JSA Hardship payments

Murphybear

I have read these posts with interest, although admittedly I nearly dropped off before the end of some of the longer ones.

One thing is certain, there are many bitter and twisted people around. It's clear they have had a lot of negative experiences with the DWP and the job seeking process. Does this mean that every JC+ is full of corrupt people who have nothing else to do but sanction people, fairly or unfairly? I don't believe that and I'm sure most of the posters on here don't either.

I have had limited but recent experience of the process, I signed on for 6 months in 2011. I had no problems with either the process or the staff. I made myself thoroughly acquainted with the 'hoops' and made sure I jumped through them. I documented my job searches and applications on a spreadsheet and explained in detail why I could not apply for some of them. All my reasons were accepted. I had the same adviser every time, who fully understood that in a very rural area there were few job opportunities, he didn't expect me to apply for jobs for which I was unqualified and fully admitted that being close to 60 I was unlikely to get a job anyway!

With 37 years work experience, a degree and many further work qualifications he admitted there was little he could do to help.

After 6 months I became eligible for ESA, more hoops with ATOS, but that's another story.

Sarkicker61

How it is today at my local job centre. Two offices upstairs A and B.

Claimant 1 50+ just finished job signs on at local job centre goes to office A upstairs. Job seekers agreement signed 15 steps 4 job apps per week and UJ sign up. No problems for 4 weeks then late (10 mins) due to bus problems suspended 14 days.

Claimant 2 44 separated recently signs on local job centre office B. Has severe learning difficulties has never used computer has trouble reading eg age 4-5. Has limited understanding or comprehension of what is expected of or told to her and cannot fill out forms. Not eligible for PIP under new guidelines. Lack of confidence and low esteem means say yes to anything to try to not look stupid. Job seekers agreement signed 40 steps per week 15 minimum job apps per week. UJ sign up required.
First sign on failed to sign up to jobmatch 14 day sanction
Second sign on failed to fill in forms correctly 28 day sanction. Put on computer course at local college. ASKS FOR HELP TO FILL OUT NECESSARY FORMS GOT TOLD THEY CANT DO THAT FOR HER SHE HAS TO DO IT HERSELF. Third sign on friend completed forms and went with her to explain situation and 40 per week was ott for this lady. Got told no professional qualification to make that call and it is now standard policy and law that everyone has to do 40 per week . Claimant one still doing 15 steps in office A.

Fourth sign on lady only gave her one week search sheet so she filled that in and did not understand that she had to fill another one out as lady only gave her one. BAM !! 3 month sanction.

The lady in question is diabetic and on medication for life and needs food at regular times to control blood sugar. Hardship payment requested medical evidence supplied, eligible vulnerable person told they did not know when it would be paid.

THIS IS THE REALITY OF JSA AND JOB CENTRES TODAY OUT OF CONTROL WITH NO MORAL FIBRE OR GUIDANCE. ADVISORS CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT INDISCRIMINATELY AND WITHOUT RECOURSE. RULES ARE FLOUTED AND IGNORED BY STAFF ON A DAILY BASIS.

Claimant 2 clearly has major issues and these are not being addressed or even acknowledged. What hope is there for her ??

What hope is there for the system that was designed as a safety net for people out of work or vulnerable or mentally challenged when its representatives have lost sight and all humanity ??:mad:

FBaby

Are you filming a new programme?

red_devil

MisterMan wrote: »

Interesting how you think it's acceptable for Job Center staff to make mistakes, yet if a claimant makes a mistake they get sanctioned and lose their benefit.

Well said.

Ebon1965

The jobcentre are not there to help people back into work in no shape or form. In the last 6 weeks (since first claiming it) I have applied for 52 jobs, not once has an advisor placed a possible job onto my Universal Jobsearch Account.


Anyone who wants to know things about jebcentre plus should search out jobcentremole on twitter.


I am currently having a possible sanction on my claim.


On 8/1/14 I signed on for the first time, my advisor came over and told me she wouldn't see me today as she was going off sick and that another advisor would.


On seeing the other advisor she got me to sign what I needed. When looking for my next apt with my normal advisor she said "oh your advisor isn't in the next time you sign, on the 22/1/14. The next time you will come here is the 5/2/14". She proceded to cross off the 22/1/14 from my appointment card and added the 5/2/14 underneath.


After the 22/1/14 I had not received a payment. When ringing up to find out why I was told the money was stopped because I hadn't attended on the 22/1/14 and that I should contact my local jobcentre. I did this and was given an interview time, which I attended and was told I would need to challenge the decision, which I naturally did. She told me that I should ask my advisor on the 5/2/14 about if my appeal was upheld.


Tomorrow is the 5/2/14 and I am going to attend my appointment.


I am almost sure that they will tell me the sanction is still in place.


Nobody can tell me they are here to help and I am possibly having my money stopped for something that is not my fault. They were not slightly interested in why I didn't attend on the 22nd, like it was my fault and I should have took no notice of the stand in advisor.


I might add that at my claim appointment in the first place after having nothing to do with benefits for the last 16 years I have never felt so much like I am cheating the system, and what am I doing claiming....sponging off the state. ridiculous.


Guess I may be needing the hardship payments, but hopefully not.


Read @jobcentremole on Twitter for anyone interested, it's a fascinating read !!


DO NOT anyone tell me they are here to help. Total ROT !

Neil_948

Ebon1965 wrote: »

The jobcentre are not there to help people back into work in no shape or form. In the last 6 weeks (since first claiming it) I have applied for 52 jobs, not once has an advisor placed a possible job onto my Universal Jobsearch Account.


Anyone who wants to know things about jebcentre plus should search out jobcentremole on twitter.


I am currently having a possible sanction on my claim.


On 8/1/14 I signed on for the first time, my advisor came over and told me she wouldn't see me today as she was going off sick and that another advisor would.


On seeing the other advisor she got me to sign what I needed. When looking for my next apt with my normal advisor she said "oh your advisor isn't in the next time you sign, on the 22/1/14. The next time you will come here is the 5/2/14". She proceded to cross off the 22/1/14 from my appointment card and added the 5/2/14 underneath.


After the 22/1/14 I had not received a payment. When ringing up to find out why I was told the money was stopped because I hadn't attended on the 22/1/14 and that I should contact my local jobcentre. I did this and was given an interview time, which I attended and was told I would need to challenge the decision, which I naturally did. She told me that I should ask my advisor on the 5/2/14 about if my appeal was upheld.


Tomorrow is the 5/2/14 and I am going to attend my appointment.


I am almost sure that they will tell me the sanction is still in place.


Nobody can tell me they are here to help and I am possibly having my money stopped for something that is not my fault. They were not slightly interested in why I didn't attend on the 22nd, like it was my fault and I should have took no notice of the stand in advisor.


I might add that at my claim appointment in the first place after having nothing to do with benefits for the last 16 years I have never felt so much like I am cheating the system, and what am I doing claiming....sponging off the state. ridiculous.


Guess I may be needing the hardship payments, but hopefully not.


Read @jobcentremole on Twitter for anyone interested, it's a fascinating read !!


DO NOT anyone tell me they are here to help. Total ROT !

As the first part to this

not once has an advisor placed a possible job onto my Universal Jobsearch Account.

without giving away too much info as to how I have to circum to this info but upon being fortunate enough to have worked within a position that allowed me to frequently over hear advisors speaking to clients the amount of times I heard them say that the employer side of UJ is unmonitored so basically anyone can post a job and no one will check the authenticity of it prior to advertising it to clients, and from what I have seen using UJ myself I can see how this is so much the truth if you do a search long enough and hard enough you will come across ads that have no meaning are completely worded wrongly for the position and to be totally honest anyone with the most basic knowledge of English could have written the ad better. I have also heard advisors tell clients to sign up and use the notes section as that is what the have to tell them but to actually do the job search on other sites as UJ is not good enough.

Neil_948

Ok so I am going to discuss my dealings with this JC+ office.


My partner went to sign on and as usual she had to see a different advisor from another team, who was very rude and derogatory in her demeanour.


The advisor went through the whole interview with the whole intention to place my partner on a sanction and this can be proven, (which has happened).


During the interview my partner was asked a very strange question which had or would ever have any bearing on the claim the question being

Why have you brought your child with you?

with being put completely on the spot and my partner being one that is very quiet and placid, this made her an easy target now and she got confused with being put on the spot with a totally out of the blue question (non of there business answer required) but she told them that I had a shift when the truth was I actually had an interview. Now I don't totally disagree with the outcome on one hand but do on another.


How do I know that she wanted a sanction target easy
1. The advisor first of all sanction the claim due to the fact that I had worked a shift on that day.


why was that wrong? anyone who has done part till work within the DWP rules will know that you have to fill out a B7 form which starts from the day that you sign and ends the day before your next signing.so the action that day was to issue the B7 form and wait for the next 2 weeks for the form to be returned. Not a straight disallowance as if the advisor had investigated the claim she would have seen that we both work for companies on zero hour contracts so there for we can not sign off completely because a good string of hours one work could result in none the following.


2. First failure of failing to provide the 2 week job search should be dealt with by advising that if it happens again then a disallowance would be the consequence. Or as I have seen on a number of cases sent home to get it and bring back in the same day.


so clearly the advisor has decided to have a field day.


I am currently investigating the claim as it is my understanding that as a joint claim where one person fails to meet DWP rules does not disallow the other person however because when we made the claim somebody (not us) decided to make it a partner claim so I do not have to sign on and have no agreement in place with them.


I am going to investigate further and if this attitude continues with my partner then I will look at her signing off and me signing back on the only reason we switched it was after advice from a jcp advisor previously that I could work more hours.


E.G.
Main claimant can work 15 hours per week as soon as 16 is hit sign off required.


Partner on claim can work 23 hours per week as soon as 24 is hit sign off required.

Morglin

As far as I understand it from former colleagues, there are no actual targets, but they have been instructed, from above, to rigidly apply the rules.

Of course, as with all things, some DWP staff will act sensibly, and some are slightly power crazed and go barmy referring people for sanction endlessly, (hence the reason so many are overturned at appeal).

As far as HB goes, they are notified by the JCP if someone has their JSA stopped, and this triggers an automatic halt to the housing benefit payments.

But, if the claimant notifies the HB department that they have no income, and have been sanctioned, then the HB payments will restart. There is no need for anyone to lose their home through sanctions.

Lin

Neil_948

Morglin wrote: »

As far as I understand it from former colleagues, there are no actual targets, but they have been instructed, from above, to rigidly apply the rules.

Of course, as with all things, some DWP staff will act sensibly, and some are slightly power crazed and go barmy referring people for sanction endlessly, (hence the reason so many are overturned at appeal).

As far as HB goes, they are notified by the JCP if someone has their JSA stopped, and this triggers an automatic halt to the housing benefit payments.

But, if the claimant notifies the HB department that they have no income, and have been sanctioned, then the HB payments will restart. There is no need for anyone to lose their home through sanctions.

Lin

Unfortunately I do have to say that you are totally wrong on that score as it was on the news a few weeks ago that data was leaked / lost into the public domain that showed there was league tables for people to loose there benefit and there was targets set out in them as well but of cause there's going to be, otherwise the staff would not be so trigger happy at sending claims through to so called decision makers and then that opens up another discussion, (I can tell you that from past experiences and certain advisors having a slip of the tongue moment that some of my past experiences of decisions being made, was done by my advisor) funny decision maker.

Morglin

Neil_948 wrote: »

Unfortunately I do have to say that you are totally wrong on that score as it was on the news a few weeks ago that data was leaked / lost into the public domain that showed there was league tables for people to loose there benefit and there was targets set out in them as well but of cause there's going to be, otherwise the staff would not be so trigger happy at sending claims through to so called decision makers and then that opens up another discussion, (I can tell you that from past experiences and certain advisors having a slip of the tongue moment that some of my past experiences of decisions being made, was done by my advisor) funny decision maker.

There was a leaked memo, but I believe it turned out to be an old memo, and the systems had been changed since then?

I am not defending the DWP, but I think all these sanctions are more about the current ethos,rather than set targets.

I suppose only time will tell, because sooner or later another whistleblower will come forward.

It would also seem to be pretty pointless, from a staff target point of view, as many sanction decisions are overturned both by DM's and appeals tribunals.

Lin