The Work Programme New Thread

Affynity

saxonrosecliff wrote: »

I think I've been parked. I haven't been into the WP office since October. All I have is a telephone review once a month. I had one yesterday. My advisor rings me (2 hours after the time of the appointment), asks me if I've been to any interviews, how many jobs I've applied for (this is never checked so I could think of a number and double it), what feedback I've had, checks I'm still doing voluntary work, makes another appointment and that's it. Except yesterday her PC crashed twice while she was on the phone so it took 35 minutes, most of which we spent talking about the weather and the wonders of modern technology (OK I realise their PCs aren't modern!) while her PC rebooted!

I'm quite happy about this but it does annoy me that they are being paid millions of pounds to help me find work and have done absolutely nothing.

In my first year which has just ended they have found me a grand total of two jobs to apply for, one of which was unreachable by public transport (I'm not prepared to walk for 20 minutes down an unlit country lane) and the other I'd already applied for via the Job Centre website.

They have also sent me on some really boring and irrevelant courses led by the most offensive man I have ever met! At the beginning I went in once a week for their structured jobsearch and spent two hours looking for jobs on the slowest computers I have ever come across. One man at the jobsearch asked if he could bring his own laptop in as it was faster and he would be able to find more jobs in the two hours. He was told by the leader (the offensive trainer mentioned earlier) that he had to use their computers and if he was not co-operative it would lead to a sanction.

So that's my experience of the Work Programme.

Forgot to mention above when my advisor made my next appointment she asked me if I wanted another telephone review or if I wanted to come into the office so it seems to be up to me what I do now. I picked a telephone review. There is such an air of doom and gloom from the minute you walk in their door I feel like topping myself when I come out!

That actually sounds heavenly in contrast to my constantly going into Ingeus' office.
From what I'm experiencing lately, Ingeus, as the largest of the Work Programme providers, seem to be privately acquiring vacancy deals with employers, as to restrict them from the rest of the jobseeking market.
They're then throwing all of their customers at these vacancies and seeing which ones stick.
The problem with this scenario is the employers that enter these vacancy pacts are the usual, low-skilled, large workforce, high-turnover juggernauts.
This is how this provider will meet its contractual outcomes in years 2 and 3. It will simply acquire thousands of crap vacancies, match them with everyone until their books are mostly empty and outcompete the other providers.

It is starting to get me down, attending weekly, and, as of late, 3 times in 6 days.

saxonrosecliff

Affynity wrote: »

That actually sounds heavenly in contrast to my constantly going into Ingeus' office.
From what I'm experiencing lately, Ingeus, as the largest of the Work Programme providers, seem to be privately acquiring vacancy deals with employers, as to restrict them from the rest of the jobseeking market.
They're then throwing all of their customers at these vacancies and seeing which ones stick.
The problem with this scenario is the employers that enter these vacancy pacts are the usual, low-skilled, large workforce, high-turnover juggernauts.
This is how this provider will meet its contractual outcomes in years 2 and 3. It will simply acquire thousands of crap vacancies, match them with everyone until their books are mostly empty and outcompete the other providers.

It is starting to get me down, attending weekly, and, as of late, 3 times in 6 days.

The famous A4E is my provider. As I said it suits me fine only having telephone appointments. In fact I'm very grateful.

I was talking with the people in the work programme queue at the job centre while waiting to sign on and they had a similar experience to me. They saw us a lot at the beginning but after six months they seem to give up on you, six months being how long I had more regular appointments for. We were wondering if they are starting to run out of money. As I said in my original post the computers are the oldest, slowest computers (both the ones that us and the advisors use) I've ever come across plus the local bus companies have just put up the bus fares by 20p. Most people are paying £4.20 to get there (the price of a day ticket as our local bus company doesn't do returns). I've done a quick estimate of how much they are paying out and I think it must be around £800 a day just on bus fares to get people to their appointments. Also they are continually advertising for advisors (an advert appears approximately once every two weeks) so I think they have got more "customers" than they can cope with.

There's a board on the wall in the office which I am supposed to attend which always had a letter "T" and a number on it. I think number number is the amount of people who've got jobs. The number was never higher than 2 in all the times I attended. I also heard two advisors talking in the "coffee area" one day and both of them were saying there weren't going to meet their targets yet again so they are obviously failing miserably. If A4E don't meet meet their targets they don't get paid.

Hopefully one day I'll be a taxpayer and I intend to complain as much as I can about the work programme then. At the moment every time you say something negative you get threatened with a sanction so I have to keep quiet about the inadequacies of the programme.

Who?_me?

I have been parked for a while, but have been asked to come in and do a job search "to show they are doing something" to help me. Having had four interviews, in the last month, the feed back from the latest being "you are appointable, have reserached well, but lack experience" I really don't see how sitting infront of a PC for 2 hours is going to help, other than me not being distracted by FB / MSE etc!

imatt

AP007 wrote: »

The WP itself it meant to be tailor made for the individual and its not. No one has a clue!

And it'll probably get even worse. The WP providers given the contracts say that they can't afford to provide what they contracted to provide. They are now admitting they also are incapable of giving "one-to-one" support except "where necessary". So tailored support for most clients was never going to be on the table. Basically, they are holding out the begging bowl for more taxpayers cash despite administering a scheme that was a failure from the off!

The funny thing is that if / when these WP providers DO get more taxpayer funding then the public should be just as angry about this as they are over the banking sector bail outs.

Sadly this bail out for the WP is likely as Iain D. Smith and the DWP will not want to admit what many already know. And that is the WP continues to be a monumental and complete failure! Scrapping it would be an admission of this failure and as a result. Smith would surely have to resign. He will spend ever more money to ensure his position, both ministerial and ideologically.

http://watchinga4e.blogspot.co.uk/

Affynity

It IS worse. While I was in today I heard an adviser on the phone to an employer.
The conversation was basically:
"Do you use an agency to look for staff"
"Would you consider using Ingeus? We offer a free service because the government pays our costs"
"We have 1700 people on our books and we would match them to your jobs and if you hire a person aged between 18-24, we secure you a payment of £2250."

This is the future of the work programme. Using private sector influence and government subsidies to coerce employers into narrowing the availability of jobs.
I noticed the conversation didn't mention that Ingeus are paid by results and that they have a financial interest in monopolising the jobs vacancies market..
It's working already too. I got sent on a mandatory group interview for a terrible job today, part time bar work at Wetherspoons, and while there's three vacancies on offer, they're not on the Wetherspoons careers website.

Another wonderful element of today too. I was told to lie to the employer by the Ingeus advisor who liaises with this particular Wetherspoons.
"If you have hours you can't work or commitments you cant get out of, don't tell them even if they ask you. You wouldn't want to jeopardise you chances!"

AP007

imatt wrote: »

And it'll probably get even worse. The WP providers given the contracts say that they can't afford to provide what they contracted to provide. They are now admitting they also are incapable of giving "one-to-one" support except "where necessary". So tailored support for most clients was never going to be on the table. Basically, they are holding out the begging bowl for more taxpayers cash despite administering a scheme that was a failure from the off!

The funny thing is that if / when these WP providers DO get more taxpayer funding then the public should be just as angry about this as they are over the banking sector bail outs.

Sadly this bail out for the WP is likely as Iain D. Smith and the DWP will not want to admit what many already know. And that is the WP continues to be a monumental and complete failure! Scrapping it would be an admission of this failure and as a result. Smith would surely have to resign. He will spend ever more money to ensure his position, both ministerial and ideologically.

http://watchinga4e.blogspot.co.uk/

they have failed when they release the figures at some point after July as to how many people after 2 years have still not got a job

they are nothing more than a useless extension of the JC and the JC are horrified at what we have to do or not do as the case may be there. No contacts with companies even though the bloke I saw last time said to me 'I have got 11 people jobs this week' to which I replied 'how many were in accounts and how many of you here come from an accounts recruitment background, that's it NONE!!' He never replied so I carried on to say 'get me an interview if you think you are so good at this' No reply!

donnajunkie

got my next appointment through the post today. this was quick considering i only enquired yesterday. it says bring evidence of jobsearch activity and application activity. they've never worded it like that before. i hope it doesnt mean they expect me to make copies of all my applications. if they do then i will just say i havent had to do that before and will they reimburse me for the cost of printing.

Affynity

donnajunkie wrote: »

got my next appointment through the post today. this was quick considering i only enquired yesterday. it says bring evidence of jobsearch activity and application activity. they've never worded it like that before. i hope it doesnt mean they expect me to make copies of all my applications. if they do then i will just say i havent had to do that before and will they reimburse me for the cost of printing.

I get this from Ingeus. They give me their own version of the application tracker and expect me to fill that in as well as the JCP one.
I suspect they do it when they find themselves with nothing else to do. That isn't their job. The JCP ensure you meet your Jobseeker's Agreement.
Granted they may also do it to check with those individual employers, or as a way to gather new employer details to monopolise.

I'd chase it up with the JCP, but I imagine you don't have to do this stuff.
Part of WP mandation is that the activity has to be appropriate to the claimant's circumstances. I don't see how you could possibly argue submitting evidence to someone with no authority to check it, is appropriate to anybody.

AP007

donnajunkie wrote: »

got my next appointment through the post today. this was quick considering i only enquired yesterday. it says bring evidence of jobsearch activity and application activity. they've never worded it like that before. i hope it doesnt mean they expect me to make copies of all my applications. if they do then i will just say i havent had to do that before and will they reimburse me for the cost of printing.

Why are you not providing that to them already?

you can email it all to them very easily like I do each week

AP007

Affynity wrote: »

I get this from Ingeus. They give me their own version of the application tracker and expect me to fill that in as well as the JCP one.
I suspect they do it when they find themselves with nothing else to do. That isn't their job. The JCP ensure you meet your Jobseeker's Agreement.
Granted they may also do it to check with those individual employers, or as a way to gather new employer details to monopolise.

I'd chase it up with the JCP, but I imagine you don't have to do this stuff.
Part of WP mandation is that the activity has to be appropriate to the claimant's circumstances. I don't see how you could possibly argue submitting evidence to someone with no authority to check it, is appropriate to anybody.

Neither the job centre nor the WP check any applications as they do not have the power to do so or the time

you have to do whatever the WP ask which includes showing them you are applying for jobs