The Work Programme New Thread

Modster

Its been a while since I have posted here as I have recently become a father again, anyways seems as though my fight against my WP provider has paid off as now I get telephone contact now and again and I will only have to attend every 8 weeks or so. I did notice a change in attitude with the workers in there after all my complaining, I guess they finally realised I wasnt going to be pushed around and was always going to stand my ground.

donnajunkie

Modster wrote: »

Its been a while since I have posted here as I have recently become a father again, anyways seems as though my fight against my WP provider has paid off as now I get telephone contact now and again and I will only have to attend every 8 weeks or so. I did notice a change in attitude with the workers in there after all my complaining, I guess they finally realised I wasnt going to be pushed around and was always going to stand my ground.

can you remind us again what your issue was? i'm too lazy to look back through the thread.

lori64

Have any of you been on the work programme from the very start? I have, and was wondering what happens when you are into your 2nd year with them?
Is it pretty much more of the same old, same old?
Im on a waiting list for a college course which i hoped would give me an escape from all this crap, but nobody has dropped out of the course so far, so just wondered if being sent on some workfare thing would be next for me.

tomtom12

I just thought I'd post my experience so far on the work programme.

To start off with, I was with a provider called JHP Training. I attended about every week and for the most part it was useless. I'd go there to job search on there computers even though I did it every day at home and I'd also have to show them my 'job log'.

After I think it was 16 weeks, I was transferred to a provider called i2i who I have nothing but good things to say about. I had to attend once a week but I didn't see this as an issue because it was close to home, all of the staff were very friendly and i2i was genuinely helpful for me.

They had in-house job open days, helpful classes on job searching and other related things.

They setup me an interview with a very professional company which lead to me getting the job.
They also offer support anytime for anything, it's just a phone call away.

If it wasn't for i2i or the work programme, I think I still would have been far away from employment.

I have a lot to thank i2i and my advisers for.

It's not all bad on the work programme folks.

ason

Well i got my first letter of working links today with the time and date for me to to be there,well they posted it on the 7sept got at 12.13 today my appointment was at 10am today so i rang them to tell them and they said there send me out a new letter and told me not to worry about the letter saying that i failed to attend,i said thats fine now can u send with that letter the reason i did not attend because your company messed up with the post and that i am in no way to blame.The reply i got was we will remove the fail to attend from your letter,What a good start to it all,already trying to blame me and they did say we try to ring u which i said i dont have a phone or mobile so dont se how u can,so looks like i got alot to look forward to.My mandatory work activity with the pinicale people was just as bad as they could not find me any where and every time i turned up they said we have over booked and u can go,one time i was the only one there.So in the end they said i failed to appear which i was able to prove i did,so to any one going on these get your self a book and ask them to sign, print,and date it every time u go or this could happen to u.Have i had any help getting a job yet well the answer to that is No not even from the job centre.seems they now look at ways to stop paying u than helping u.Im 46 and worked since i left school apart from when i had a rta and lost my job because the company i did work for went bust because they had a loan from rbs and rbs sold the loan and it got called in.

The_ICT_Engineer

For anyone who is interested, Channel 4 Dispatches is investigating Poundland.
As other High Street retailers struggle, Poundland is booming. With a new store opening on average every five days, its pre-tax profits are up 50% in a year. In this Dispatches investigation, Will the heavy use of IDS's slaves in the passed year be reported?

Channel 4 @ 8pm Monday (Not repeated on 4OD)

dandelionclock30

People dont give a Fcuk about unemployed people and the most unbelievable thing is that they think that it cant happen to them!. What an absolute laugh!.
Plenty of professional people are losing their jobs now and loads of college/Uni leavers are stuck as well.
How people think it will never happen to them is beyond me.

GMbabies

Things to come...

By late Autumn the Government's Department of Work and Pensions plans to introduce a new Universal Jobmatch website for anyone seeking a job.

[...]

Millions of part-time workers and unemployed receiving welfare benefits will be mandated to register, thereby bypassing all semblance of consent, letting Jobcentre staff and external contractors have full access to all of their user activities, including reading correspondence with employers, viewing full content of CV's, pending and submitted job applications, jobsearches done and saved, feedback from employers, interviews offered and personal profiles. Jobcentre staff will also be able to attach job vacancy details to a user’s account, which they must apply for.

All of this is being driven by the plan to make all welfare benefit and related services digital by default and mandated for under the Welfare Reform Act (2012), coupled with the introduction of Universal Credit. These welfare reforms come with unprecedented coercive powers, such as “claimant commitments”, including the core mandatory requirement to give evidence of spending a whopping 35 hours per week doing Jobsearch activities, with non-compliance leading to loss of welfare payments through sanctions of up to 3 years and or the imposition of mandatory unpaid work(fare), for showing a lack of effort. Based on the evidence we believe that the unemployed and part time workers receiving welfare benefits will be mandated to register.
This snoopers’ charter of a service will be integrated with many central, local government and private sector databases, covering wages paid, hours worked, credit ratings, electoral role and tax liability to name a few.

[...]

What about privacy and consent?

[...]

A quick insight into the likely privacy impact, for all users of Universal Credit can be found on the Monster commissioned website usajobs. gov, under its Terms and Conditions and curiously not its Privacy Policy it says:
“All access or use of this system constitutes user understanding and acceptance of these terms and constitutes unconditional consent to review, monitoring and action by all authorized government and law enforcement personnel. While using this system your use may be monitored, recorded and subject to audit. ”

[...]

zine.openrightsgroup.org/features/2012/looking-for-a-job-goes-orwellian

MissSarah1972

GMbabies wrote: »

Things to come...



zine.openrightsgroup.org/features/2012/looking-for-a-job-goes-orwellian

Where did you find that? What about people on the work programme?

imatt

tomtom12 wrote: »

I just thought I'd post my experience so far on the work programme.

To start off with, I was with a provider called JHP Training. I attended about every week and for the most part it was useless. I'd go there to job search on there computers even though I did it every day at home and I'd also have to show them my 'job log'.

After I think it was 16 weeks, I was transferred to a provider called i2i who I have nothing but good things to say about. I had to attend once a week but I didn't see this as an issue because it was close to home, all of the staff were very friendly and i2i was genuinely helpful for me.

They had in-house job open days, helpful classes on job searching and other related things.....

Good to hear you have had a more positive outcome than many if not most on the WP. However, the above post by TomTom also highlights the hit and miss nature of the WP.

You could be 'lucky' and be sent to a provider that has better results than another. A provider could have variable results from one office to another. You could be lucky enough to be sent to one of the better performing ones. And again, one can be lucky enough to be placed with an advisor within a particular provider's office who actually listens and empathises as opposed to one in the cubicle next door who does the exact opposite.

Good service within the WP seems to depend too much on reliance on sheer luck rather than a genuine commitment to good service. No doubt at least in part due to dependence on government contracts and a lack of openness and genuine competition.