How common is having to sign on every week rather than every 2 weeks? (under 25)

gettingready

She can not transfer, we have a perfectly OK JC 15 min walk from home but they decided to create a separate "under 25's" JC somewhere in the sticks where she has to sign on. But as this is specific to "under 25's", she can not transfer.. sigh..

I work, can not really go with her and we have no family/relatives here.

Thanks a lot.

iammumtoone

How come one adviser has the time to see her 'clients' every week? Either that adviser is working lots of unpaid overtime or the others have too much time of their hands! I am not disbelieving your daughter but if you look at it like that it does seem a bit strange that this adviser must have half the amount of clients than the others.

I am not sure if you allowed to ask to change your adviser but it would certainly be worth asking the question.

gettingready

Some people we know go to the same JC, have different advisers and sign on every 2 weeks.

Also, my daughter was told that by 2 other advisers she signed on with while hers was off sick/on A/L (not sure which).

First one told my daughter to come again in 2 weeks.

Second one (this morning) was about to schedule the same BUT then he said that my daughter's original adviser put a note on her file "ensure sign on every week". He was surprised himself. But obliged.

My daughter already asked about changing an adviser but was told this is not possible. Is that correct?

When she was off sick (signed off by a GP for 2 weeks), she contacted her adviser wanting to submit J28 (or something like that, not sure) to ensure her JSA payments do not stop. Her adviser told her to bring the form with her and a GP sick note when she signs on next time. That of course delayed her payments and as I found out was not the correct advise. She was not obliged to give a GP sick note and she could have posted the J28. But hey...

Thanks a lot.

sarahlouisexo

I don't think anyone was being nasty! If you post on a public forum asking for advice you are by definition asking for all advice, not just the advice you like!!

While it is irregular to be asked to sign on every week (due to time constraints of the job centre i.e not enough staff to see everyone, every week) it can, and as you now know, does happen. Maybe there is a reason for the weekly appointments, is he getting your daughter ready for work, helping with CVs etc?

While the emails might be alot, surely she WANTS to work, and should be grateful for the help she is getting - some of the jobs might not be possible to do (If as you say they are not easy to get to) but practise makes perfect, and this applies to job interviews and applications too!

Bottom line, I doubt your daughter wants to be on JSA for the rest of her life, so she should be taking any help she gets onboard, and working with it, rather than complaining.

Nightranger

gettingready wrote: »

Everyone under this particular "advisor" has to sign on every week - other advisors are happy with once every 2 weeks with their "clients". And othre do not constantly email with masses of links...

This seems a bit odd and I may have missed something here but I unticked the email option on UJ for a number of reasons:

1. I have one of my recorded searches on quite a wide area because I used to live in a different region so I potentially could relocate again, as I still have friends there. Unfortunately, this generates emails at a vast rate and I found I was not reading them, which kinda defeats the object. I can still adopt my search within UJ despite the crappy third party returns (that also helped generated such a high email traffic rate).

2. I have a personal dislike for cluttered inboxes and this is not as barmy as it first sounds because I am also signed up with a couple of agencies, who also email me. The UJ system is such that it is far too general for what any of us really needs and it constantly throws inappropriate vacancies around due to default settings. (AP007 can explain this better than I can).

3. Not a reason as such but a tip, use a disposable email account if your daughter is afraid that it would be detrimental to insist on opting out of emails. As others have suggested, it is not obligatory to opt-in and a disposable e-account does not completely remove the impression of harassment but I can assure you that partitioning e-communications can really help her state of mind. One thing to remember is that DPA covers the DWP too and if your daughter insists that they do not keep her email and/or mobile number on record, they cannot override this request. It may seem odd given how much personal information the DWP has on us all but DPA covers everyone.*

* Yes, I am aware of the covert spying operations that have been going on recently but they are still covered by DPA (at least the British ones are) but it is different insomuch as you would have a Devil of a job identifying who is actually holding your personal information.

Finally, there are some JC trolls wandering around on this forum waiting to give false information or generally defending the bad reputation their job has...don't let them get to you.

iammumtoone

thats interesting Nightranger, I have never ticked the box for access from UJM but was thinking of doing so due the amount of hassle I get about it

If I do tick the box to allow access does that also mean I am allowing all the possible jobs they (the site) think I am suitable for, being emailed to me?

I would not want that, I too like to keep my inbox (the one I use for job searching - the rest are terrible ) clear as I would not want to miss an important email regarding a job interview etc.

OP - is it the case that your daughter is receiving an email from the UJM site with the 20+ jobs on per day and not direct from the personal adviser but she is assuming it is from the adviser?

Nightranger

iammumtoone wrote: »

thats interesting Nightranger, I have never ticked the box for access from UJM but was thinking of doing so due the amount of hassle I get about it

If I do tick the box to allow access does that also mean I am allowing all the possible jobs they (the site) think I am suitable for, being emailed to me?

Yes, I am afraid so. It is awkward to explain on here but my hometown has a repeated name that is difficult for the search engine facility to deal with unless the added extensions of county and/or region are included. Unfortunately, one of the repeat named towns also falls within the 40 mile default setting when including my additional region search (this also just about snares London too) so I get far more returns than I realistically need. I have not yet figured a way of preventing this because there are so many UJ defaults and you cannot block them.

iammumtoone wrote: »

OP - is it the case that your daughter is receiving an email from the UJM site with the 20+ jobs on per day and not direct from the personal adviser but she is assuming it is from the adviser?

That was my thought too, if an adviser is using their JC email account to do this then it seems more than a little odd and not something I have heard of previously although I stand to be corrected on this point.

gettingready

Emails are not coming from UJM - adviser is emailing my daughter direcly with masses of links.

Nightranger

gettingready wrote: »

Emails are not coming from UJM - adviser is emailing my daughter direcly with masses of links.

As suggested earlier, you could complain to the JC manager although that channel is not always very effective. If your GP is onboard already, take advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau initially but consider getting an opinion from your local MP and/or think about contacting a solicitor. It is impossible for anyone here to be absolutely sure whether there is an underlying issue in this case. Nothing surprises me about JC tactics but I have never heard of anything quite like this and I am slightly worried about other issues. For example, is you daughter's adviser male or female?

Disclaimer: I am not suggesting there definitely IS an underlying issue just that there MAY BE.

gettingready

Adviser is a female.


Thanks for all the helpful replies.

My daughter is planning to relocate in December now - with a possible job offer.

Still need to bear with this nonsense till then...