JSA - JobCentre: own email report to myself as proof in case of issue with my adviser

Morlock

Honeypie wrote: »

There will be an independent enquiry and no matter the outcome, people will STILL be sanctioned for not meeting the conditions of their agreements. And if they take away referrals and then sanctions, as the process now is, then it will be replaced by another process, with exactly the same outcome, that will target the exact same issues.

However, there will no longer (hopefully) be an assumption that a fixed percentage of claimants are gaming the system, as suggested by Ruth King who states that referring only 6 people out of 300 per week is not "quite credible".

Honeypie wrote: »

As I've said before, don't be angry at the advisors because they are enforcing the rules, be angry at the people taking advantage of the benefit system so that this type of intervention is required.

You are as bad as Ruth King, assuming that there must be X number of claimants cheating the system. Perhaps those 300 claimants are all genuine, yet according to performance targets, a fixed percentage must be referred for sanctions regardless.

Honeypie wrote: »

And it's not 'research'. It was my job.

'Was' being relevant, it isn't any more, so you have no more insight than anyone else. Jobcentre staff could always whistleblow to the PCS or similar, which has happened recently. At least one member of staff seems to have some morality.

Honeypie

There are a lot of people who are gaming the system as you so put it. There are of course many, many more who are not.


I had in excess of 150 claimants on my caseload. I was expected to complete 9 appointments per day, each week.

Of all of the people I would see each week, there was never - NEVER - a week when every single person I interviewed met all of the conditions of their JSag. Not once.

This would be either that they had not applied for a job they had agreed to apply for at our previous meeting, that they did not turn up for an appointment, that they had no evidence - or not enough evidence - to show their job search activity, that they had left the programme they were meant to be attending or had turned up late or had been kicked off. I could go on.

Now tell me, how would you suggest I, or any advisor at present, deal with this?

Morlock

Honeypie wrote: »

Now tell me, how would you suggest I, or any advisor at present, deal with this?

A good start would be to expose any sanction league tables and performance targets for sanction referrals, ensuring only those who genuinely do not meet JSAgs are referred, rather than a fixed, weekly percentage target, which will obviously lead to spurious referrals and overly critical nitpicking of JSAg compliance.

Adding some anecdotal insight of my own, a friend of mine who works at the CAB has often mentioned that most claimants she helps after they have been sanctioned have a poor grasp of the English language, do not understand the welfare system and are obviously easy, vulnerable targets.

Honeypie

Morlock wrote: »

A good start would be to expose any sanction league tables and performance targets for sanction referrals, ensuring only those who genuinely do not meet JSAgs are referred, rather than a fixed, weekly percentage target, which will obviously lead to spurious referrals and overly critical nitpicking of JSAg compliance.

Adding some anecdotal insight of my own, a friend of mine who works at the CAB has often mentioned that most claimants she helps after they have been sanctioned have a poor grasp of the English language, do not understand the welfare system and are obviously easy, vulnerable targets.

With regards to your first point, how do we distinguish between those that are 'genuine' and those that are not?

I never saw any evidence of any tables etc. They may well have had them at management level. Eg. JCP Managers comparing at meetings? I don't know. But from my knowledge/experience the front line staff were not aware of tables or targets that must be hit. Though we were, as I have already pointed out, expected to do our job correctly. Things may have changed in the short time since I worked there, but I still dispute that all JCP staff are out to get claimants.

With regards to your second point, the support available for those claimants where English is not their first language and their advisors - for during interviews, for example - is very very poor. Each individual job centre is charge for the use of an interpreter but these were not widely used (because of the cost, perhaps? And maybe because of the level of non-attendance) and so there would be a telephone interpreter used instead, but you can imagine that this was not ideal.

My question would be, can they be actively seeking work if they do not have a good enough grasp of the English language to enable them to understand all that is being said / expected of them during a JCP interview and subsequently to apply, attend an interview and then work?
There should be more ESOL support available, more training for staff and a government that has a clue.

I will go back to my point, that JCP staff are not "out to get you". There may of course be some individuals that are incompetent and require further training etc. But complaining about the harshness of a sanction or that they are out to get you will not solve any problems.

I would suggest that if there is something that is bothering you so much about a member of staff at JCP, that a calm, clear and concise letter outlining the issues be sent to the JCP manager. Have someone else look over it, perhaps someone from CAB, to ensure it is to the point and reads well. If you do not get a reasonable response then take it further.

csmw

This old chestnut again.... As a current advisor I have no targets, aspirations or anything of the sort to refer to a decision maker. People really will believe whatever is written in the papers won't they.

lemontart

Morlock wrote: »

A good start would be to expose any sanction league tables and performance targets for sanction referrals, ensuring only those who genuinely do not meet JSAgs are referred, rather than a fixed, weekly percentage target, which will obviously lead to spurious referrals and overly critical nitpicking of JSAg compliance.
.

and compare those figures against appeals against sanctions that led to them being overturned, just as appeals against zero points following atos interviews are over turned in favor of the claimant and throw in the cost of such appeals.

An example recently in fact in last couple of months a friend of mine in her 50's with a wealth of customer service experience was asked to apply for a job as hgv driver, whilst she holds full clean uk license she is neither qualified nor holds licence that would allow her do so, and the job in question was not offering a training for a driver they wanted an experienced driver, wisely in fear of loosing her benefits she applied and guess what ..........no interview.

Not only is it a waste of her time, it wastes the time of the employer having to go through her cv albeit minutes
and the time of the advisor giving her that so why? was it knowing she may say no albeit for the reasons I state ( failed on that one ) who knows just a total waste of everyone's time and resources on this particular occasion or could it be that an advisor is required to provide details of a specific number of jobs and either there were not enough suitable or enough time to search properly.?

john539

csmw wrote: »

This old chestnut again.... As a current advisor I have no targets, aspirations or anything of the sort to refer to a decision maker. People really will believe whatever is written in the papers won't they.

Were you the "advisor" dealing with the OP at that Jobcentre ?

csmw

john539 wrote: »

Were you the "advisor" dealing with the OP at that Jobcentre ?

Yeah, that was me

john539

csmw wrote: »

Yeah, that was me

You weren't the person, you don't know.

Vulnerable demoralised disillusioned people are an easy target to be setup, tripped up, caught out, by a system which isn't helping them get jobs in a recession/depression.

csmw

john539 wrote: »

You weren't the person, you don't know.

Vulnerable demoralised disillusioned people are an easy target to be setup, tripped up, caught out, by a system which isn't helping them get jobs in a recession/depression.

Well don't ask a ridiculous question if you don't want a silly answer