Universal Job Match at http://jobseekers.direct.gov.uk

I foresee the system crashing through overload if was made a requirement that you had to use it. Recall that one of the plans under 'Universal Credit' was the requirement that anyone who was working less than 35 hours per had to undergo a set hours (20) of job-searching per week. This would effect around 15 million people, I very much doubt if the IT system could handle a 3rd of this number at any onetime. In view of the track record when comes to Public Sector IT Projects.

If everyone on here is genuinely looking for work then why the problem with their JCP adviser having access to their account??
I would have thought if you were looking for work you would appreciate all the help you were offered??
But maybe I'm wrong:)

taralou wrote: »

If everyone on here is genuinely looking for work then why the problem with their JCP adviser having access to their account??
I would have thought if you were looking for work you would appreciate all the help you were offered??
But maybe I'm wrong:)

A, not everyone on here is looking for a job and

B, the JCP are utterly useless at helping.

I have just come from signing on and have been told about Universal Job Match. They have just told that this is mandatory and that I need to bring my new user ID and my e-mail address to my next signing appointment, so that they can log it on their system.

Is this actually true? I am extremely unhappy about it, since there are various boxes that need to be checked, with terms that say the Jobcentre is allowed to basically interfere with your active job applications. They can contact employers you have applied to for feedback on how your application is going or why you were unsucessful and pass on your details to who they feel like pretty much.

With the work programme I have not signed the consent for for them to contact people I have applied to. I signed the I don't not consent form instead. Do I really *have* to sign up to this?

For anyone that doesn't understand why this is a big deal, I shall try to elaborate, since before I had health problems my job was to develop websites.

Once you put all this information into the website, because the website is owned by the Jobcentre, they have admin privileges on the website. Anything you do on that website, will be recorded with the exact time and is visible to the Jobcentre. I believe in all likeliness this means:

- who you applied to
- exactly what time you did it to the second
- what you put in your covering letter
- which CV and what is in it
- they will also match jobs backwards, so instead of you looking for appropriate jobs, it sounds like they can put you forward for jobs they think suit you. Whether this would be done automatically I don't know. This is very different to other sites, because any matched job, the the ones the advisors find, and will almost certainly count as a matched job that you must apply for. I wonder if this could even be automatic?

If you check the boxes which I don't know if are mandatory yet then they will be able to:

- pass any detail you have entered into the website to anyone they feel like, ie NI number, full name, age, address, sexuality, anything you have told them through that website. They say that there will be a online equality test before you can access the home page. For what reasons do they need to store peoples race and sexual preferences online on a web serve? This is very private info.

- they can contact any company on your behalf, for pretty much any reason.

I find this quite outrageous, since the DWP already hold the most detailed database (I believe) in the world about the people who use it. They are notoriously bad for looking after this information and I can give numerous examples of this information being leaked in inappropriate ways.

I feel quite able to manage my own Job search and I don't feel this approach really helps. If I were an employer I would not want to employ someone who needs to Jobcentre to do all this on their behalf.

So... is there anything to say whether this scheme is actually mandatory yet? If anyone would like more details, they had 2 or 3 pages of info in the Jobs folders they where you wait to sign on... this is where I go my info from.