The Work Programme New Thread

AP007

hauxwell wrote: »

I can't see there being a team specifically to focus on wp returners at the tiny job centre I attend...they only have two members of staff signing people on now.

Hopefully it won't be worse than my wp adviser though...I have my first appointment this year (!) next week and I have only seen her 3 times in the past 18 months. This is due to me turning up for appointments and her being off sick, then never re-booking to see me for months on end.

I once went three weeks in a row to be sent straight home..this is a 36 mile round trip for me and a total waste of time.

you have only seen an advisor 3 times in 18 mths?

Have you lodged a formal complaint?

AP007

hauxwell wrote: »

Yep only three times. I haven't complained as I have no desire to go more often!

and what are you doing on the WP ? Have they got you job interviews?

AP007

hauxwell wrote: »

I have probably seen them a total of ten times in the last 22 months I have been on the wp. I take a list of jobs I have applied for which they look at and then I go away again. I once got sent to a room to look at jobs on their very slow filthy computers but other than that they have done nothing at all.

They have have no money to offer me training in anything, no contacts for work/interviews and are highly unprofessional. My 'coach' swears and talks about her own life problems during my appointments! The place is a shambles and they appear to know very little about looking for work, especially for people like me who have had 'professional' jobs before.

sounds like my WP lol

I have had one session on interview technique in mth 20 and was asked if I WANTED TO TAKE THE CLASS as I was answering all the questions and then was banned from answering!! LOL

Other than that since December I have been doing a job search on the PC from 1990!! Slow as hell and no contact other than emailing in my job applications once a week and a review were they now do it before they call me over, I look at it, sign it and leave!

donnajunkie

AP007 wrote: »

And what do you think the JC can actually do to get people a job?

probably very little. alot will depend on whether they have done deals with dodgy employment agencies.
it will be all about annoying people by making them do things they dont want to do that serve no useful purpose. the first lot of people from the wp will be due to leave the wp soon as it started in june 2 years ago. they wont be that busy at first but over the next 6 months more and more will leave the wp and become their responsibility.

donnajunkie

AP007 wrote: »

My WP see people once a month and even then you may wait 2 hours to see them

it keeps changing on mine. they make up rules to make you do as they say. i dont believe them when they say they must see us at least once a fortnight because there are other people who are in there less often than that. saying its not upto us its the jobcentres rules is standard way of preventing people from arguing about it. they assume we are all idiots. i feel like saying sometimes if its minimum of every 2 weeks how come i was allowed a 3 week gap when you went on holiday. i also went 5 weeks without seeing my adviser recently when i changed over from another adviser. so much for got to be in there at least once a fortnight eh. my current adviser is an idiot. they told me i will have a phone call and then a face to face exit appointment. they made the appointment for the phone call. so i asked cant you make the exit appointment now as well so i know where i am at. they said no. this is rubbish because my previous adviser had the common sense to make the next few appointments with them while i was there. my old adviser had appointment slips that i would get while i was there. this one thinks its better to send out new appointments through the post.

donnajunkie

SaveMeDo wrote: »

The thing is, the "advisers" and assistants at the jobcentre don't think it is their job to find us a job, which I think might come as a surprise to the people who run the government!

It's the same at the work program, all they seem to want to do is INTERROGATE the "clients" about what they do 24/7.

Maybe we should call them INTERROGATORS, not "advisers", it's a word that fits them well.

yes, this is why i refer to my appointments as gestapo interrogations.

donnajunkie

hauxwell wrote: »

I can't see there being a team specifically to focus on wp returners at the tiny job centre I attend...they only have two members of staff signing people on now.

Hopefully it won't be worse than my wp adviser though...I have my first appointment this year (!) next week and I have only seen her 3 times in the past 18 months. This is due to me turning up for appointments and her being off sick, then never re-booking to see me for months on end.

I once went three weeks in a row to be sent straight home..this is a 36 mile round trip for me and a total waste of time.

think yourself lucky. it would still have been a waste of time had they been there.

AP007

donnajunkie wrote: »

probably very little. alot will depend on whether they have done deals with dodgy employment agencies.
it will be all about annoying people by making them do things they dont want to do that serve no useful purpose. the first lot of people from the wp will be due to leave the wp soon as it started in june 2 years ago. they wont be that busy at first but over the next 6 months more and more will leave the wp and become their responsibility.

Trust me it will be as busy as when I went to my first induction apt at the WP in Aug 2011 I had to go back there to complete it as they said 'we do not have the staff and we have too many people too see''

That's a shame eh!

they say they have over 200 in the office each day so since I go for a review once a month its not hard to work out how many they have and there is another office in the 'area' too and one other provider where I live who will all be sending people back

Richie-from-the-Boro

The whole PBR system is broken, and has been since the start, once they :

- coin~it~in [make money on] from the 'creaming cohort'
- they ignore the huge majority of [lose money on] hard~to~help and 'parking cohort'

The evidence for the above is that of the funds the treasury made available a year ago, are as predicted 9 months ago are currently being clawed back. A massive £248 mi££ion allocated to the Work Programme was underspent in the 2012-2013 year. Allocated to contractors / providers, but those WP contractors have not earned the money so it goes back to the treasury.

They pick off the cream and leave the hard to help parking group foundering. It's exactly the hard to help parking group that are stuck on benefits forever, and suffer all the additional mental / health / economic disadvantages of being a 'forever claimant' - a relentless rise in a group ignored by the badly constructed PBR system sentences this parking group to unwillingly remain on benefits. Those who are / were in the cream group however as evidenced by this thread, mainly find their own employment regardless of the woeful help offered by welfare to work training providers. The system of payment by results was never designed to help the hard to help parking group and until it is redesigned and fully funded I hold out little hope that contributors here will escape the WP.

imatt

donnajunkie wrote: »

i have seen stuff about this on facebook. weekly signing, forced to sign up to uj and allow them access and possibily even daily appointments with your adviser who will ensure you do all that they ask of you.
it will cost a fortune to run. i think one of the stories i saw said each jobcentre would have 5 advisers. wp providers have more than that and they can only manage to see people once a fortnight. i suspect they will target people they see as being wasters and largely leave everyone else alone.

And this is the problem with having an ideologue in charge of Work and Pensions in the form of George Duncan Smith. He is wedded to ideological policies even if they are less efficient and more costly than had they otherwise not existed.

Take weekly signing. A ridiculous policy flawed on two fronts.

Firstly, it will create more paperwork. Signing that bit of paper every day will create a mountain of signing forms. And I thought this was a government promising to reduce paperwork and red tape?

Secondly, as donnajunkie suggests it will require more staff members to see more people more often AND to process even more paperwork.

An ideological 'get tough' policy that ends up failing from the off due to being ill thought out in the first place.

Of course, trying to explain this to Smith will doubtless be as effective as trying to drive to the Moon!