'Not following Job Centre Directiions'

Jinx

looby75 wrote: »

:mad: I wish I had known that, my BTWS was on the friday after I signed on on the Wednesday, and then I had to go back to the jobcentre the following Monday for a appointment with Next Steps, at £4 a time for a return bus ticket. £12 is a lot of money to pull out on a tight budget. No one told me I could have got at least some of it back.

It didn't say anything about it on the letter nor was it mentioned in the session

Could you not ask if you can get it retrospectively? You would have signed to say you attended the course. The person lecturing at our back to work session told us all to claim I didnt realise you walk in one door, get your cash and exit onto the street through a different door...felt a right idiot trying to open a coded door! LOL

looby75

Jinx wrote: »

Could you not ask if you can get it retrospectively? You would have signed to say you attended the course. The person lecturing at our back to work session told us all to claim I didnt realise you walk in one door, get your cash and exit onto the street through a different door...felt a right idiot trying to open a coded door! LOL

I doubt it as I don't have the bus ticket any more, there is no electronic system here so couldn't use that excuse.

LOL that's exactly the kind of thing I would do too

DVardysShadow

frostyfeet wrote: »

No, I'm not saying that at all. In fact this target actually protects the customer. There is a different target for how many submissions should be made but of those submissions jobcentre staff should strive for 50% of them to be disallowances....which means roughly 50% of all doubts are likely to be allowed. It's not to encourage staff to raise doubts on innocent people, it's to ensure when a doubt is raised, it's raised for the right reason and they take the correct action - ie submit a quality submission with all the necessary information provided.

And you buy that explanation? That is bureaucratic stupidity in the extreme - or a very deliberate policy too cap costs by handing out sanctions. It really is spinning the wheel of justice. If you want to cut the cost of benefit by 50,000 cases, all you have to do is query 100,000 and have 50% disallowed.

The only way that disallowances should be judged is on the facts

duchy

Good thing our courts don't run on the same system "OK Mr Smith -we know you didn't really break the law but we've run out of quotas to find you innocent so off to prision with you anyway"

Talk about a flawed system !!!

frostyfeet

DVardysShadow wrote: »

And you buy that explanation? That is bureaucratic stupidity in the extreme - or a very deliberate policy too cap costs by handing out sanctions. It really is spinning the wheel of justice. If you want to cut the cost of benefit by 50,000 cases, all you have to do is query 100,000 and have 50% disallowed.

The only way that disallowances should be judged is on the facts

Disallowances are decided on fact. That's why doubts go to an independent decision maker and also why there is an appeal process. Anyway, I think this may be off topic. (Sorry OP.)

Indie_Kid

HappyMJ wrote: »

Personally I walk the 2 miles and claim I got the bus using an electronic pass and get back £3.40 which covers the bus journey at £1.70 each way or if I drove it would be 40p/mile * 4 plus £1.80 for the car parking.

And what would you do if you were asked to show this electronic pass? You're advocating fraud - disgusting.:mad:

shikoku

You are allowed a 50% margin of error?

That is appalling, the unnecessary stress you must cause to your victims.

I think it should be one wrong call and and you're out. Some of these people will be made to feel suicidal.

I don't know how you sleep at night!

If any of your ilk ever do this to me I will hold that person personally liable for any loss or stress. Not the DWP, but the individual who decides to try and use me to reach their target and I will go after that person with a personal injury claim.

Altho' tbh I very much doubt they would ever pick on me, I've already had one lot of financial compensation out of them

DVardysShadow

frostyfeet wrote: »

Disallowances are decided on fact. That's why doubts go to an independent decision maker and also why there is an appeal process. Anyway, I think this may be off topic. (Sorry OP.)

It is off topic to the resolution of the OP's problem, but very much on topic to understanding the policy behind it.

You said: "There is a different target for how many submissions should be made but of those submissions jobcentre staff should strive for 50% of them to be disallowances....which means roughly 50% of all doubts are likely to be allowed." In my book, saying that the target is 50% disallowances is not compatible with deciding on the facts. If you decide on the facts, the outcome in terms of disallowances is determined by the 'quality' of the cases. A target on the outcome in a process such as this can only detract from dealing with the matter on the facts.

frostyfeet

DVardysShadow wrote: »

It is off topic to the resolution of the OP's problem, but very much on topic to understanding the policy behind it.

You said: "There is a different target for how many submissions should be made but of those submissions jobcentre staff should strive for 50% of them to be disallowances....which means roughly 50% of all doubts are likely to be allowed." In my book, saying that the target is 50% disallowances is not compatible with deciding on the facts. If you decide on the facts, the outcome in terms of disallowances is determined by the 'quality' of the cases. A target on the outcome in a process such as this can only detract from dealing with the matter on the facts.

OK. I'll try once more.

The local staff have the target. The Decision Maker (DM) doesn't have a target, they just use facts. Staff are set 2 targets, one for identifying and sending up doubts, one for the disallowance to allowance ratio. I understand that the reason for the first target (identification and submission of the doubt) is purely to encourage staff to take action when a customer shows that they are not meeting the conditions of claiming the benefit....it is natural to want to avoid conflict, even when its a major part of your job.If the officers records show that they never refer anyone to the DM, they are not doing their job correctly. The second target is to do with the ratio. Cases that should be disallowed can get allowed by the DM due to official error (eg: incorrect dates quoted, incorrect paperwork completed etc). Its for that reason that the staff have the ratio target - to encourage error free submissions. Only a few circumstances can be locally allowed, if a customer does not appear to meet the conditions (whether it's Refusal of Employment, Failed to Attend an Interview, Leaving Voluntarily etc) then the case has to go to the decision maker, even if the customer has a perfectly viable reason. The DM can only disallow cases that are error free and where the customer is shown to not have good cause. If the customer can show good cause (ie had a good reason) then the case will be allowed.

Please note, i am not defending the system, I am just trying to explain the facts!

casterweb

dugdale wrote: »

Some rather strange advice posted in this thread.

Do not accept any job print out from your adviser if it's not suitable. If you don't have the correct qualifications or experience required inform your adviser that you don't meet the criteria. If they insist that you accept the print out again refuse, they might threaten to sanction your claim for refusing employment but don't worry, your adviser can't do that, they simply complete all the paperwork and send it to a decision maker who would then look at the job spec (amongst other things) and then decide what action needs to be taken. If the job spec stated that an NVQ level 3 in (say) childcare was required and you didn't possess an NVQ level 3 in childcare your benefit wouldn't be sanctioned. If your JSAg stated you were only available to work Monday - Friday and the vacancy included weekend work your benefit won't be sanctioned.
I'm an adviser and I only submit customers to a vacancy that they agree to. Quite often I have the opposite problem to what is often posted on this forum, customers ask me to submit them to vacancies that they're not qualified to do. I hate to see people building up their hopes about a vacancy only to have them dashed as the next time I see them they're often feeling even more down than they were before.

As an adviser I should make quality submissions - infact this is monitored at district level. Employers who advertise their vacancies with JCP are contacted and the suitability of the people submitted is questioned. Lots of unsuitable submissions equals an unhappy employer, this results in an unhappy senior management team who pass their feelings down the line until it reaches the advisers manager who would, hopefully, take measures to prevent similar incidents happening again.

You sound like you have some common sense! Unfortunately, not all advisers are the same.

A little example. A couple of years ago I was signing on for JSA (I'm no longer claiming it).

At the beginning of my claim I had a Jobseekers agreement interview. I was asked to name 3 'fields' of work in which I would be seeking work, this would form an important part of my agreement. I told the interviewer I had worked in Engineering all my working life and in one dept. So we agreed I should look for engineering jobs. Ok she said, now give me another two 'fields'. I told her politely that I had no other experience, but we have to put another two 'fields' down as part of the agreement I was told firmly . In the end she put me down for retail and construction even though I had no experience in either!! She chose them at random lol

I started to sign fortnightly and the adviser insisted in printing me off jobs in retail (there wasn't any jobs in engineering or construction). She told me it was in my jobseekers agreement so I must go for them. Almost every job in retail she sent me for asked for experience of working in retail.

So I either had to apply for jobs in the retail industry (requiring experience) or get sanction, all because of that initial jobseekers agreement interview!

Surprisingly, I never ever got my job in retail.