The Work Programme New Thread

donnajunkie

tsimehC wrote: »

Not at all. My JCP advisor said the WP was for 2 years, I was wondering if you were still on it and if there's a cooling off period after the two years had lapsed. One thing different with this programme is the constant hassling you get from their aftercare team who call every other week. I wanted to know if they can do that after two years had gone since someone started on the programme. Apologies if I offended you in anyway.

sorry, i am just used to people who say that as having unkind intentions.
i think after 2 years they forget about you and you are back to being the jobcentres full responsibility. although i am not 100% sure because if you got a job just before the end of the 2 years they may spend a period hassling you to check you are still in work so they can claim their bonus. you can of course ignore them if you wish.

donnajunkie

tsimehC wrote: »

When you say "leave", will you be assigned to another WP provider or return to stage one of signing on? At my provider, they didn't have anything in admin/business/finance so yeah I can't disagree there.

it seems it is still unclear what they are going to do with leavers. the theory is 6 months working for your dole. whether that is immediate or not i dont know. usually you are left alone for 13 weeks after finishing a course. so it could be the case that you end up back on the wp after 13 weeks.

AP007

donnajunkie wrote: »

it seems it is still unclear what they are going to do with leavers. the theory is 6 months working for your dole. whether that is immediate or not i dont know. usually you are left alone for 13 weeks after finishing a course. so it could be the case that you end up back on the wp after 13 weeks.

I will not be going back to the WP

I have on going complaints with the provider and the DWP

When I have heard back on both I will get intouch with my MP and LCE

donnajunkie

AP007 wrote: »

I will not be going back to the WP

I have on going complaints with the provider and the DWP

When I have heard back on both I will get intouch with my MP and LCE

i think most areas have 2 providers so you could get refered to the other in your area.

AP007

donnajunkie wrote: »

i think most areas have 2 providers so you could get refered to the other in your area.

the one I go to is not in my area at all - not even in my borough

fiddlesticks

donnajunkie wrote: »

once you are in work all they care about is you staying in work. they dont care if you are happy in your job.

do actually know that? as that's far from my experience.

Evil_Olive

When I was on the WP I was told by my advisor that to be counted a 'success' for them (presumably that meant 'in order for them to get paid') they had to get me into work for at least 6 months. At the time I presumed that meant they would be doing their best to to get me into a proper full time, permanent job. Silly me. Found out later (not totally sure of the specific facts) that this 6 months could be made up through any number of short term temp jobs with gaps inbetween. Their strategy for achieving this was shunting me into one cold-calling telesales job after another through temp agencies.

I was quite excited about getting the first one (didn't realise that the agencies will take on anyone regardless of ability or background for these hard to fill types of job.) I desperately wanted to keep it because I had been out of work for ages and also the pay & hours were a bit better than anything else I had a chance of getting. So, I tried REALLY hard though I had no sales experience whatsoever and hated the work. Despite trying really hard (and I was trying so hard that I was spending at least half of every day with really bad heartburn lasting for several hours after getting home each day), it quickly became clear that I had zero sales ability - no, scratch that - I think I actually had negative sales ability

I was let go after 2 weeks due to not being able to meet sales targets - the supervisor did inform the temp agency that I had clearly worked extremely hard but just didn't have the right sort of personality for sales (in my eyes a good thing considering that a lot of the work seemed to involve bullying frail elderly sounding people over the phone.) I got the girl at the temp agency to send me an email to that effect so that I could forward it on to my WP advisor because I was terrified that being let go because I wasn't good enough at the job would be seen as me not trying.

So now the WP know that telesales and me don't go together at all and I thought they would be channelling real effort into helping me get a proper job. Silly me.
They know that almost any client is guaranteed to be taken on by a temp agency for telesales jobs so it is much easier just to.....

.....Call me a couple of weeks later with another identical job which under the WP rules I obviously have to take - I managed to fool them for a bit longer this time and hung on by the skin of my teeth for nearly 3 weeks, then, same thing, I was let go. In all I was forced into 6 of these so-called jobs lasting between 1 and 3 weeks each time before I got a proper job through my own efforts with no help from the WP at all. I think they will still get a payment for me though because I was on the programme when I got the permanent job - this really annoys me. All I have to show for it is a CV that looks even more of a mess than it did before.

When I had an appointment for the WP I used to tell people that I was going to see the 'mobile phone salesmen' because that was how the whole place felt, like walking into a mobile phone shop (or for those longer in the tooth like me, a hi-fi shop - remember those? ) - a load of spotty youths with dodgy patter trying to sell you something that was completely useless to you because the thing you actually wanted didn't pay as much commission. I later looked at the vacancies section on the website belonging to the company that was providing the WP and discovered that a 'background in sales' was, indeed, advantageous if you want to apply to become one of their advisors and that advisors were paid commission on top of their salaries according to results.

I also found that once on the work programme I was automatically locked out of a lot of other, far more useful, schemes in my area run by charities and the government (presumably because of conflicts with the WP contract regarding 'who got me the job' etc)
I had an SIA (Security) licence which had expired and I couldn't afford to renew it (costs approx £300) Having it renewed would have greatly increased my chances of getting an interview. My local Salvation Army was running a scheme to pay SIA licence renewal fees. I was asked if I was on the work programme and when I said yes was told that they weren't allowed to register me on their scheme if I was on the work programme - dunno why the JC/WP can tell the SA what to do, the scheme must've been affiliated with the government in some way.
I came across several training schemes which would have been helpful to me as well, that being on the WP barred me from. I was told that I had to do any training through my WP.
I once asked my WP if they provided any kind of training and was bluntly told that they didn't do that except as an absolute last resort because it cost them more money than just finding me a (temporary?, unsuitable?) job therefore lowering their profit margin on each client!

'Nuff said I think!

AP007

fiddlesticks wrote: »

do actually know that? as that's far from my experience.

they don't even care if you get a job or not either

tsimehC

AP007 wrote: »

they don't even care if you get a job or not either

I'm sure they do care but probably not for the right reasons.

AP007

tsimehC wrote: »

I'm sure they do care but probably not for the right reasons.

If they really cared we would all have a job haha