigan do this regularly, and that the instruction was put in in December 2019!, and had been stuck in the backlog covid had created, and that only Wigan could stop the instruction, he also asked me to send in proof I told him I already had, he said they hadn’t got anything, he looked on my account and told me that ‘ mistake’ had been recorded regarding the alleged fraud instead of not guilty. So began the phone calls, emails etc., to Wigan, I’ve been ignored fobbed off lied too and pushed from pillar to post. I put an official complaint in then got a piss poor reply, saying the deductions were for an overpayment caused by my “ undeclared earnings “ and was for £170.54. Which as stated before were checked and had been declared, and I have proof off WIGAN! and Wigan being Wigan are on the ball when you owe them, when they were totalling the money “I owed them” I got an invoice for £1.28 dating back to 2010! Which I paid. I’ve even in the past had a bill for 1pence, and when I was still working if my working tax credits went up or down I would receive a letter from Wigan about my circumstances had changed the Saturday before my working tax was paid on the Tuesday, so this fictitious £170.54 is bull. Through the investigation my health both physical and mental has suffered immensely, I contemplated suicide more than once. The whole thing accelerated my fibromyalgia, and I can no longer work I’m in receipt of P.I.P and also get limited capability for work and work related activity included in our universal credit payments, which tops up my partners wages. It has turned me into a virtual recluse I struggle to leave my home, and I don’t unless absolutely essential, I have panic attacks, I don’t see friends or family, I used to be the life and soul of parties etc., always out having a laugh, dancing and drinking with all my friends, we used to go to scooter rallies up and down the country, and now I’m scared of my own shadow. These government agencies are playing god with our lives, they are literally killing people, they make the system so hard and complicated that it intimidates claimants in to giving up. The legal system is as bad the solicitors that represented ( and I use that term very loosely, I was told I wasn’t entitled to legal aid even though being on universal credit automatically passports you to entitlement, I read up on it and did the calculations, I filled in a hardship form, for it, I had to ring legal aid to be told there had been no application for legal aid put in for me, by my solicitors and I was on a passported benefit so I was entitled to legal aid, I was livid as we had had to borrow money to pay for my magistrate appearance in April 2019, I got that back) me won’t help me because it’s a welfare matter not criminal, there is hardly any welfare solicitors around, trying to get an appointment with C.A.B is virtually impossible unless you can sit and wait all day, all the life centres are closed apart from Leigh and Wigan and only open mon to Fri 10-2. So if you struggle to get out and about your basically fucked. Nobody cares anymore the system created by the government is not fit for purpose. If anyone can point me in the direction of help and support I would be very grateful.
That is horrendous.
I am crying having read your story. I was thinking most of the way through it how has she coped, it must have driven her insane. To then read you had contemplated suicide my heart just broke for you.
People shout and scream about benefit claimants as if it’s some nirvana of free homes and money for nothing. They haven’t a ruddy scooby what it can be like in the system and how unfair it all can be. And no doubt some of them on reading your story would still be on the side of the Devil’s Disciples at the DWP.
I can’t offer you any practical help, but I sincerely hope you can find someone to help to bring an end to this nightmare x
@ Maz68
Total nightmare. You mentioned the CAB, that’s who I would have recommended but there may also be other independent organisations that can help with such things as advice/advocacy/support/etc. such as in my area that could be The Welcome Centre, who also run a food bank and have connections with Social Services and other charities, womens’ groups etc. See if you can find if there is any help of that nature available in your area, there are various community organisations, tenants groups, women’s groups, or men’s groups that may be able to help via your boyfriend perhaps? Best of luck with it all.
Thank you Linda, for your kind words and god bless you xxx
The thing is Trev nobody knows anything they are just customer service advisors at the end of the day, if we don’t fit in their boxes they don’t have the knowledge, training or empathy so you end up being fobbed off, and as you know with all the cuts to budgets and going digital there is no face to face, and things that the most vulnerable in our society are the ones that suffer. My partner works full time, he is a driver so he can’t be on the phone and they won’t discuss anything with him, because it was me they took to court. Covid hasn’t helped either. Thank you for your advice .x
“Universal credit makes you jump through so many hoops, you just want to give up”
“When I couldn’t find a job, I had to wait five weeks to get my money. When it came, I got £70 for the month”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/13/universal-credit-jump-through-hoops-give-up
Let’s all go and cool off with a nice swim in Rishi’s swimming pool. While we’re there, we can piss in it.
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/20612012.rishi-sunaks-huge-swimming-pool-north-yorkshire-pictured/
Bloody hell, can’t be bad can it. Sunak’s swimming pool and Boris Johnson’s “summer of fun”, while I sweat my bollocks off in a scummy flat whith no AC and can’t even open the front windows, and have to answer to the Health & Work Programme providers about the can of lager I drank. Revolution now please.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/15/boris-johnsons-summer-of-fun-what-has-the-pm-been-doing
BRING ME MY GUILLOTINE
This is outrageous.
DWP denies £326 cost of living payment to ‘sanctioned’ Universal Credit claimants
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/dwp-sanctioned-universal-credit-payments-24765421
The utter bastards. Someone needs to say something about this. Over to you Ms. Reeves….
The problem is that British workers are a bunch of slackers who need more hard graft, says neo-Thatcherite Liz Truss…
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/leaked-audio-reveals-liz-truss-said-british-workers-needed-more-graft
Well you heard the woman, come on, put your back into it, faster, harder…
But on the other hand,
Quiet quitting: why doing the bare minimum at work has gone global
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/06/quiet-quitting-why-doing-the-bare-minimum-at-work-has-gone-global
Has Liz Truss ever done anything, I ask myself.
She once bragged about going to China to flog pork, don’t know if that actually happened. Oh, and co-authored a ultra-Right-wing book called ‘Brittania Unchained’, which slagged-off British workers as being the laziest in the world.
Flogging pork… How very Tory
LOL 🤣 oh the irony
Bare minimum. Get in. Bet Liz has.
Union leaders respond :
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/17/union-head-responds-angrily-to-liz-trusss-claim-uk-workers-lack-graft
Off topic, but I’m so angry I’m venting. I had a final wage from the school I worked in of £597,
I have just had a notification of my total universal credit payment for the past month, since I signed on here. I get £7.68 for the entire month. This won’t even cover the cost of the bus fares I paid out going to the Jobcentre each week. I don’t even qualify for the help with glasses this month and I need an eye test and new glasses now
Good thing I’m living with family, have money left from the £597 isn’t it?
I’m keeping the claim one more month to hopefully get help with glasses then I’m closing it til I find accommodation.
I’ll take the £7.68 and treat the cats. It sticks in my craw. I left a note for my coach I know he doesn’t make the rules but really?? They’ll probably tell me I can get an advance. They can stick it. And I know I’m lucky I can say that and can afford to say it…just!!how is this fair?
That’s ridiculous. Universal Credit is a load of crap. They always try and make out that people will be much better off working but is it really true? Only yesterday I was given a “better off” calculation at Reed aka “Better Working Futures” aka “the Health and Work Programme” (or “Work and Health Programme” /whatever). According to the Reed advisor and their computer program, if I take a 40 hour job at min. Wage I’ll be £173 per week better off than I am on JSA. I can’t help feeling I’ve been conned. For a start off I’d be liable to pay full Council Tax and Rent, instead of qualifying for Council Tax reduction and Housing Benefit, and then there would be travel costs to/from work that are not included in the calculation, which could be anywhere between £20 and £45 per week. Would I really be so better off? And, in any case, I have no intention of working 40 hours!! 25 to 32 hours will do thanks. So that would reduce the £173 figure to something like £75, then deduct travel and I’d only be about £30 to £40 better off. You can’t work your way out of poverty in a high Inflation ‘trickle-down’ economy, no matter how much false optimism you’re paid to express.
Trev they are full of hot air! It is ridiculous and cruel as well. I really hope your time with Reed isn’t too horrendous, how long are you conscripted for??
Well today I was given the keys for the place I clean and have been asked to work 10 extra hours next week as “I’m doing so well!”
UC have done nothing to help my job search and not even given me any to apply for. I’m going to close my claim until I sort accommodation. I’m so lucky I’m living with my daughter. It must be horrendous for you all on 334 a month with the energy bills going through the roof
I think I’m on £308 per month (£77 per week). The Reed Work Programme thing is for either 15 months or 18 months, not sure which, but they are already saying they will get me into work before then. They’ve got me down as willing to work any hours/shifts and travel up to 20 miles away, yeah right, that ain’t happening.
Absolutely! They obviously never realised buses aren’t 24/7 and fares are so high! 15_18 months is worst than a prison sentence – hope you stay sane
Hello Trev,
Just to let you know the Work and Health Programme Is 18 months. I have been on the Work and Health Programme with Maximus In East London. It’s the shittest programme I’ve ever been on.
You can be expected to travel up to 90 mins from home, and all the guidance Is available on gov.uk. I cannot remember the link but they are obliged to follow it.
Hope you survive the conscription.
Cheers mate. I’ve been notified at short notice of a job interview I’m supposed to confirm that’s been arranged for Thursday morning in a huge Argos warehouse (sorry, “Fulfillment centre”) on the outskirts of Leeds, over an hour’s bus journey from where I live, not accounting for roadworks, plus it’ll take me 30 mins. from my house to the bus station. The job involves working evenings, weekends and/or nights. I’m supposed to phone the Work Programme providers on Monday a.m. to confirm. But what I don’t understand is why are they sending people from all over West Yorkshire for these jobs instead of recruiting locally? Apparently there’s 15 interviews available, well surely there are 15 unemployed people in Leeds or probably living within the actual vicinity of the warehouse who could easily get to/from the place in 15 to 20 mins., perhaps even people who are on the Health & Work Programme in that area, so why send people to travel miles from other towns and cities? It makes no sense to me.
IMHO it’s not about making sense. It’s about punishing you for not being a fully active member of society!
I think you are right, because there is absolutely no sense to the situation, it must be simply a matter of making peoples’ lives as difficult and awkward as possible for the sake of it. Class War, pure and simple. And I’m certainly not alone, people are being recruited from all over West Yorkshire, from Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Wakefield, Castleford, etc. to work in gigantic warehouses in the Barnsley area for companies such as ASOS and Amazon, travelling miles each day to and fro. Others routinely commute to Leeds or Manchester. Whereas at one time people got jobs in the place where they lived, in the local mill or factory. Maybe it’s something to do with post-Industrial Britain and the demise of traditional industries, but still there is no valid reason for unemployed workers to be sent hither and thither to take each others’ jobs.
P. S.
When you say ‘for not being a fully active member of society’, I would modify that to say “for not spending enough”! The war against poverty became a war against the poor.
The movement for a 4 day week…
https://www.4dayweek.co.uk/
Work-life balance
‘I had a very welcome lie-in on Friday’: the joys and challenges of switching to a four-day week
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/18/four-day-week-trial-uk-workers-joys-challenges
A word of warning re: the current situation from Charlotte Hughes…
https://thepoorsideof.life/2022/08/25/no-eat-or-heat-for-thousands-likely-in-october/
On the subject of Universal Credit, I heard something interesting today. An advice worker from the local Benefits Advice informed me that a change of address doesn’t automatically qualify as a change in circumstances where ‘legacy’ JSA /UC are concerned. He said that it only triggers a shift to UC if you move to another Local Authority area, but that if you change address within the same Council area you can still keep your Housing Benefit claim and hence your JSA claim going. He added that many of the DWP /JCP staff don’t know this and get it wrong, and that a great many people have been unnecessarily told to make a new claim for UC. Now that’s something I wasn’t aware of but he assured me that it is the case. Anyone else know anything about this?
That’s interesting. I don’t actually know what the story is there – I’ll ask some people tomorrow.
If so it’s news to me. I’ve been avoiding a move for that very reason.
Right-wing Think Tanks monkeying around with the future of our broken Social Security system…
https://policyinpractice.co.uk/is-now-the-time-for-a-minimum-income-for-benefit-recipients/