Here’s a very recent example of the extraordinary lack of support that disabled JSA claimants can find at jobcentres when they’re looking work.

In the recording below, an adviser at a north London jobcentre actually tells me that advisers at this jobcentre can’t give extra jobsearch help or support to the disabled claimant who I’m with. The adviser doesn’t try to pretend otherwise. He says that the jobcentre can’t help this disabled man, because there are no Disability Employment Advisers at this jobcentre now (DEAs are advisers who are meant to have additional skills and time for disabled benefit claimants). Nobody else at the jobcentre can give the man extra support. The adviser said that the man’s only choice was to move jobcentres to one that does still have specialist disability advisers. That was the end of that. So much, I thought, for the DWP’s claims to me by recent email that disabled benefit claimants can expect “tailored support specific to their individual needs,” at jobcentres. These DWP claims of “tailored support” for disabled JSA claimants are rot as far as I’m concerned – as great a lie as the DWP’s use of fake benefit claimants and quotes in leaflets. It seems to me that when the DWP talks about “tailored support” for disabled claimants at jobcentres, the DWP pretends to offer a service that it does not.

The disabled JSA claimant in this case is a 52-year-old man who has learning and literacy difficulties. He worked for years as a kitchen and general assistant, but hasn’t found work since he was made redundant from his last job about six years ago. I’ve attended his JSA signon sessions with him for over a year (we both wonder why we still bother a lot of the time). This man struggles with writing and spelling in particular. We’ve spent much time filling in job applications together. Here’s an example of an application form he filled in where he copied words that I wrote in my notebook into the form. You can see the trouble that he has writing coherent sentences even when he copies text:

This man often says that he is keen for a job. He says that he attends job fairs and when we met last week, we arranged to meet again to fill in application forms for porter and general assistant roles (he can’t use a computer, so needs other people to make online applications). He needs help to fill in the forms. He says that he’s lost his chance at jobs in the past, because he couldn’t complete forms to an acceptable standard: “I went to a nursing home in Enfield which I really should have got in there, because it was just a simple kitchen assistant job. No – the reason they give me was Oh, there were some mistakes in the application form and the spelling.” Continue reading →

On workfare:

Am making my way through several hours of interview recordings that I took earlier this year with three people who were on a six-month forced workfare Community Work Placement (CWP) at a north London charity called Embrace UK. With CWP, these people on jobseekers’ allowance had to work for 30 hours a week for six months on workfare in local charities and organisations. These JSA claimants had no choice. If people refused, they risked benefit sanctions.

Anyway – I thought I’d post the letter below.

This is a letter that JSA claimants on that six-month CWP workfare placement at Embrace UK asked the charity’s managers to write for people to take to their jobcentres in January this year. In these letters, Embrace UK asked jobcentres to allow the letter-holders to stay on at the charity as volunteers when the six-month forced workfare placement ended:

The reason that people on workfare at Embrace UK asked the charity’s managers to produce these letters to take to jobcentres? – they wanted to stay on at Embrace UK because the charity’s managers were civil and the workfare work wasn’t brutal. Staff at Embrace UK treated people on forced workfare decently. Being treated decently as a workfare worker was considered a monumental bonus and something to try and hang on to. The six-month workfare placement at Embrace UK was about to end. People were very worried about being sent on a CWP workfare placement at another charity. They could not be sure that they’d be treated well at a new placement, because they were workfare workers.

None of these people were doormats – quite the reverse – but they knew the odds on this scene. Workfare workers have very little power. They certainly don’t have much by way of workplace protection in reality. These people could complain about bad treatment, or refuse to attend a difficult workfare workplace if they really wanted to, but that sort of response would put people at risk of sanctions. All three people I interviewed in this case had been sanctioned at one point or another for spurious reasons. People knew exactly what it was like to have their benefit money suddenly stopped. Nobody was keen to go through that again if they could help it. That’s why people put a great deal of energy and effort into organising the letters that might convince their jobcentres to let them stay at a charity where they were treated like human beings.

This is the big worry: that people on workfare must hope for – rather than expect – decent work and decent treatment on workfare placements. It’s luck of the draw stuff. I wonder who is meant to monitor these placements for standards, and if they do. On the circuit, stories certainly abound of people on mandatory workfare placements being sent to charities where the work is gruelling and the management nasty. Being sent out in all weathers on charity bucket collection is something people dread (god knows I would): “I’m going out fundraising as well – doing bucket collection. I did a couple of days bucket collection down out the front of the shops,” an older guy called Graham told me when we discussed his workfare placement at the end of last year. His work programme provider, the notoriously unpleasant Urban Futures, had sent him on a CWP stint at a charity where he “worked” as a security guard and also went outside on bucket collections (he had a criminal record, as it happened. He hadn’t been CRB-checked by the charity and thought both jobs were interesting choices for someone with his recent background). The weather was freezing at the time of his placement. I know I wouldn’t have enjoyed being shoved out into the cold with a bucket on a threat of a benefit sanction. Continue reading →

From Disabled People Against Cuts:

Plenty of action planned for Tory party conference next week as disabled campaigners prepare to protest against austerity cuts.

“Cameron will not get to deliver his litany of spite and lies in peace.”

Amen to that.

Get more details here.

I’m guessing years.

I attended a Maximus face-to-face assessment for Employment and Support Allowance with someone about five months ago. It seems that person still hasn’t had a decision about their claim.

Maybe their decision letter got lost in the mail. Maybe it hasn’t been sent. Who can really say. Like so many people I speak with, the person in this instance doesn’t want to raise issues with Maximus or the DWP, because this person is concerned that Maximus or the DWP will respond in a negative way.

People on the receiving end of the ESA application process do not feel that they have a lot of power in it. And they’re right. They don’t.

This is a page from a jobsearch sheet that belongs to a JSA claimant whose fortnightly JSA signon sessions I’ve attended on and off for about 18 months at two jobcentres.

I’m posting this to show you the pointlessness of some of these jobcentre signon sessions and of the DWP’s jobsearch regime in general:

The sheet shows evidence of some of the 14 jobsearch activities that this man must carry out each fortnight to continue to claim his jobseekers’ allowance – so, 14 job applications and CV-drops into shops and supermarkets, and that sort of thing. (I think it’s 14. Seems to vary a bit). This man has some literacy problems and copies words from one fortnight’s sheets to the next. He carries the same spelling mistakes and disordered text over in these records. Nobody’s ever pointed the spelling mistakes out, or said anything about the confusing text. You wonder if anyone ever reads any of it (I don’t wonder, really. I don’t think anybody does read the sheets and if they do, they clearly don’t think the details count).

The thing about the jobsearch activity in these sheets? – nothing ever seems to come of it. The DWP’s jobsearch and Claimant Commitment requirements mean that this guy must show this fortnightly evidence that he has looked for work – but that’s it. The jobsearch exercise ends there. This man must fill his sheets in, but nothing is done with the information that he writes. I’ve never seen an attempt made at a jobcentre to help this guy turn the listings in his sheets into actual work. No phone calls have ever been made on this man’s behalf to the employers he lists – at least, not at the signon appointments that I’ve attended. I’ve never seen an attempt to follow up on the applications that he records. Nobody asks from one signon appointment to the next if the job applications that he listed in previous weeks amounted to anything. Every two weeks, this guy takes his collection of sheets into the jobcentre for an adviser to look at. The adviser glances at the writing, asks how the jobsearch is going and sets another signon appointment for two weeks’ time. That really is about it.

We go in for these jobcentre appointments every fortnight. Some JSA claimants must go in every week. Others must go in every day if they’re at a jobcentre which insists on a daily signon regime. These really are trips to the jobcentre for no reason. Every six months or so, an adviser will try to push this guy into voluntary work or onto the Work Choice programme. He goes on some programmes and not on others. Either way, he’s back at the jobcentre when the work programme is done. We carry on with the fortnightly signons. This guy has whole booklets and sheets filled out exactly like this: pages and pages of poorly-spelled text about jobsearch activities that nobody pursues, or even reads a lot of the time.

Anyway. This is how long-term unemployment looks, at least as far as I can see – endless paper and endless trips to the jobcentre for the hell of it. Nothing changes, or shifts. We all just get older. I suppose that IDS .gets off on that. Or something.

Okay – this is a minor rant, but I’m having it.

I went to Plaistow jobcentre yesterday to accompany a young woman to her JSA signon appointment.

I couldn’t find the woman when I arrived, so I asked the G4S security guard if I could stick my head around the door on the first floor to see if she was already there.

“No,” he said.

“Could I just see if she’s there?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No,” he said.

That was the end of that.

These G4S people get on my nerves very badly. They can be obstructive in the extreme. I would like to know who they answer to. They seem to go a long way to make sure that JSA claimants are denied their right to accompaniment to meetings. Last time I attempted to accompany this young woman to an appointment at this jobcentre, I didn’t even make it as far as the ground floor entrance. The G4S guards parked me outside the jobcentre with the young woman’s bike. They wouldn’t let her leave the bike inside the jobcentre for five minutes when she signed on and she didn’t have a lock for the bike (she couldn’t afford one), so I ended up standing outside on bike-guarding duties.

I am pretty sure that the guards enjoyed sticking me outside with the bike. I am also pretty sure that the guards like saying No, because they can.

It’s the little things, you know.

Picture: Bike

.

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading →

This is a transcript from a recording I made a couple of weeks ago with a guy in his 50s who signs on at a North London jobcentre. This man has been unemployed for more than five years. He talked about the reasons why he’s had trouble finding work in the last five years – in general and through the work programme.

One of his problems is literacy. He finds writing a particular challenge. He struggles to spell properly without help. His job application forms are messy and often incoherent because of that. The basic aptitude tests that a lot of companies put people through these days as part of an application for work are beyond him. He never had to sit those sorts of tests when he left school to work at 16.

I meet quite a few older people who are on jobseekers’ allowance and who say that they have trouble reading and writing. A number of times, people have asked me to fill in their forms, or help complete their Claimant Commitment paperwork (this guy, for example. I accompanied him to a group Claimant Commitment meeting at his jobcentre earlier this year. He left the room when it came time to fill in the Claimant Commitment forms. It became clear when he tried to fill in the forms that he just couldn’t spell). It took me a long while to work out that people wanted help because they weren’t able to read and understand the forms. I didn’t realise how widespread these literacy problems were until about 18 months ago, when I started to talk to a lot of people at jobcentres who’d been out of work for the long term. I have wondered sometimes how many people are eliminated from the chance of work that they want because they struggle to read and write. I also wonder what sort of effort work programme providers put into helping people navigate these problems.

One to think about.

The man in the transcript began by talking about the work programme (he’d been sent on the work programme four times):

“Basically, sod all they did. All they did was sit you down, try to help you use a computer – but they walked away. I did job search on the boards, looking for jobs, talked about silly classes. That’s it. They didn’t do an awful lot. It was rubbish.

“I went [for a job as a warehouse packer]. I thought it was like a warehouse, but they wanted you to do a massive test for hours just for packing plants in Cricklewood. Really, I should have got the job just packing the plants, but they were making life so difficult for simple things. I had to do an English and maths test – and nah, it’s not worth it, because you’ve got to sit down and at the end of the day, you’re not going to get the job anyway. You’re not going to get it. They want you to use the till. I just wanted the job like packing the plants in the warehouse. I could use a till, but you had to do it [know the names of the plants] with the plants… it was too hard. If it had been just doing the warehouse like packing, then that would have been all right. I would have been fine. It was just making life very difficult for a simple job.

“That was from [the work programme]. I went there. A couple of places I went to, but some places [potential employers] just mess you around. They never got back to me.

“I went to a nursing home in Enfield which I really should have got in there, because it was just a simple kitchen assistant job. I should have had that job in that nursing home. No – the reason they give me was Oh, there were some mistakes in the application form and the spelling and all that. But I really should have had that job in the nursing home. It was a very simple job. Enfield. It was not very far. I went there really early as well…I should have had a permanent job a long time. [It was just] a few mistakes in the application form. Basically, it was washing up, helping making the sandwiches, preparing the food – sort of job that I’ve done for years. That’s why I was very angry. I should take action. A couple of mistakes and they don’t give it to you just for that. You know – basically helping out with food for the elderly people. Their lunch and their breakfast, which I should be doing. I should be working there for a long time. It’s ridiculous.” Continue reading →

This article is about a work activities-type meeting between a jobcentre disability employment adviser and a JSA claimant who has learning difficulties and some literacy problems. The article includes excerpts from a transcript of a recording made at this meeting earlier this year. There are longer edits from the transcript at the end of this post for people who want more detail.

I’m posting this to give people an idea of the way that some of these interviews operate. I also want to show you something of the combative relationships between people who must use public services and people who provide services on the front line these days. I have a lot of these recordings. I’m pretty sure I’ll look back on them as evidence that Iain Duncan Smith decided, perversely, to take people in need and frontline officers, and set them onto each other in jobcentre buildings and housing offices. I suppose that really would be somebody’s idea of entertainment today.

The JSA claimant (or “customer”, as this jobcentre likes to call people) in the transcripts below is a 52-year-old man I call Eddie* in these articles. Eddie worked for many years as a kitchen and catering assistant. He says that he was made redundant by his last employer about six years ago and hasn’t found work since.

As I say, Eddie has learning and literacy difficulties (he finds writing a challenge in particular). He has health problems: he’s diabetic and seems sometimes to struggle to manage his diabetes. He also becomes stressed easily and finds change difficult to deal with. He often says that he wants change – “I should be in a job by now. I want to live in a quieter place, in a proper flat” – and he hands out CVs around town, but he hasn’t found work yet. I’m guessing that his age and health problems work against him, especially in manual assistant jobs. He also loathes the bureaucracies that he must rely on for change: the council and the jobcentre. He resents all officers, good and bad. When I ask Eddie for his views on officers, he usually says that they are all useless, should be sacked, or sent to jail. We never get much further than that.

Anyway – the meeting.

It isn’t the easiest interview that I’ve attended. As soon as we arrive, Eddie tells the jobcentre adviser that he isn’t well. He says that his blood sugar is high and that he must see his GP. The adviser clearly doesn’t believe him – or, at least, decides that there’s no real emergency. Eddie cut last week’s appointment with the same adviser short for a similar reason. “You had lunch?” the adviser asks “You have to stick to really regular times to eat, otherwise you’re going to get issues.” I’m no medic, but I do wonder if writing the diabetes problems off so fast is such a great idea. Eddie’s face is sweaty, he has tiny red sores across his cheeks and he does seem tired and irritable. Continue reading →

I wonder about this a lot these days.

I’ve posted the letters below to show again the deluge of mail, DWP demands for money, and bailiff and eviction threats received by people who have absolutely no money at all.

I want to give people an idea of the relentlessness with which debt is pursued and the way debt stacks up for people who have no chance of paying any of it. I’ve wondered before about the sort of endgames that the political class has in mind for people in these situations. Will we see lots of people in debtors’ jail? Permanent homelessness? A lifetime chained to unpayable fines? Deportation? Who can really say. I think something might have to give at some point. I certainly see a few people in this kind of shit.

The young woman I’m writing about in this post (and wrote about here) is facing eviction for rent arrears caused by a rent shortfall that she was never able to pay, bailiff threats for outstanding fines and mounting court costs that she can’t meet, and benefit deductions for a loan and supposed overpayment of a couple of hundred quid a year ago.

The debts grow and grow, while the money she has to repay those debts stays the same (she gets about £73 a week in jobseekers’ allowance, which she also must live off). This equation is clearly never going to add, but her debtors keep going for it anyway. This young woman has been homeless in the past. She’s had a very difficult domestic situation to deal with this year. The main point here, though, is that there’s no way out of these sorts of problems if people don’t have money to throw at them. It doesn’t matter why they don’t have that money, or whose fault it all is, or whatever the hell people want to say at this stage. If people don’t have the money, they don’t. And – that’s it.

Nonetheless, debts are chased incessantly. It’s as though debtors expect people who are in this kind of trouble to suddenly come into thousands of pounds. Or something. I don’t really know where those on the collection end really expect things to end up. One of the letters below is a bailiff demand for a travel fine and extra costs. A couple of weeks ago, the bailiffs turned up first thing in the morning at this woman’s flat to collect. Meanwhile, the DWP piles on the pressure with a barrage of letters about benefit deductions and fund repayments. These letters are almost impossible to follow most of the time. I like to think that I have a reasonable grasp of these things, but I just DO NOT understand some of the figures that the DWP arrives at with these calculations. Different totals are set for deductions – from month to month it seems at times. The deductions are taken from benefits at source. Sometimes, this woman has been left with about £40 a week to live on.

Here’s one of a number of recent eviction threats this person has received. For several complicated reasons, this young woman has a housing benefit rent shortfall of about £40 a week and rent arrears of more than £1600 because of that. The Housing Trust has since sent another note to apply for this woman’s eviction:

We’ve met with the trust and the council and will have a shot at sorting things out by applying for a discretionary housing payment. The young woman has been told not to get her hopes up on that score, though. So – yeah. Helpful.

Here is a bailiff’s letter demanding more than £700 for the travel fine (as I say, the bailiffs have since visited again in person):

Meanwhile, the DWP continues to deduct loan and overpayment money from this woman’s jobseekers’ allowance at source. No matter that she has the rent and arrears problems, and is facing eviction and homelessness. None of that appears to be factored in. Letter after letter arrives, advising her of these seemingly random amounts for deduction:

Here’s another one:

Plenty more where those came from, too.

A few weeks ago, I rang the DWP to explain the situation and to try and get some of the deduction rates reduced. The DWP agreed to cut one repayment amount by three pounds and the other by about six pounds. That frees up around a tenner. I suppose we should all be grateful for that.

I’m not sure what is meant to happen next. The DWP can spew out letters as often as it likes. Government can bleat on about scroungers and Taking Responsibility For Yourself as loudly as it wants. None of that changes the fact that people crash. It really doesn’t. I think we’d all know by now if it did.

• Thanks to the CAB adviser who got in touch last time I wrote about this. Advice was appreciated.