A Warning: Job Centre goalposts moving.

Nightranger

john539 wrote: »

And you've learnt the lesson the hard way.

You've given them access to your account and they've used it against you.

But you should be able to appeal & win when you demonstrate your additional job search activity for that period.

Indeed, that is why I made the original comment that everyone is getting so hung up on. OK, I may have been naive in letting the JC have access but as I said, I am on WP as well and they do not seem to think what I am doing is a problem. Believe me, my WP providers haven't a good thing to say about the local JC given the divide-and-conquer techniques they seem to be applying. However, your final sentence is useful John because what I am saying is that the UJM records are permanent unless someone tries to (illegally) delete them. I am quite prepared to show my local MP when he gets back from holiday. I am well aware the job search facility is limited (and that is probably being slightly generous) but it can still be used. I know full well I am not going to pick up an 'ideal job' there but it is about playing the game (well, that is what the JC have made it into...be honest) and applying for the order picker job that I am not going to get but my JC adviser tells me I have to go for.

One thought that occurs to me is this idea that long-term unemployed MUST apply for every vacancy (we still get told this at our JC) has officially been dropped because it is inefficient and counterproductive yet it is still being pushed unofficially (actually it is obviously still a central mandate but the DWP do not admit it publicly). This is another one of those things that could be down to a subjective decision should your local JC receive a directive about upping their sanctions rate (officially there is no quota, unofficially it is about 30%). There are many ways of achieving quotas but two obvious ones are to 1. carefully select over long periods (most claimants would not notice because this is the right way to do it, it can still be objective and generated by someone breaking their JS agreement), or 2. have one big hit and sanction a good proportion of your claimants in one go. Examined in detail both satisfy Flyonthewall's idea that the goalposts have not been moved but just think about 2 in more detail. What you did two weeks ago (possibly for every two weeks before that) was right but then you receive a sanction without your JS agreement being changed despite the fact that you did arguably more than the previous two weeks. That surely is an example of moving the goalposts because the decision has been arrived at subjectively whereas it was previously objectively driven.

Where the UJM comes in useful is that all activities are date-stamped whereas I suspect that JC would claim a spreadsheet had been doctored later if you tried to present it as evidence against a sanction. The difficulty with spreadsheets is that even if you go in to look at something for reference, you immediately reset the date-stamp. That does not mean that it is a bad way of recording what you are doing but just that it might not be as secure as you think. For other more sinister reasons, I had to hit the ground running over certain legal concerns recently so please do not think I am saying all this to criticise or score a point.

John, you are right, the JC have used UJM against me :eek: but two can play at that game although it would still have been better not to have been caught out in the first place. Unless my JC is the last in line, the quota directive could be coming to a JC near you soon and I hope that explains what I have been trying to say.

Flyonthewall

Nightranger wrote: »

There are many ways of achieving quotas but two obvious ones are to 1. carefully select over long periods (most claimants would not notice because this is the right way to do it, it can still be objective and generated by someone breaking their JS agreement), or 2. have one big hit and sanction a good proportion of your claimants in one go. Examined in detail both satisfy Flyonthewall's idea that the goalposts have not been moved but just think about 2 in more detail.

What you did two weeks ago (possibly for every two weeks before that) was right but then you receive a sanction without your JS agreement being changed despite the fact that you did arguably more than the previous two weeks. That surely is an example of moving the goalposts because the decision has been arrived at subjectively whereas it was previously objectively driven.

Where the UJM comes in useful is that all activities are date-stamped whereas I suspect that JC would claim a spreadsheet had been doctored later if you tried to present it as evidence against a sanction. The difficulty with spreadsheets is that even if you go in to look at something for reference, you immediately reset the date-stamp. That does not mean that it is a bad way of recording what you are doing but just that it might not be as secure as you think. For other more sinister reasons, I had to hit the ground running over certain legal concerns recently so please do not think I am saying all this to criticise or score a point.

John, you are right, the JC have used UJM against me :eek: but two can play at that game although it would still have been better not to have been caught out in the first place. Unless my JC is the last in line, the quota directive could be coming to a JC near you soon and I hope that explains what I have been trying to say.

Just because they sanctioned you doesn't mean they were right to do so. It also doesn't mean the goalposts have been moved. You had an agreement to do so much, you did that and more. During that time their policies became stricter and they were told to sanction people if something wasn't up to their new standard.

Nothing changed, they just got stricter and are trying to crack down on people doing nothing/very little. For some reason you got caught up in that and have wrongly been sanctioned.

With a spreadsheet I have full control over it and they can't just steal that information. Even using their system, what's to stop them changing something or claiming there was a glitch and the dates are wrong? Besides you can see on job sites when I applied for jobs so I've got proof that way.

The JC can do what they want and they know it. If they want to sanction someone they will, regardless of whether they have a real reason too.

Nightranger

AP007 wrote: »

Oh yes no large corporation in London who has an HR team or a large recruitment budget will advertise on there and never have

You can tell the type of companies that advertise on there by the replies you get

I got one once that was jut two words in capitals on the day I applied and the same day as the job when live saying JOB GONE

I replied and thanked them for their professional reply

...and not just large London companies either. Even supermarket chains round here do not advertise on UJM and they haven't done for years even though they tip the JC off when they are having a big recruitment drive in the area. As I said in the reply to John, it is about playing the game and we have already had someone who has not experienced the system dropping in on the thread.

AP007, I am aware what happens and who is advertising on UJM* mostly so I agree with what you are saying. However, it is not the only aspect I was trying to get across in what you took to be blind praise for UJM. There is no reason why users like you and I cannot use the site to counter what some desperate JC adviser tries to use against us.

* I tried this about a year ago and counted up the actual jobs advertised by eliminating agency jobs and the add-ons outside my area (the latter system has changed since so it is less of a problem although it has not gone away completely). It ended up being less than a qurter of the number actually claimed to be available and a brief glance at the search returns these days suggest that it is even less now.


P.S. You got a reply? I have received two or three replies out of hundreds of applications just in the last year alone. I even gave up asking for feedback at failed interviews because it became obvious on one occasion that the reason given was spurious and was there to disguise ageism. I have seen cheating at interviews, done-deals that were admitted by the successful candidate on the day, winning an interview and being over-ruled by HR and an employer requesting references and not calling me for interview (something that annoyed my P/T employer at the time). There are a lot of hurdles out there at a time when this country is showing its worst side generally but do any of us need circumstances changing without someone telling us?

Nightranger

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Just because they sanctioned you doesn't mean they were right to do so. It also doesn't mean the goalposts have been moved. You had an agreement to do so much, you did that and more. During that time their policies became stricter and they were told to sanction people if something wasn't up to their new standard.

Nothing changed, they just got stricter and are trying to crack down on people doing nothing/very little. For some reason you got caught up in that and have wrongly been sanctioned.

I think we are getting too much into the finer points of semantics here but I do respect what you are saying and I appreciate that you have grasped my position but surely a 'new standard' is just that. Even if just the tolerance levels were altered, it becomes a new deal and that should be conveyed to everyone involved. If as in my case it was, it can only be a case of moving the goalposts to deliberately catch some people. The call centre even lied about the reason for the sanction, which wasted a week with me appealing against something that was not necessary. That also managed to delay things until the new JS agreement was drawn up and I imagine that if my MP does not get back to me it will be down to me to show I am meeting the new demands before the sanction is lifted (that will be six weeks since my last payment).

Flyonthewall wrote: »

With a spreadsheet I have full control over it and they can't just steal that information. Even using their system, what's to stop them changing something or claiming there was a glitch and the dates are wrong? Besides you can see on job sites when I applied for jobs so I've got proof that way.

The JC can do what they want and they know it. If they want to sanction someone they will, regardless of whether they have a real reason too.

Of course there is a risk that someone will tamper with your UJM records but even the JC has to yield to DPA demands should you suspect this. Can you imagine if they got caught doing this? I hope you are right about your spreadsheet being admissable as evidence against a sanction but your final sentence is interesting.

Flyonthewall

Nightranger wrote: »

I think we are getting too much into the finer points of semantics here but I do respect what you are saying and I appreciate that you have grasped my position but surely a 'new standard' is just that. Even if just the tolerance levels were altered, it becomes a new deal and that should be conveyed to everyone involved. If as in my case it was, it can only be a case of moving the goalposts to deliberately catch some people. The call centre even lied about the reason for the sanction, which wasted a week with me appealing against something that was not necessary. That also managed to delay things until the new JS agreement was drawn up and I imagine that if my MP does not get back to me it will be down to me to show I am meeting the new demands before the sanction is lifted (that will be six weeks since my last payment).



Of course there is a risk that someone will tamper with your UJM records but even the JC has to yield to DPA demands should you suspect this. Can you imagine if they got caught doing this? I hope you are right about your spreadsheet being admissable as evidence against a sanction but your final sentence is interesting.

The old standard was we have this policy for you to follow, stick to it or be sanctioned. Then they just stopped caring. Their new standard is we have that policy and we need to follow through with it. We're paying out a lot, more than needed, lets start sanctioning people. We have UJM now to monitor people so we're in a stronger position to follow through.

They inform people of the system and they do say they can see the data on there and that payments may be stopped if you don't do enough. I also have had two letters (both the same I think) in recent months informing me that money can be stopped for longer and (I think) reasons why it might be stopped. So although not a direct agreement, no doubt they'd argue that you were warned.

The idea, I'm sure, to stop people doing nothing or very little. However, a dislike for someone or just simply mis-communication makes it easy to sanction someone who shouldn't be. They offer an appeal though to try and be fair.

There was a TV show on the JC and all the stuff they were doing...or, more to the point, not doing. It hasn't changed anything. They'd cover it up, find a way around it or whatever even if caught doing something really dodgy.

The spreadsheet alone wouldn't be enough, but I could do screenprints or even log into job sites to prove application dates, print emails or log into my email account.

I've had a WP advisor trying to sanction me over nothing twice and both times he failed as I appealed and the JC once over a job and, again, that failed when I appealed. So appealing does work, they do rule fairly in most cases, but that doesn't mean they don't also unfairly sanction people and make mistakes.

Nightranger

I realise there have been other threads on this subject since but by way of an update - my attempts to lodge an appeal failed (two letters and my appeal form allegedly lost) despite contacting my local MP. The details about the reasoning behind my sanction have changed in small detail constantly and the JC adviser apparently lied about the representation made at the time. It is not looking good for recovery of the sanction and it seems to have been a systematic exercise that probably swept through most JCs. I estimate that it could have saved the Treasury anything from £100 million upwards, so I guess there is a compensation (sarcasm, BTW). I am still losing money because I am being stopped for a P/T job that I have not had any hours in since April but most of all, I have completely lost my trust and respect for JC staff.

BurnleyBob

Do you suspect that the adviser sanctioned you for being you, i.e. s/he was instructed to, or do you believe s/he was told to sanction X number of claimants that week and you were included in the total at their discretion?

It's appalling that you can be penalised when you complied with your JSAg. From your remarks about no longer having respect for JC staff, am I right in thinking the person wasn't embarrassed about doing it and expressed no sympathy?

Two letters and an appeal form gone AWOL seems like too much of a coincidence. From what you've submitted in this thread then an objective DM would have found in your favour. Is the JC reign of terror now resorting to conspiring to lose paperwork from any appellant who's likely to succeed?

Who?_me?

http://yahoo.careerbuilder.co.uk/Article/YAH-108-Job-Search-7-Job-hunting-lessons-to-unlearn/?lr=int_ukyahoo&siteid=int_ukyahoo_YAH-108
It's on Job Seeking myths / what you need to unlearn.
This was on Yahoo today - the first one is
1. You must apply for at least 20 jobs a week
Job seekers are often advised to make looking for work a full-time job but thinking this way can backfire for several reasons.
'Most job applications should be taking you several hours to complete because they need to be tailored every time,' says David Shindler, performance coach and author of 'Learning To Leap'.
'It's far better to do two or three really well than send out a generic CV and letter that doesn't impress anyone. Spend time networking, volunteering or doing work experience and you're likely to feel more positive about work, and who knows, it might lead to a useful connection that opens the door to a job.'


May be we should show this to the job centre. I would also like to point out to them that interviews need preparation too, and if you have an interview, that counts as two activities - preparing and attending.

john539

Who?_me? wrote: »

http://yahoo.careerbuilder.co.uk/Article/YAH-108-Job-Search-7-Job-hunting-lessons-to-unlearn/?lr=int_ukyahoo&siteid=int_ukyahoo_YAH-108
It's on Job Seeking myths / what you need to unlearn.
This was on Yahoo today - the first one is
1. You must apply for at least 20 jobs a week
Job seekers are often advised to make looking for work a full-time job but thinking this way can backfire for several reasons.
'Most job applications should be taking you several hours to complete because they need to be tailored every time,' says David Shindler, performance coach and author of 'Learning To Leap'.
'It's far better to do two or three really well than send out a generic CV and letter that doesn't impress anyone. Spend time networking, volunteering or doing work experience and you're likely to feel more positive about work, and who knows, it might lead to a useful connection that opens the door to a job.'


May be we should show this to the job centre. I would also like to point out to them that interviews need preparation too, and if you have an interview, that counts as two activities - preparing and attending.

The clueless Jobcentre isn't interested.

They do what they are told by clueless Tory government & clueless DWP to look after themselves & their jobs.

The Jobcentre has no idea about Quality versus Quantity (junk activity)

donnajunkie

Nightranger wrote: »

I realise there have been other threads on this subject since but by way of an update - my attempts to lodge an appeal failed (two letters and my appeal form allegedly lost) despite contacting my local MP. The details about the reasoning behind my sanction have changed in small detail constantly and the JC adviser apparently lied about the representation made at the time. It is not looking good for recovery of the sanction and it seems to have been a systematic exercise that probably swept through most JCs. I estimate that it could have saved the Treasury anything from £100 million upwards, so I guess there is a compensation (sarcasm, BTW). I am still losing money because I am being stopped for a P/T job that I have not had any hours in since April but most of all, I have completely lost my trust and respect for JC staff.

you should have sent all correspondence via recorded delivery.
you should have seeked help from somewhere like citizens advice bureau.
when you appeal you should include copies of any evidence you have, they dont just take your word for it.
they cant keep changing the reasons why. the initial letter that says theres a doubt on your claim is where they state the reason.
most advisers just accept a sheet showing the jobs you applied for but to be sure you need to be seen to be fulfilling your jsa agreement. so if you demonstrate this in your evidence then you should win a future appeal should the issue come about again.