Working on a few longer things at the moment, so here’s a short report to be going on with – a bit of on-the-ground reality re: support for disabled people who are out of work:

I was at a jobcentre this week with a man who has learning difficulties. First, he signed on (that took a grand total of about four minutes, including a brief interlude of about ten seconds when Security called out to stop me accompanying this man. I decided to ignore Security on this occasion and kept walking). Then, we went to find the disability adviser to talk about people or organisations or someone somewhere who might be able to help this man into work, or to understand his support needs, at least. I had talked with the adviser about this briefly earlier in the week. The aim was to have a discussion about options and then take things from there.

We found the adviser. The adviser was not in a good mood. At all. There was no chance to talk. Before we even sat down, the adviser had signed this guy up to a work course – one which he had no idea how to get to. We were only told where it was when I asked. He’d been signed up on the computer by then. That was the end of the story as far as details or any negotiations went. The rest he’ll have to try and figure out. Travel was definitely a worry. If this man gets the tube, he’ll need to make a change at Green Park, possibly at rush hour. Bus options might work, but seemed complex. The point is that absolutely none of this was raised or canvassed before the course was chosen. This guy I was with is physically unwell, struggles to read and write and to follow complicated directions, and may need someone to help him negotiate the journey, especially the first time that he goes. He clearly felt stressed at the thought of it. I told the adviser that I might be able to accompany him to his first session now that he was signed up. “That’d be good,” the adviser said. I assumed that was the extent of the “help” that disabled people got if they struggled to travel, at least on this day.

The adviser made it very clear that if this man doesn’t get to this course, he’d be sanctioned. “They’re strict,” the adviser said of the provider. For Christ’s sake, I thought. It would’ve been nice to talk about the travel requirements and any potential problems before the place was selected. Perhaps another provider closer to home could have been found. There followed next a very heated exchange about this man’s most recent experience on so-called work choice (which I’ve just noticed seems to be voluntary) and whether or not he’d taken full advantage of the “help” he was supposedly offered by a previous provider. The adviser said he hadn’t. The man said that the “help” hadn’t been helpful at all. The adviser lost patience. This man shouted as well. He was obviously struggling to get his point over. I just sat there and wondered again why we were doing this, and whether the best way to handle someone with learning difficulties was to lose your temper and shriek.

I know that advisers are under pressure – I see stress and exhaustion on a lot of faces at jobcentres. There can be no doubt about that. The adviser in this case has been reasonable on other days. But the upshot here is that a man with learning difficulties has been signed up to a course that he knows nothing about, has no idea how to get to, but was told to attend or else – by someone who was obviously fraught and angry to the point of losing it. That’s the system we have now. That’s disability support and advice at the jobcentre on a tense afternoon.

I do wonder where the PCS really is on all of this. Getting very late in the day and all that.

Details of next week’s day of action against sanctions events are here:

Remember, though – sanctions are only one problem on this scene at the moment. They’re a very big problem and should be highlighted and fought, but there are other big problems as well. One of those problems is that people with support needs are being dumped in these jobcentres and to my eye anyway, jobcentres can’t cope. You get these days where everyone seems to lose it.

Working on a few things atm, so back soon.

In the meantime – enjoy the excellent David Cameron Is A Wanker video by the Kilburn Unemployed Workers’ Group. And share share share! Widely 🙂

To Central London today, where Disabled People Against Cuts blocked roads outside Maximus HQ in Queen Anne’s gate and then the DWP at Caxton House and Victoria Street in protest at the Maximus contract to run the work capability assessment for disability benefits.

The turnout was good and the intention clear. Disabled people and campaigners will not stop until the Maximus contract is in tatters. Protestors managed to kick Atos out with its tail between its legs, so there is every reason to target Maximus with confidence.

Which people did today. Confidence is the word, too. The campaign against Atos was ultimately very successful, which means that people know they can do this. Doesn’t matter what sort of effort Maximus puts into the so-called “Customer Experience” that sick and disabled people who must go through the work capability assessment have when they apply for Employment and Support Allowance. Everyone knows the real point of the government’s WCA exercise is to throw people off disability benefits – and very likely to eliminate disability benefits altogether. People in real need died after Atos found them fit for work and their benefits were stopped. It’s very hard to imagine that’ll change simply because Maximus has decided that it’ll be pleasant to people as it recommends that their meagre benefits are cut.

These protests are significant for everyone. When Atos was running this shambles, DPAC and campaigners proved that it was possible to end a corporate contract by destroying a corporate reputation. That was a very useful result in an era where so many vital public services and functions are outsourced to companies like Maximus. You could argue that the New Era campaigners got a similar result. Removing a major corporate from the picture is something that people can do. And want to do, by the looks of it.

Disabled campaigners block Victoria Street:

Blocking the roads at St James station

Maximarse

Blocking Victoria Street and reading captions written by campaigners:

Now isn’t this charming.

On Thursday, I went again to one of the northwest London jobcentres to meet up with Eddie (named changed), the 51-year-old man with learning and literacy difficulties who I’ve accompanied to JSA signon sessions for coming up to six months. Eddie’s signon time changed last week and I met him at the jobcentre just as he came down the stairs from his appointment.

He was furious. He felt that he’d been threatened. He said the jobcentre had told him that his next sign on appointment would take place at 2pm on a Thursday afternoon, rather than in the morning as usual. Eddie told the jobcentre that he preferred morning appointments. It suits him. He finds that routine easier to manage. But that is too bad, it seems. Eddie said he was told off for arguing the toss about the new afternoon signon plan. He said the jobcentre made it clear that if he kicked up a fuss about afternoon signon times, he’d be forced to attend every week to sign on instead of every fortnight. No matter that absolutely nothing ever happens at his signon meetings. He’d just be forced to attend more of them and get no help more often. Great.

I hear this sort of thing too often now: people with learning difficulties, or mental health problems being threatened with some sort of backlash if they object to jobcentre regimes. Maggie (named changed), a woman in Northamptonshire who has a long-term schizophrenia diagnoses, told me that she was recently warned by the DWP not to say “Never” when she told the department that her partner Sean (named also changed), who has severe depression and Asperger’s syndrome, would never attend the work-focused interviews that the local jobcentre very much wants to make him attend (here’s that story and the letter that Sean’s local jobcentre sent calling him to such an interview). Sean is in the Support Group for Employment and Support Allowance. People in the Support Group for ESA are supposed to be exempt from all work and work-focused interviews, because of the severity of their health conditions. The idea that some people simply can’t work is clearly being eased out of the DWP, and society, altogether, though – people in Sean and Maggie’s situation are getting letters and phone calls “inviting” them to job-focused interviews. They know they’ll be asked again and that the ante will be upped in a serious way if they refuse. Maggie and Sean are already worried about that “Never say Never To Us” they got from the DWP. They wonder if there will be repercussions.

They have reason to worry. The DWP’s contempt for benefit claimants is often very poorly disguised. And let’s face it – there are times when it isn’t disguised at all. If you want to hear that contempt in full roar, just listen to this recording recently taken at a jobcentre group induction meeting for new JSA claimants:

As you can hear, throughout that meeting, one claimant kept interrupting and challenging the adviser who was in charge of the session. The problem is that the jobcentre didn’t seem to have a plan in place to deal with a disruptive claimant. In lieu of such a plan, the adviser just spat the dummy and yelled at the claimant. Which wasn’t much of a plan, really. Shrieking your head off generally isn’t. Continue reading →

Readers of this site will remember that a couple of weeks ago, I posted questions about people’s right to record and film face-to-face assessments as they go through the work capability assessments that are to be run by Maximus.

I wanted to know if Maximus will allow people to record their face-to-face assessments on their phones or any recording gear that they have – from the point when Maximus takes over the grisly WCA process. I also had other questions, which I put to Maximus last week. I’ve listed these questions below, along with the answers I got back (perhaps I should say “answers”). I had to lean on Maximus’ US office for a response in the first instance, but got one of sorts in the end.

Needless to say, the entire exercise was a complete waste of time. You’ll see below that the responses give us five-eighths of fuck all as far as concrete information, timelines and/or actual process detail is concerned. No surprise there, of course – but I thought I’d post the responses anyway, because I think there is merit in highlighting the PR guff and detail-free twattery that Maximus has decided to specialise in when it comes to this contract. There’s also a dismissive aspect to a lot of the language, which you might find illuminating – a sort of “we’ll do things at our pace and you lot can wait” – air which nettled me badly. It should get on your nerves, too.

This sort of thing, for example:

“Change cannot occur overnight”

“[We] will take forward this and other ideas to the Department for their consideration”

“I am unable to comment on such speculation,” when I raised a perfectly valid point about Maximus’ view of the future of the ESA Support Group.

Sue Marsh actually got in touch with me after the press office did to say that I could speak with her, because my questions “come under her job,” but that attempt at overture got right up my nose, as well. For one thing – if Sue Marsh is the person who is best placed to answer questions in the sort of details required, then the Maximus press office should go to her for those answers before responding to whoever asked them. It’s not my job to sweep together Maximus’ various outputs on its own assessment processes as and when those outputs drop out of different holes, or to wait around for the responses that Maximus feels it has best finessed. For another thing – I can’t see myself responding well to any aspect of the many-pronged charm offensive that Maximus has launched in its sorry and very costly attempt to sculpt and polish the WCA turd. Let’s face it – any company that comes out with a phrase like “more touch, more communication,” apparently in all seriousness, should not be encouraged to contribute further to any dialogue on any topic, or to remain involved in any process where people require something better than bullshit. It’s my view that in a general sense, any company that speaks lines like “more touch, more communication,” needs a smack in the soft parts right there.

Anyway. Continue reading →

Recordings from a jobcentre meeting are further down the post. The argument between the adviser and the JSA claimant is the third clip – a classic of an adviser slapping down a claimant who decided to challenge the DWP:

On Wednesday this week, people plan to gather at jobcentres to protest about the arrest of an activist who accompanied a woman to an appointment at Arbroath Jobcentre. The thought of that arrest and upcoming court hearing gets on my nerves very badly, for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is completely selfish. I accompany people to jobcentre appointments all the time and I don’t want to hear that someone has been hauled off by the police for doing similar. I hope the DWP isn’t getting ideas here. It already has jobcentres in near-lockdown. I’ve had run-ins myself with security guards who police jobcentres and know they can be extremely unpleasant if they feel like it. This sort of crap could inspire them to further triumphs.

And there’s more. Plenty more. I wonder if this arrest means that the DWP will begin to push the idea that JSA claimants should be denied the right to take someone along to their jobcentre meetings. God knows that accompanying people is tricky enough already. I’ve been stopped by security guards who have demanded to know my name (I’ve always refused to give it) or who have simply said You Can’t Come In. Different people at the same jobcentre sometimes tell you different things about access. One guard at a northwest London jobcentre stopped me from accompanying a man with learning difficulties to his appointment until we explained that the disability adviser in the very same jobcentre said that the man could bring someone to help with his forms. The man has literacy difficulties and can’t use a computer. He struggles to apply for jobs online, which means he is at risk of sanctions.

Other people feel exposed without a witness. They’re right to. They are. There’s an awful power discrepancy at jobcentres, you know. I’ve met advisers and guards who are decent and helpful, and I’ve met advisers and guards who are not. Certainly, there are jobcentres where JSA claimants report that some advisers run terror campaigns: “there’s a woman in there who signs people on. She is bullying people…She shouldn’t be working there.” People feel that they must keep their heads down to avoid sanctions: “They are a bit stroppy. You can’t say nothing to them, because if you argue back to them, the security is there and they will sanction you…you have to keep quiet.” People hope for the best, but they may not get it. The equation balances out if the person who is signing on can take a supportive witness to appointments.

So. To show you why people often want to take someone along to their jobentre meetings, I’ve published below some short audio recordings from a recent meeting where people were patronised, reminded non-stop that their benefits could be sanctioned, and then where things turned sour between one claimant and an adviser. (These recordings are not from the Arbroath jobcentre where the recent arrest took place. They’re from a group induction meeting for new JSA claimants at a jobcentre in London. About 12 new claimants attended the meeting, which was run by one adviser). Continue reading →

This fits in nicely with David Cameron’s “let’s smack a few more people on benefits around and not talk about corporate tax-dodging theme:”

Here is a letter received very recently from a DWP “work coach” by Sean* (name changed), a Northamptonshire man who I’ve known and written about for several years. He has Asperger’s and severe depression.

Sean finds day-to-day life very difficult to handle (he struggles to leave his house a lot of the time). He actually finds day-to-day life so challenging that even Atos agreed that he shouldn’t have to work. After a face-to-face assessment for his WCA about two years ago (I attended that assessment with him), Atos placed him in the support group for Employment and Support Allowance. As many of you will know, people in the ESA support group are neither required to work, nor to look for work. That’s the whole point of the support group. It’s an acknowledgement (a grudging one, I suspect) by the system as we have it that some people simply aren’t in a position take a job. From Benefits and Work: “the ESA support group is for claimants who the DWP consider to have such severe health problems that there is no current prospect of their being able to undertake work or work-related activities.” Once you’re in the support group, that should be the end of that, at least until your next assessment.

But here is this letter all the same. Disturbing reports of other people in the ESA support group getting letters like this, or calls to attend work-focused interviews, now abound. Sean received this letter out of nowhere and it scared the hell out of him. I imagine that scaring the hell out of him was at least in part the point of the exercise. The DWP doesn’t like people with mental health conditions to feel too secure.

And they don’t. As you can read for yourself, this DWP letter calls Sean to an interview this week to talk about “returning to work” or “starting a new job,” how to “find the right job” and how Sean’s benefits might be affected if he did go to work (even though the government’s assessor has said that he can’t). Even more incredibly, the invitation calls Sean to a group information session. This suggests to me that whoever sent it never read Sean’s file, or even glanced at it. A group session? Sean finds groups of people so challenging that he can barely bring himself to leave the house a lot of the time. He said he couldn’t handle the idea of travelling across town to sit in a room with complete strangers to discuss very personal details.

That is one of the many reasons why the letter is crass in the extreme. There’s a flimsy attempt in it to acknowledge that Sean is not actually obliged to attend the meeting (“not attending will not affect your [benefit] payment,” etc), but the real message is loud and clear. Continue reading →

He certainly is.

Excellent video here by the Kilburn Unemployed Workers’ Group. Share and enjoy!