are sanctions legal

missapril75

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

To use your example: _
A traffic warden or police officer who gave a ticket to someone who wasn't on yellow line, would most likely get their wages docked or a a written warning before they lost their job.
The same with a library worker who kept taking fines for books that weren't late.
"The TV licence people" would end up paying the court costs if that person (they took action against) didn't have a tv and no doubt someone would lose their job.

So what happens to DWP staff who impose a sanction and the tribunal say they were incorrect? Do those DWP staff get a written warning on their record? Have their wages docked (to cover the cost of the tribunal to save us tax payers from paying for their mistake)? Lose their job if they have imposed an incorrect sanction before? Demoted to a sign-in girl/boy?

But you are not talking about the same thing. Those first actions you describe have been taken against people who have done nothing wrong. The officials have not been told or encouraged to issue tickets or take fines for people who have done nothing wrong.

They cannot quote any law that would enable them to do so.

JSA Sanctions are mostly about opinion. That an appeal tribunal may overturn a sanction doesn't automatically make it incorrect, it just means they have a different opinion about what was reasonable in the circumstances. Sometimes the sanction may have applied because of previous knowledge about the Job Seeker - perhaps what they said previously about non attendance/non application makes what they just said a nonsense but an appeal tribunal won't have that as a consideration.

Where a member of staff has followed their official guidance and training and on the rare occasion that conflicts with actual legislation, where would the justification be for disciplinary action?

Where the member of staff has acted unlawfully and knowingly unlawfully that is a disciplinary offence and would lead to dismissal.

Where they make an error, there's a procedure for remedial training and dismissal if improvements are not seen.

BillJones

red_devil wrote: »

You will probably starve is that what you want the government starving people lovely?

They aren't starving you, they are simply not giving you as much money as you'd like, stop being melodramatic.

If you want more money, you could earn it. You are choosing to make yourself unemployable, so as I said above, you need to get used to being hungry and cold, until you decide that you want to work.

missapril75

jetplane wrote: »

Look on the other threads people often ask for parking legislation, consumer legislation, tenancy regulations, banking regulations the list is endless.

I can't find the right words to get across what I'm trying to say without waffling on and repeating myself, but on those forums people have specific issues and are trying to resolve or accept them and that's why they ask.

On social security it's often more general or hypothetical with strong opposing views. about things that may not even have happened.

MissMoneypenny

missapril75 wrote: »

But you are not talking about the same thing. Those first actions you describe have been taken against people who have done nothing wrong. The officials have not been told or encouraged to issue tickets or take fines for people who have done nothing wrong.

They cannot quote any law that would enable them to do so.

JSA Sanctions are mostly about opinion.

Those "opinions" mean that sanctions can be used against people who have done nothing wrong. DWP sanctions should be based on law.

missapril75 wrote: »

That an appeal tribunal may overturn a sanction doesn't automatically make it incorrect, it just means they have a different opinion about what was reasonable in the circumstances.

It means the DWP was not correct to sanction someone.

missapril75 wrote: »

Sometimes the sanction may have applied because of previous knowledge about the Job Seeker - perhaps what they said previously about non attendance/non application makes what they just said a nonsense but an appeal tribunal won't have that as a consideration.

A sanction should be based on law, not hearsay. What's to stop DWP staff making something up? It's quite right that tribunals and courts base their finding on law. That's what civilised countries do.

missapril75 wrote: »

Where a member of staff has followed their official guidance and training and on the rare occasion that conflicts with actual legislation, where would the justification be for disciplinary action?

And now you seem to think DWP staff should not receive any disiplinary action! As a tax payer who pays for DWP mistakes and wages, I disagree. And the DWP errors on sanctions aren't "rare occasions" - see below.

missapril75 wrote: »

Where the member of staff has acted unlawfully and knowingly unlawfully that is a disciplinary offence and would lead to dismissal.

Where they make an error, there's a procedure for remedial training and dismissal if improvements are not seen.

In your 30 years with DWP, how many staff have you heard of who have been been dismissed for their sanction errors? How many have been retrained for their sanction errors?

Would it interest you to know that I just googled how many JSA sanctions are overturned at tribunal and the CAB article on 24th February 2014, said this


In recent months, however, 58% of those who wanted to overturn DWP sanction decisions in independent tribunals have been successful.
http://www.musselburghcab.org.uk/people-stripped-of-benefits-could-be-charged-for-challenging-decision/

That's an huge amount of DWP staff who need retraining or to be sacked. Yet it seems from your response that DWP staff: just keep get away with their errors without fear of losing their job. If they worked for the private sector, they would be sacked for incompetence!

There is no need for taxpayers to provide jobs for the people the private sector wouldn't want. It's time the DWP was moved into the modern world as part of the government's "being fair to the taxpayers" and computers used instead of a lot of the staff. Computers would cut the massive DWP staff wage bill and make a lot less errors!

Affynity

BillJones wrote: »

They aren't starving you, they are simply not giving you as much money as you'd like, stop being melodramatic.

If you want more money, you could earn it. You are choosing to make yourself unemployable, so as I said above, you need to get used to being hungry and cold, until you decide that you want to work.

Perhaps you should discover the Trussell Trust and look at the increase in food bank participation. Up from 346,992 in 2012-13 to 913,138 for 2013-14.

20% of participation was due to low income. So slowly but surely, those with employment are starting to lose the living cost battle.

Employment is not going to solve food poverty in Britain because employment is not going to pay enough for people to afford to subsist.
Employment is also not necessarily going to pay. The new 'help to work' scheme which will replace 'mandatory work activity' will soon be able to make claimants work for their benefits without a cap.

Only the most near-sighted and moronic individual couldn't forsee that removing a requirement for an employer to pay for a full-time employee is going to incentivise employers to rely on a lot of this type of labour.
And only a near-sighted moron could even conceive the very concept of 'working for out-of-work benefit'. Yet there's enough stupid voters who will eat it up, deposit it in the toilet and eat it again.

Expect a lot of sanctions in 2014-15.

MissMoneypenny

Affynity wrote: »

The new 'help to work' scheme which will replace 'mandatory work activity' will soon be able to make claimants work for their benefits without a cap.

What does "without a cap" mean?

missapril75

@ MissMoneypenny

I don't know why you think overturned sanctions are errors.

The vast majority of sanctions are things like reasons for leaving last job; not applying for a job vacancy and the reason for not doing so; not attending an interview/placement or being late for an interview/placement and the reasons for non attendance or lateness; not applying for the number of jobs as agreed and why not.

There is no piece of legislation that says what reason is acceptable and what isn't. There is no piece of legislation that says how many times being late or not turning up is acceptable.

All there is on the vast majority of sanctions is opinion as to what is reasonable.

You only have to see the threads on here about sanctions that have been given - some people agree with them and other don't. It's just opinion.

Very few of these situations have something statutory like distance to workplace.

And now you seem to think DWP staff should not receive any disiplinary action!

Please point me to where I said that.

Here's what I did say

Where a member of staff has followed their official guidance and training (in other words done what their employer trains and tells them to do) and on the rare occasion that conflicts with actual legislation, where would the justification be for disciplinary action?

Where the member of staff has acted unlawfully and knowingly unlawfully that is a disciplinary offence and would lead to dismissal.

Where they make an error, there's a procedure for remedial training and dismissal if improvements are not seen.

missapril75

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

There is no need for taxpayers to provide jobs for the people the private sector wouldn't want. It's time the DWP was moved into the modern world as part of the government's "being fair to the taxpayers" and computers used instead of a lot of the staff. Computers would cut the massive DWP staff wage bill and make a lot less errors!

I wish I'd noticed this bit earlier. It would have told me I needn't have bothered.

Since it was the DHSS in the 1970s the UK social security department has been using computer systems which were the biggest in Europe

It also appears you've not seen report after report for a couple of decades of losses in the millions because of computers not being up to the task.

You are unaware that the many problems in benefits arise precisely because governments changed benefit rules to "fit" with computer processes rather than something more flexible?

The_ICT_Engineer

BillJones wrote: »

I'm aware of their dodgy statistics. Perhaps you should discover what their political aims are, and how they dishonestly report the numbers, before posting is such a patronising fashion...

It is not generally the sign of a very bright mind, by the way, to think that "ony a moron" could have the other side in a discussion such as this. It smacks of trying to shout down the other side because you don't want your spin subjected to scrutiny.

The only dodgy statistics.are the ones printed in your beloved 'Daily Bigot', whose attack on food banks backfired at the weekend.

cattermole

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Those "opinions" mean that sanctions can be used against people who have done nothing wrong. DWP sanctions should be based on law.



It means the DWP was not correct to sanction someone.



A sanction should be based on law, not hearsay. What's to stop DWP staff making something up? It's quite right that tribunals and courts base their finding on law. That's what civilised countries do.



And now you seem to think DWP staff should not receive any disiplinary action! As a tax payer who pays for DWP mistakes and wages, I disagree. And the DWP errors on sanctions aren't "rare occasions" - see below.



In your 30 years with DWP, how many staff have you heard of who have been been dismissed for their sanction errors? How many have been retrained for their sanction errors?

Would it interest you to know that I just googled how many JSA sanctions are overturned at tribunal and the CAB article on 24th February 2014, said this


In recent months, however, 58% of those who wanted to overturn DWP sanction decisions in independent tribunals have been successful.
http://www.musselburghcab.org.uk/people-stripped-of-benefits-could-be-charged-for-challenging-decision/

That's an huge amount of DWP staff who need retraining or to be sacked. Yet it seems from your response that DWP staff: just keep get away with their errors without fear of losing their job. If they worked for the private sector, they would be sacked for incompetence!

There is no need for taxpayers to provide jobs for the people the private sector wouldn't want. It's time the DWP was moved into the modern world as part of the government's "being fair to the taxpayers" and computers used instead of a lot of the staff. Computers would cut the massive DWP staff wage bill and make a lot less errors!

For once I agreed with your post to a point until you got to the last paragraph which is where it all fell down.

It's over computerisation and targets that has led to poor decision making. Computers can't make decisions on sanctions, you need human judgement for that. It's pressure on DWP staff and being targeted to sanction that is causing the wrongful sanctions coupled with falling standards in training and experience amongst DWP staff.
Which has made them more like machines!!