The Work Programme New Thread

donnajunkie

grai wrote: »

whats the difference between Mandatory Intervention Regime and the Jobcentre Plus Offer?

It looks to me like "choose your poison" if you tell them you're work ready they send you to a warehouse and the MIR sounds like going to the JC every day

I do not know which is worse

going to the jobcentre everyday would be worse easily unless the placement had a really bad superviser.

Flyonthewall

donnajunkie wrote: »

its not like being sentenced to hard labour on these schemes. you dont have people stood over you with whips telling you to work faster. so dont worry. i believe there is a possibility of 4 week work placements but it will just be the usual things like tescos, charity shops i would think. they are not going to send a woman hod carrying. if in the very unlikely event they did the superviser at the placement is likely to have enough common sense to not expect the person to do it and would probably give them something else to do. if you had a bad back and told them and they sent you somewhere that involves heavy lifting and you hurt your back then it would be where theres a blame theres a claim time. although again the superviser would be likely to have common sense.

I got sent to a charity shop as my first work placement. Done charity shop work before and it was fine, but this placement lasted a matter of hours. They made me carry a bag of heavy books up to the top steps of the (steep) stairs and throw them over a bannister that came up to roughly my shoulders. I did it once and then refused to do it again. I'm clearly not someone who can carry heavy items never mind the rest.

I attempted to do something else instead but the manager had a go at me for not doing as I was told and that was the end of it. The work placement blamed me.

Flyonthewall

AP007 wrote: »

a what?

There is NO ££ for a company when they take someone on who is on the WP!!

You have to be within a certain age bracket for them to get anything and they must employ you for at least 6 months. They get a few thousand for full time and roughly half the amount for part time.

I no longer tell employes about it but I still have a load of leaflets about it that I had to send out in spec letters.

AP007

Flyonthewall wrote: »

You have to be within a certain age bracket for them to get anything and they must employ you for at least 6 months. They get a few thousand for full time and roughly half the amount for part time.

I no longer tell employes about it but I still have a load of leaflets about it that I had to send out in spec letters.

that's prob for the under 24s then

donnajunkie

Flyonthewall wrote: »

I got sent to a charity shop as my first work placement. Done charity shop work before and it was fine, but this placement lasted a matter of hours. They made me carry a bag of heavy books up to the top steps of the (steep) stairs and throw them over a bannister that came up to roughly my shoulders. I did it once and then refused to do it again. I'm clearly not someone who can carry heavy items never mind the rest.

I attempted to do something else instead but the manager had a go at me for not doing as I was told and that was the end of it. The work placement blamed me.

sounds like you got a bad one. it may have been best to say to them you cant do heavy lifting due to a back condition.

grai

the amount of staff turn over in the Reed partnership Work Programme I was on was incredible

I saw seven different people in 2 years - I think many people saw it was a disaster and therefore their job wasn't safe - it could be months it could be a couple more years - and they found jobs that were more secure longer term

this means that the WP staff who are staying there are just sitting it out till the DWP finds a way to cancel the contract, getting their pay packet at the end of each month and couldn't care less if claimants are getting helped or not

AP007

I am on my 12th

never got to see the bloke that was assigned to me in Nov last year but he still there, it was always 'oh so and so is seeing you today'

Flyonthewall

donnajunkie wrote: »

sounds like you got a bad one. it may have been best to say to them you cant do heavy lifting due to a back condition.

Yep. I refuse to go anywhere near that charity shop now, horrible manager. I told them that I couldn't lift it and I felt unwell. Made me feel really hot and faint. It seems illness and danger (them stairs were not safe even without the books in hand) don't matter.

donnajunkie

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Yep. I refuse to go anywhere near that charity shop now, horrible manager. I told them that I couldn't lift it and I felt unwell. Made me feel really hot and faint. It seems illness and danger (them stairs were not safe even without the books in hand) don't matter.

i got treated badly once in a charity shop. luckily i got myself a better placement elsewhere after 2 weeks. you have to be careful regarding walking out of, getting sacked from work placements coz you could get sanctioned.

Flyonthewall

donnajunkie wrote: »

i got treated badly once in a charity shop. luckily i got myself a better placement elsewhere after 2 weeks. you have to be careful regarding walking out of, getting sacked from work placements coz you could get sanctioned.

Same. I know, they really weren't pleased. They wouldn't listen to my side of the story though, they just blamed me because to them I hadn't done as I was told and the charity shop had been checked first for health and safety reasons.

Guessing the guy from the work placement who checked them didn't have to walk up stairs with heavy books! The stairs did have warning tape on a step or two as well and I was warned about them couple of steps so obviously it wasn't 100% safe and tape doesn't fix that.

You can usually appeal them decisions though so at least I could have fully explained my side of it had it gone that far. Luckily it didn't.

Some advisors are quick to try and get your money sanctioned.