I recently went to one of the Stockport universal credit caseworker strike pickets. Not a bad morning, all told – picked up a few learnings re: the reasons why people still find the universal credit system a washout.
Certainly, a lot of things fell into place when 2 striking caseworkers told me that at any one time, caseworkers at the Stockport centre have 400+ universal credit cases each. Actually, they have about 1400 each, but estimated that generally, about 35% of them are live.
“WHAT?” I yelled, unsuitably. “You can’t keep on top of that.”
Obviously, the strikers knew that they couldn’t keep on top of that. That was why they were on strike. Too many cases, too few staff and every day on the job spent trying, and often failing, to keep on top of the sorts of numbers that you’d need half a morning just to count up to.
“We work too hard for too little money…they [the DWP] are not replacing any staff when people leave, retire, or when they move on.”
Sounded about right. It’ll be news to nobody who has been following nursing and paramedic strikes, and endless other walkouts, that this government does not invest in public sector workers, or their wages, or their health, for that matter. Think the cabinet is a bit short of members who know what it is like to work past the point of exhaustion.
The striking caseworkers described the average day to me. They fire up their PCs and open their case manager dashboards. They go through new claims – new applications for universal credit that have to be checked and started. They deal with the cases about payment problems – a big part of the day, I imagine, given the number of people I meet at jobcentres, or talk with on whatsapp who say they’ve been paid the wrong amount, or can’t pay their bills after the DWP has hoiked money out for debt repayments and so on. Then, there are the blocked cases – the applications, or investigations, that are on hold while missing paperwork, or medical notes, or responses from other authorities, or whatever it is, are sorted out.
“Then, if we’ve got time, we can get to our journal messages,” one of the strikers said.
“Invariably, we don’t get to the journal messages,” the other striker said.
That sounded spot on as well. The journal part of the universal credit experience has often left much to be desired. Since time began (feels longer), career boobs from Iain Duncan Smith to Thérèse Coffey and probably Mel whatshisface who currently heads the DWP have trumpeted the digital genius of universal credit – as the era-defining, entirely-online benefit system where people use a digital journal to post messages and get quick answers from a can-do DWP about payment problems, loans, jobcentre meetings that the claimant can’t attend and all the rest.
The problem is that a digital journal doesn’t work for questions if there’s nobody at the other end to write answers. Iain Duncan Smith’s online Eden turns to flop when there’s only one caseworker, or some days, no caseworker by the sounds of things, grinding through however many journal messages. I’ve certainly written messages for people to put in their journals, waited days for a response and then rung the helpline because no response came and I didn’t want to die waiting. I’ve also dealt with people who’d been sanctioned for missing meetings that they’d asked to be excused from via their journals.
Back to the caseworkers, who had more to say. For example – they told me that your journal message may not only be stuck in the system – it is probably also bouncing around in it. The 2 striking caseworkers described a Kafkaesque situation (natch) where people ring the universal credit helpline, because their journal message hasn’t been answered, and then the helpline sends an email to tell the caseworker who hasn’t had time to answer the journal message to answer the journal message. The caseworker still doesn’t have time to answer the message, so people ring up again. This can go on for a while.
“We don’t get to the journal messages and then they [the claimants] go, “I’m fed up now,” and then they phone back to the [universal credit] helpline which then passes it back to the work coach because they [the helpline] can’t deal with it. We get an email then.”
The last time I talked with striking universal credit caseworkers (also at Stockport), they talked a lot about problems with universal credit’s technical limitations. The caseworkers today say that the tech is better. The problem is that there aren’t enough staff, or staff with enough time, to work it. This is, of course, a Tory special – throwing millions (billions with universal credit) at “fixing” one of its public sector disasters and then seamlessly replacing it with another.
Still, the government via the DWP continues to toot out fantasies about its fabulousness. A colleague at work pointed this recent DWP press release out to me – some Mel Stride dreck about more people on universal credit being shoehorned into the “intensive work search” group and getting “tailored” support from the DWP to find work, or find more work, etc – the usual blah blah shirkers blah blah kick up the arse for claimants blah blah blah.
Said Stride:
“A hallmark of a compassionate society is giving those on low incomes the tools to progress and earn more. It is important that we continue to deliver targeted support so that those in work have access to the expertise and guidance of our dedicated work coaches.”
Rightio. I tend to think that the hallmark of a compassionate society is giving those on low incomes bigger incomes, but hey ho. Wonder if Mel has put that concept and the fact that so many people are striking for better incomes together. Also, he’s talking shit. We all know what the DWP means by intensive work search. It means making people attend the jobcentre more often and making people attend more useless “employability” courses run by overpaid private companies, and threatening people with sanctions if they don’t get with it.
The intensive job search Mel Stride is trialing is just more punishment. Going to sign on 3 to 5 days a week and listen to job coaches repeat themselves is degradeing for the claimant. I symphasise a little with the job coach for they to must put pressure on claimants to show they to are doing their job. All these intensive job searches are nothing new and as usuall will produce no results just more anxiety as people just see it as another hurdle to not being sanctioned and don’t for one moment see it as help and there is the problem.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken to at jobcentres over the last decade who’ve had to attend at least twice and often 3 times a week, and have been sent over and over again to the same type of employability course, and Jesus, it never changes. Even the word “tailored,” as in tailored assistance for each person. My god, if I see “tailored” again, I’ll probably do time.
Yes they like the word tailored mostly for tv to make it sound like each individual is getting a leg up but unfortunately i think some of the public believe this. I’ve never seen so many private firms and agencies making a fortune out of the unemployed. I just seen the 13 week jod coach interviewer and this lady straight away has put i must attend twice a week on the work plan.Im 64 and worked about over 40 years of that and you can’t help but feel bitter at they way your treated especially as the goverment raised state pension age. .
I’m over 60 and forced to attend the Work and Health Programme for 15 months. The “health” bit is all about belittling peoples’ health problems and denying that such problems represent a barrier to gaining employment.
In ireland they realised years ago it was costing millions to shovel over 60s into jobcentres and work programmes so they issued a statement saying due to their contribution to society and to transition them into retirement they only need to sign on annually and not engage in work programmes.So they’re left alone to find their own job and keep their dignity.
It’s Monday morning and I’m setting off shortly to walk into town (though my hip is painful today) to attend Reed where I have to sit in a classroom and listen to some woman waffle on for two & half hours about how to explain gaps in your CV. Then it’s Jobcentre tomorrow morning for my fortnightly appointment with my Work Coach and I haven’t got many job applications to show her this time.
I know what you mean i have arthritus in me leg that gets painful but never mentioned it at jobcentre because as we know its pointless. Things could get even worse because tories are desperate to plug the hole of the 500,000 that decided to give up work after the pandemic. They’re about to try every tricjk they can to force people into invisible vacancies. Of course in his budget on wednesday Jeremy Hunt will disguise it as help but we all know what that means.
Plus to replace the foreign workers they lost through Brexit.
I’ve just complained about my old work coach who has now left for another department. I moved to Wales last year and have just been housed after the council found me homeless. Prior to that I hadn’t claimed out of work benefits in over a decade and hadn’t claimed housing too up for 4 years. This creature told me benefits aren’t a lifestyle choice they’re short term only (and I’m working but only 13 hours a week and have been since 3 weeks after I arrived in Wales). She also told me emphatically I was only entitled to local housing allowance and I’m a social housing tenant, and that I shouldn’t live in the past as I’m now housed, !! Even though I’d have to claim discretionary housing payments (wrong wrong wrong but I was in meltdown til I got the statement saying I’d be paid in full. How can they expect ppl to job search effectively like this? My new coach is fine, and I’m seeing a manager tomorrow to discuss my complaint. Even though it’s only the 2 nd month I haven’t earned enough to keep the DWP happy, and I’ve been in employment years previously, they’re dragging me in every week. I’m 59
Very good point, that. How people are supposed to jobsearch, or function at all, while living in some of the hellholes I’ve seen I do not know. Secure housing is the base that everyone needs.
And going in once, twice, 3 times a week – what’s the point of that. Can’t see everyone here being able to do it, because people can’t afford the £5 return on the bus – certainly not 3 times a week.
Kate the worlds gone mad. What gets me is being housed in social housing should have been the best time of my life after an entire adult life spent in private rented and often shoddy housing. At 54 I had to go back into a HMO and was there for nearly 4 years with 2 illegal evictions. All I can remember is the hysteria and tears when the creature told me o would only have local housing allowance. No matter I’m a social tenant. I’d have to claim discretionary housing allowance. I couldn’t understand it and nor could my housing manager who was talking about mandatory reconsideration if they capped me. That creature took the joy out of being housed away from me and I can NEVER get that back. It’s only now I can look around and see MY HOME. And my heart goes out to those who are still struggling like I was with bad houses, and for all those who have awful work coaches and are too scared to speak out
Scrap Universal Credit, abolish Sanctions, stop sending people on useless back-to-work employability schemes and courses, especially those aged 60+, it can’t be so difficult to do that can it? Either go back to JSA, or UB40 Unemployment Benefit, turn Jobcentres into public IT Centres and Advice centres, pay Benefits automatically without the need for attendance or signature (as during the Covid pandemic). Easy peasy. Any takers, Starmer?
Universal Credit workers don’t like getting sanctioned, so they want to strike. What hypocrites. I said some years back wait till the DWP workers get sanctioned. They won’t like it. Universal Credit’s success is in it’s failure. Do you think people on Universal Credit will join the Universal Credit DWP workers picket line protesting !! Well sine the Tory’s have banned protesting for the PCN civil service union !! It’s Not Fair, It’s Not Fair it will say on their placards !!! Perhaps the Universal Credit workers all need sacking.
The Tory government need sacking. Mind you, I noticed Starmer’s list of top 5 priorities doesn’t include anything about fixing our broken Social Security system, nothing about scrapping Universal credit, nothing about abolishing Benefit Sanctions, nothing about bring back NHS Sick Notes.
What is Starmer even for. Apart from redefining Boring.
He used to be a Radical Trot in his younger days prior to getting the job as Director of Public Prosecutions. I think he was got at, a tap on the shoulder and brought in from the cold by TPTB, hence he is now an Establishment stooge.
That’s what happens to radical Trots Trev… They all go bad. Remember Derek Hatton?
Starmer promised early on he would get rid of sanctions but they’ve gone back on that i fear they will be no better than the tories.
Stepping that’s a good point! I was a union officer back in Luton and we stood together. I’d go to other workers picket lines in support and recently joined a public rally here in Wales for The striking RMT workers. But I’m not sure I could ever stand in solidarity with DWP workers….?!
The DWP workers need to do more hours or upskill otherwise eat turnips. A good tip by ex failed DWP Minster Thérèse Coffey. What next Atos & Maximus workers going out of strike !! Or are they DWP workers !! So more DWP deaths to come with DWP workers committing suicide because the food banks have run out of food. Perhaps the food banks should only stock turnips. Now work roaches stop moaning & do your work or you will get sanctioned. Thérèse Coffey has turned us all into turnip heads. Universal Credit Works.
Therese Coffey doesn’t live on bloody turnips, she’s always tweeting pictures of her expensive seafood platter lunches and pint of Adnams in one of her favourite swanky seaside Suffolk boozers. She’s suggesting that we Peasants eat turnips just like Baldrick in the middle ages. Eat turnip and know your place.
Job centre staff to get bonuses for getting people work
The government is setting up a job centre league table and will give £250 bonuses to staff who get the most people into work.
It is part of a pilot scheme in 60 job centres aiming to get more Universal Credit claimants into employment.
The government said it is right to reward staff when they help people secure work.
But the PCS union said the scheme was “gimmicky” and would not help address the “poverty pay” of job centre staff.
According to an internal Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) document seen by the BBC, officials want to test whether financial incentives for job centre teams “drive better outcomes”.
Staff will be set targets, or what the document calls “into work stretch aspirations”.
Read More:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64776968
I thought their job was to get people into work already !!
Brilliant. And what is an “into work stretch aspiration.” Is that like service “tailoring.”
Jesus Christ. Kill me.
More reasons for them to go on strike stretch aspiration work. It drives better outcomes with the PCS Union. So the DWP have scraped Job Centre bonuses for giving people sanctions or is that still a contradiction with the new policy of getting people jobs !! Now the DWP say the Job Centre staff are lazy, which will be the next PCS union meeting.
You need to be careful with those stretch aspirations, that’s probably how I got my latest hernia.
There’s some groin strain-DWP metaphor in there just dying to get out
Ever since Jobcentres and Benefits became linked their job has been to prevent people from claiming Social Security. It came about from the amalgamation of the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency under New Labour. Sanctions were introduced as part of their New Deal scheme.
So if you’ve been on universal credit over 13 weeks you will attend the jobcentre every weekday for 13 weeks. So are they going to reimburse bus fares to carry out this useless exercise.
They haven’t thought about that issue of Fair Reimbursement Forms, so probably not. You will get a Job Centre stretch aspirations badge thou. I think they leave up to you where you stick your badge, as long as everyone can see it.
You can get bus fares reimbursed at Reed on the Work and Health Programme but you don’t have to attend every day, it’s usually once a fortnight with your Reed Adviser and maybe once a fortnight with the psychologist they employ, and then any workshops you may be booked in for can be once a week for a while til you’ve done most of the relevant ones, e.g. First Impressions at Interview, or What To Say At Interview, or First Days At Work, etc. All of which is a bit of a joke when you’ve got a CV as long as your arm and began your working life in the 1970s.
Oh yes Stepping, and Philip, there’s more about that trial you referred to here:
New sanction trap for UC claimants with £250 incentive for DWP staff
PUBLISHED: 28 FEBRUARY 2023
“Universal credit (UC) claimants are to be faced with a new sanction trap disguised as help to move into work. The scheme has been condemned by the DWP staff union who say the government is “hellbent on making it more difficult for people to claim benefits”, even though jobcentre workers stand to gain from a £250 ‘incentive’ if their office tops a league table.”
https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/new-sanction-trap-for-uc-claimants-with-£250-incentive-for-dwp-staff
£250 vouchers for what !! It’s not even £250 in money. Perhaps it is a £250 prescription voucher since the Job Centre workers will be going to their GP’s & PCS Union.
There is often neither rhyme nor reason to some Tory policies other than it is Class War, pure and simple. Why else would they deliberately embark on a scheme to sanction more claimants and quite purposefully drive people into destitution and to the already oversubscribed foodbanks? And all this during a cost of living crisis. Not that we can rely on Labour to condemn such a scheme as its probably something Rachel Reeves would agree to.
Yes there seems to be no debate or voting the tories just implement these policies without labour raising an eyebrow. I was no fan of Jeremy Corbyn but he always challenged the barbaric decisions the tories implemented on benefits and i’m sure he would of at least challenged this.
It shows the goverment and Mel Stride have no respect for anyone offering such a tacky bribe.
Poverty pay… full time it pays around £28k a year!
Iain Duncan Smith will soon fill you in that Universal Credit does not need any human workers to make Universal Credit a success. So the Civil Servants at the DWP don’t have a case or a case worker for the PCS Union. Without Job Centre’s mean there are no unemployed, which is what Universal credit was designed for No Unemployment. Our mission has been completed.
Thanks for that Iain ‘Doppy’ Shit.
I’ve suspected for some time that my Work Coach has been replaced by a cyborg ringer, it’s something to do with the way her eyes swivel.
OK so the cost of living crisis along with the Ukraine war is down to a combination of things including Covid, Putin and Brexit, but let’s not forget the decade plus of Tory misrule, Austerity, the undue influence of Right-wing Thinktanks and the disastrous Truss Premiership…
Led By Donkeys on How Liz Truss and the Tufton Street Thinktanks Destroyed Britain’s Economy
https://beastrabban.wordpress.com/2023/03/01/led-by-donkeys-on-how-liz-truss-and-the-tufton-street-thinktanks-destroyed-britains-economy/
No wonder everyone’s Striking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4oi4eJt81U
The Job Centre getting everyone working.
I thought Trespass became a Criminal offence as part of the Criminal Justice Bill back in the 90s when we were all protesting against them clamping down on Raves and Traveller convoys.
Foodbanks struggling to meet record demand
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/19/record-number-of-uk-households-depending-on-food-banks
Am just listening to Political Thinking on BBC, Nick Robinson is interviewing Lee Anderson Conservative MP for Ashfield in Notts. What an absolute fucking wanker. I was completely unaware of what an utter git Anderson really is. It’s only when you hear bastards like him expressing his odious views that Starmer sounds like a viable alternative to the Tories.
I can’t listen to the bile he spouts.He seems to have a vendetta against the poor for some reason. Imagine him as work and pensions minister it would be god help us. He backed Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and look where that got us.
Anderson is a Working Class Tory, a thoroughly horrible man. I’m not a fan of Starmer but people like Anderson serve as a reminder of why you have to vote Labour.
“Work a few hours a week & with Universal Credit you will get £40,000 a year just like me” said 30p Lee Anderson. “I’m down the food banks everyday helping out these rich people that always come done”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJx97v_2NUk
Then he goes to a restaurant for a £200 meal & £300 worth of drinks. £500 Lee Anderson.
What a bastard. The worrying thing is that someone like him appeals to a wide section of the White Working Class, the ones who feel abandoned and forgotten, the ones who blame immigrants and asylum seekers for their woes and who believe that everyone on the sick is swinging the lead, the ones who voted Leave in the Brexit referendum, the ones who brought down the so-called ‘Red wall’ by voting Tory.
People who are in work think it’s easy to get benefits, with them saying they would be better off on benefits than working. It’s easy. The problem is keeping your benefits without getting sanctioned. A lot of hard work involved. The myth of watching day time TV & doing nothing all day are still there.
As you say the reality is very different, the DWP owns your sorry ass, to use the vernacular. Claiming Benefits and constantly jumping through all the hoops to keep those Benefits can be very stressful and debilitating, as is the poverty. You are passed from pillar to post, from one employment scheme to another, from one Provider to another, and it will never end until you stop claiming. I’ve done them all over the years; Restart, New Deal, Skills For Work, A4e, BEST, Interserve, Pinnacle People, Standguide, Skills Conditionality, the Work Programme, weekly signing, the Community Work Programme, employability skills, computer courses, Right Steps to Work, and now The Work and Health Programme aka Brighter Working Futures at Reed in Partnership for 15 long months…. as well as continuous jobsearch of course and attending Jobcentre appointments. It sucks the very life force out of you.
I could be wrong but i don’t remember any other goverment tory or labour where over 60s had to attend every week. The stats show they get a very low percentage in work probably less than when left alone to look for work so why they have you at it until the day you retire is beyond me. The amount of private firms cashing in on the jobless is crazy. 50% of 65 year olds are unemployed the year before retirement and that will increase as retirement age increases. They’d save millions if they attended jobcentres every 3 or 6 months but the goverment would rather pay these private firms and having us jump through the hoops. I’m suprised they haven’t got Serco in charge of foodbanks.If anyone can make money from foodbanks it’s the tories.
Annual signing would be sufficient for the over 60s, and not necessarily in person, could be done online or by return of a postal declaration form, although since Covid I haven’t been required to provide a signature at the Jobcentre, just that I attend fortnightly appointments on time (I’m still on ‘legacy’ income based JSA). I show proof of what jobs I’ve applied for, as well as some email replies, and then the Dole Clerk looks on Indeed to try find me one or two jobs to apply for, often there’s nothing but we have to go through this charade every fortnight for the sake of it, so that they can tick boxes and I can get my money.
I have been saying for ages that the food banks contract will be put out to tender with someone like Serco & G4S running the gate for vetting. No you can’t come in 30p Lee Anderson says so on our G4S contract. The food banks workers will now be workers signing gagging order contracts but still getting paid nothing.
He obviously hasn’t paused to consider either the legal implications or the sheer logistics involved in forcing prisoners to pick fruit and veg. How would they be transported to the Arable parts of the country? Where would they stay? Who would guard them? Etc. I’m sure Anderson and his ilk would be the first to complain if a) Prisoners were temporarily housed in their area, b) if Prisoners were rewarded for working by being paid a wage or being given a shorter sentence, c) Prisoners were able to sue the Government for injuries incurred, d) Prisoners escaped whilst being transferred or whilst working in the fields.
And not to mention that the Labour shortage is the result of Brexit.
The following article is about using Local Welfare Provision services experience and knowledge to help run/administer Government Household Support schemes, and seems to infer that a Discretionary element already exists in administering the payment of such schemes, in which case I might receive the £400 energy discount after all (perhaps, maybe?). According to the rules I cannot claim the energy discount because/if my landlord has a domestic energy supply meter instead of a commercial business one.
https://policyinpractice.co.uk/household-support-fund-schemes-should-consider-new-local-welfare-assistance-research
1 in 7 Sanctioned on UC
https://thepoorsideof.life/2023/03/06/1-in-7-universal-credit-claimants-sanctioned/
“””Over the last year over half a million claimants were sanctioned which includes a total of 98.4% of all sanctions given for not attending an in-face or telephone interview.”””
Come on DWP Universal credit workers you can do better than that. We need 2 million sanctions a year for us to meet our Government DWP target & our Universal Credit Table targets. We can’t do that if you all go out on strike complaining about your work loads & conditions can we now. All together now sing the Universal Credit song. Sanctions make life better.
G4S trying to be The Mafia again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esOhS6ruSKM
This is why you should never allow them to make you feel at all guilty for claiming your Rightful pittance of State Benefits. They demonize the poor and pocket the loot.
https://beastrabban.wordpress.com/2023/03/10/open-britain-on-the-corruption-of-british-democracy-by-corporate-dark-money/
The Tory failed dictatorship failing at every democracy proving the Tories do not have democracy even in their own party. You can’t say that or you will be punished, for DWP it’s sanctions & same for claimants, disability abuses of the Human Rights.
All in all I don’t have to fill in the Tories who already think & know they are a failed dictatorship.
So Hunt’s Budget today is offering a new voluntary back-to-work scheme for the Disabled, voluntary for now but how long before it’s compulsory?
Also a new Apprenticeship scheme for the over 50s and more Sanctions for those on Universal Credit. Great. Heart-warming isn’t it.
Is it wrong to hope he drowns in a ditch
At least he’s clarified one thing, technically it’s not a Recession but nonetheless there is a cost-of-living crisis, and what vulnerable people in poverty crisis need is a tougher Benefits system with more Sanctions. Not exactly what the charities and foodbanks have been saying but at least its a start, in a warped Tory alternate Universe reverse – image sort of way. There is a crisis of Capitalism so blame the poor.
From 2018….
Why benefit sanctions are both ineffective and harmful
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/benefit-sanctions-are-harmful-and-ineffective
Welfare conditionality is ineffective, authors of major study say
https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2018/research/welfare-conditionality-is-ineffective/
Benefit sanctions found to be ineffective and damaging
Study concludes that punishing claimants triggers profoundly negative outcomes
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/22/benefit-sanctions-found-to-be-ineffective-and-damaging
The above evidence is from 5 years ago so why are the Tories still in denial and continuing with their discredited punitive Benefits policies?
It’s even worse than I thought, just heard on the BBC news that the government are planning to use AI to Sanction people! What can possibly go wrong with that? They’re also scrapping WCA but subjecting people to a test for PIP instead, which I gather will negatively impact those who who have a Disability but fail to get PIP, not sure if I fully understand that but no doubt someone will be able to explain.
There’s speculation about the changes here, from 13th
https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/wca-to-be-abolished,-claimants-to-be-sanctioned-by-bots
Not even the Tory Government know what they are doing with the DWP. They have to sort out a White Paper first when they have time, so not very important. No one has a clue what they are doing & that just the Government & DWP. Shall we ask Iain Duncan Smith what’s happening with the Disabled Universal Credit System. Perhaps the AI system has a disability & needs fixing to work.
It sounds to me like they’re scrapping WCA and then planning to use the PIP test as the measure of a person’s ability to work (or not), so if you can dress yourself, cook a meal, and raise your hands above your head you are fit to work, and you will be denied PIP. But if you’re awarded PIP you can still work if you want to. Or something like that?
A PIP Medical is just the same as a WCA Medical.
It’s mind boggleing don’t think anyone understands it they don’t ither it’s a mess.
Work Capability Assessment being scrapped in 2063.
The propaganda rubbish is working, maybe in 2064 !!
Scrapping disability means no need for Work Capability Assessments. Now everyone is fit to work. So the Tories have now cared the disabled to be abled bodied. I thought you had to work to cure illness & disability !! Now the Tories have made it even more simple that the Tories cure illness & disability without work. No get to work Tories you lazy disability abuses.
Perhaps the Labour Party can explain, they introduced WCA in the first place so they might understand the changes, and Rachel Reeves will be in favour of ramping up the Sanctions (“if you’re living on Benefits Labour is not the party for you”).
They didn’t give the fine details of scrapping the WCA and how this will pan out.Doesit mean your fit for work regardless it wont be good news like they portrayed it and as usual the poor get a kicking with the ramping up of sanctions. Not a word from labour about this infact they seem supportive.I was a labour voter but i couldn’t vote for any of these 2 parties. For Racheal Reeves to say if your on benefits labour is not the party for you is scandalous.Many have been hard working and looking for work well some are unable.
Sounds like they’re training job coaches to hand out more sanctions then they will send you an automated e-mail saying You’ve been sanctioned.Please don’t reply.This is an automated e-mail..
Isn’t it a bit hypocritical and ironic to be banging on obsessively about getting people back to work then using AI in an attempt to do that? The ongoing development of technology will result in fewer jobs for humans and greater unemployment.
I wonder if the Apprenticeships for the over 50s are also available to the over 60s. If so I could do an Apprenticeship for 4 years and Retire upon completion!
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Bank of England: ‘Accept’ you are poorer remark sparks backlash
“Small businesses and unions have hit back at the Bank of England’s chief economist saying people need to accept they are poorer otherwise prices will keep soaring.”
“Mr Pill, who made £95,183, including benefits, in his first six months at the Bank, is paid more than £190,000 a year.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65397276.amp
Huw Pill needs to accept that wages don’t drive Inflation, it’s Corporate profits that do. And being told to accept you are poor coming from someone on nearly 200K takes the actual piss.
So I finally did it, I applied for Universal Credit as circumstances required, having obtained a “Fit” note. I haven’t quite completed the application though, as I wasn’t able to provide the necessary forms of ID it stipulated, I only had one but you have to have two, and it won’t let you just submit one form of ID then continue. I’m coming back to this on Monday morning, hopefully with the correct ID. My Restart Adviser is helping me with it. It was she who after my first meeting with her said “but you’re not fit for work”, I said I know that, try telling the Jobcentre, so she did! God knows how long it will take to get processed and I get paid. So far as I know there’s still a 5 weeks waiting period for fresh UC claims that isn’t paid, but is that the case if claiming UC due to sickness directly from previously claiming another Benefit?
So I attended the Jobcentre UC appointment to present my ID and required documents to complete the application and was given an advance payment of £700 paid straight into my bank account as a repayable loan to be taken back at £30 per month if I remember correctly. Then today have attended my first UC appointment with a very serious, stern and humourless adviser who made me feelike I was about to be shot. He has made me another appointment with a health and work adviser and said i won’t be expected to do any work related activity, but i still had to log in to my UC account to confirm acceptance of my claimant agreement. The next appointment is on 26th March, and the day after that i have a phone appointment with my Restart Advisor as I’m still on the Restart scheme at least for the time being. I actually saw her this morning before my UC Jobcentre appointment. There’s no end to this bullshit, even with a Fit Note you’re still in their clutches for a while, though maybe I’m on the path to greater autonomy when they’ve done ticking all the right boxes.
Fit note Farce…
They sent a txt message with a link to NHS that didn’t work by clicking on it so had to c&p link into browser then enter access code to view Fit note and download it to my phone, then email it to myself as an attachment, then go to library open email and print Fit note as I like to have a couple of printed versions in case they’re needed. All was going swimmingly until I tried printing it, library have just had a new computer sysyem installed today and it’s not recognising printer, got to go back on Friday.
Also tried uploading Fit note to Universal Credit account but it doesn’t let you as far as I could tell, instead you have to report it as a change, i.e. the change is you’ve got a new Fit note, then you have to fill in GP’s name of practice and address and dates of Fit note but hang on to Fit note until anyone asks to see it. What a farce! It was far simpler decades ago when you got a paper Sick note in person off the Doctor and handed it in to your place of work or if unemployed to the Social Security office, not the Jobcentre but the DHSS or DSS as it became, and they either put you on to SSP or Income Support /Incapacity Benefit as appropriate.
So I got a message on my journal saying they want me to have a Work Capability Assessment but first I must fill in and return a UC Health questionnaire they just sent me, then wait for a date for the Assessment. Is there no end to this bullshit? They’re all (Sunak, Hunt and Labour’s Liz Kendall) currently talking about kicking people off tbe Sick, but how can anyone be faking it with this level of scrutiny and intrusion? I have genuine health problems and am having to negotiate this Orwellian system and jump through endless amounts of hoops just to prove that an ill elderly man like myself is unfit for work.
Jobcentre informed me that there’s a backlog fir WCA snd they’ll be in touch in a few months “probably around June”.
This morning at 8.00am I received an email notification instructing me to log in to my UC journal as there is a message for me to read, on Easter Monday, April 1st, a Bank Holiday. Is this an April Fools joke? No, they wanted to ask me if I’m receiving any other Benefits from a list (of), inc. Pension, Carers Allowances, etc. I can’t believe this thing operates 24/7 regardless of time and date, Religious days and Bank Holidays. I don’t like it, I preferred Social Security of 45 years ago, operated by humans, well DHSS employees anyway.
Where was you on 1st of April?
Having a big shit all day shitting myself for a fool.
“We are Sanctioning your Universal Debit because you failed to log on to your Journal to read a message we sent on Bank Holiday Easter Monday – APRIL FOOL!!!! ????????????
Where’s the log bog roll.
Ask A! technology a question
Why is A! Technology so rubbish?
A! goes I can’t Compute, I Can’t Compute – Computer Says No = A! Little Britain, Computer Say No.
I’m waiting for Work Capability Assessment probably in June/July and if it goes in my favour I get a bit more money, if not I’ll be struggling. Just been doing my sums, I get my first monthly UC payment on 7th April, should get about £360, but they’re taking £30 off in deductions to repay the £700 loan they gave me at beginning to cover the first five weeks that are unpaid, so that means I’ll get about £330 but after I’ve paid all monthly bills it will leave me with about £70 to live on for a month, depending on how much electric is but based on it being £200-ish (March one is £192), so that’s roughly 70 quid for food, toiletries, cat food , laundry for a month! Or £120 if electric is around £150. Both Water and Council Tax have increased this year and I don’t see food prices falling, even the Reduced shelf at Tesco is overpriced considering it’s all out of date, they only knock about a quid off a £3 or £4 item, there’s nothing for 20p or 50p.