Sanctions' figures

patman99

Some of the figures on here seem to be wild guesses. Not everyone who gets a sanction bothers to appeal, but based on figures published by Boycottworkfare, of all the sanctions that made it to 1st MR 80% were successful. Of the unsuccessful appelants that appealed to HMR, 89% were successful.

As for 'what do they sanction you for ?'.

Well, from personal testimony -

Refusing to apply for a job saved to my UJM by my advisor as I had applied for it 2 days earlier BEFORE my advisor had spotted it due to her being on holiday.

Failing to turn-up to a signing appointment. (The claimant was on a course arranged by her JC+ Advisor, so the advisor KNEW where she was and that she should have been marked-down as 'signed in advance').

12 week sanction for attending an interview gained as a result of applying for a position saved to their UJM account by their JC+ Advisor, then answering the interviewer's question about where they had seen the job advertised with 'My advisor had saved it to my UJM account'. The JC+ had made arrangements with the potential employer to let them know if any of the people on their list had answered the question that way.

There are many more examples of what are, by definition, un-enforceable sanctions.
I have a friend who used to work for the DWP in a JC+ and they showed me an internal document laying-out how to set a claimant up for a sanction.
Such set ups included arranging an interview with a Worfare Provider so that it was impossible to attend both that and their signing-on appointment (they tried this with me, but the WP was wise to the JC+ and had conducted the interview by phone the previous day much to the annoyance of my advisor).

Other ways to set up claimants was to make sure that if they travelled in by public transport, to find out the time of the earliest bus and if it arrived after 9 am, to arrange all signing appointments for 9 am exactley.

I am lucky as when they gave me a 12 week sanction, my oh has a few medical conditions so we put in a claim for ESA. With me as 2nd claimant and therefore able work 24 hours a week, we were much better off. By the time the JSA sanction ended and the ESA claim hit 12 weeks then got stopped, Iwas within 3 days of starting a new job anyway.

Would I use this tactic again if I got sanctioned ?. To damned right I would.

rogerblack

tea-bag wrote: »

Do you feel there is no work you could do?

Answering for myself.

I am in the work related group, and according to you this means I should be preparing for work.

In reality, there are problems with this.

I have on good days perhaps 20 three minute bursts of activity I can do in the midst of resting pretty much totally.
This is not strenuous activity - but concentrating deeply on something, making a phone call, doing the washing up, bathing, ...

Without someone to help me monitor my condition, I tend to overdo things, and keep going beyond what I am really able to do at any one time.
This makes me able to do 3 or 4 'bursts' over the next 4 days or so, and makes me dangerously tired and irrational.
I have in the past decided it was sensible to start trimming the hedge at 11pm, ending up in a fall, and a live chopped-in-half flex on the public path for four days.

Employment at a local employer would involve at least a taxi there and back, at an unpredictable time, me turning up and able to do 15-20 minutes or so of work total a day at unpredictable times throughout the day.

I would also need care around 12 hours a day, in order to watch over me and make sure I'm not overdoing it, so that most days I can do this.

Access to work will certainly not fund this, and only the tooth fairy is likely to have terms this flexible.

Practically, I would need around 600/hour of work, in order to pay for the required care to make me able to do it most days, the taxis, ...

My condition has been stable for 20 years.
There is no proven treatment for people who have had it more than six months.
Could there be a treatment for it tomorrow - certainly.
However, there has been essentially no progress in treatment for those with it >6 months since 1987, when the disease was first named.

At this point, the notion of being required to 'prepare for work' seems more like psychological torture than realism.
In principle, if every caseworker understood my case, there would be no risk.
However, there is the real risk that the next caseworker or work program provider to pick up my file will not believe in CFS, or not read the file properly, and require an activity I cannot do 'Because it will help him get better, all he needs is to get out and meet people', leading to sanctions I will spend months appealing.

I am unsure I'm mentally strong enough to continue if this happens.

nannytone_2

tea-bag wrote: »

I think you are mistaken. Your disability is does not show or come across on this forum. Your advice is highly respected and appreciated on this site. People make a good living trouble shooting, helping people and responding to queries etc. And this is something you must enjoy. I am unaware of the software you use at home but I am sure this could be accommodated by most employers IT departments.

You have great gamma, punctuation and can articulate yourself very well in conversation. I think you have missed your vocation. I myself deal with customers everyday over 300 today face to face I met zero, on the phone two and the rest on the computer.

Try different things you might surprise yourself.

i used to work for DIAL ( until i became disillusioned with their approach. it wasn't my 'job' to adjudicate, just to obtain the best outcome for any claim, regardless of whether i KNEW the client to be lying or telling the truth. i refused to be complicit in 'suspect' claims)
at home, i use a Mac, that has its own speaking software built in. i have knowledge of data vases and spreadsheets, but only as a sighted operator. i have tried using the Mac, but find it almost impossible to comprehend what is actually happening on the screen as it just reads EVERYTHING in one long sentence
until fairly recently i was volunteering for a countywide disability organisation, but due to funding cuts, they no longer operate in my area. i could continue to volunteer in their head office, with them providing transport ( sounds good) but in operation, it meant a 3 hour cross country road trip each way, in order to volunteer for 2 hours!
most types of advocacy work are done on a voluntary basis, unless you have a specific qualification's kill base.
i have been accepted for a guide dog, and hopefully, once myself and my mutt are trained and settled, i will find opportunities that were previously unavailable.
but to be honest, i think the most likely opportunity will be volunteering for guide dogs for the blind. most organisations that regularly use advocacy services tend to be charities who depend mostly on volunteers

FBaby

There is a massive difference between someone with a disability that CAN'T get better through medical support and a disability that is know to be almost always curable, or at least manageable.

I don't have an issue with people like you Nanny claiming disability benefits. Yes, could argue maybe you could go back to work etc... but even so, your disability will always be there, at best remaining stable.

I however have a massive issue with people suffering from depression and anxiety thinking that they shouldn't be expected to try to get better to resume a working life. Depression and anxiety in the most majority of cases can be treated successfully. The problem is that it can only be so if the patient actually want to do so but because a large part of the symptoms of it is self-pity, low self-esteem and negative thinking, it is easy to assume that getting better is not an option.

I think when it comes to depression and anxiety, professionals do often know better than the patient because of the above. I would think it totally acceptable to expect all those claiming benefits under depression/anxiety to be showing evidence of taking steps to try to get better/learning to cope with the disability rather than relying year on year on benefits, when each year added is a lower chance of being rehabilitated.

nannytone_2

i totally understand the point you are making, and because of my previous job with DIAL, accept a lot of it /
but .....
a lot of people criticise payments made to those with mental health issues and fibromyalgia in particular.
in the main, these are the 'unprovable' conditions that tend to be jumped on by those wanting to take advantage of the benefits system. because of this, it skews peoples thinking in regards to people that are genuinely suffering from these conditions.
i don't personally know anyone that suffers depression/anxiety to the degree that they are claiming benefits, although i know 1 person that 'claimed' to be and was indeed, on incapacity benefit for many years due to their 'condition'. in the last year he has failed the ESA medical and is taking it to appeal ( even though he admitted that he is faking ... i asked 'how do you fake it'? he replied that he shakes and cries 'a lot' during medicals)
now this case hasn't led me to believe that all claimants on these grounds are 'faking', but instead tit informs me of the greater hurdles that people genuinely suffering face because of people like him!

my mum has fibromyalgia, alongside other health conditions ( as many do .... fibro doesn't seem to come in isolation, but as a response to other conditions) and know how debilitating it can be. every third day is a good day ( because of morphine patches) but if she goes shopping on that day, she will be bed bound for the following 2 days. such is her pain, that she doesn't take advantage of that 'good day' because she knows how she will suffer in the following days if she dioes! i know there are 'degrees' in severity, but ieven if someone is suffering half as much as she is , i can totally understand why people feel unable to work if it is going to leave them in constant pain.
im so grateful that i am blind rather than suffering from a condition that leaves me in constant pain and affects EVERY aspect of the quality if my life

FBaby

You shouldn't be grateful to be blind as opposed to having another disability. I think those who are "luckier" -and really putting this between exclamation marks- are those who have a chance to get better.

I totally agree with you that it is very difficult to distiguish between MH conditions as well as those which are physical but with questionable diagnosis and that is the essence of the problem.

We all gain our views from our own perception. Mine is that somehow, all the people I know who used to earn a decent living and got hit by anxiety/depression or other curable illness (who didn't hate their job) manage to get better and back into employment (earning a salary much above that they got in benefit if they got any). I think that when you are extremely unhappy with your job(s), or that your earning potential is not much more that gained from benefits, you ability to use motivation to get better is much more reduced. It's a vicious circle.

A member of my family who ended up a single mum used to claim IS and the rest. She hated working when she left school and was opened how she couldn't wait to become a full-time mum. When the rules changed and she had to go on JSA, she declared depression and claimed ESA. Then after a year, she moved with her new partner who also didn't work, but she was denied the support group, she went back on JSA. She reached the point when she realised that the stress of it all was worse than having to get up and go to work, so she applied for to work in a nursing home, then discovered that she actually quite enjoyed it. She's been working there for 3 years now and been promoted to assistant manager. She admits now that it was easy to go to her GP and be signed off for depression, that she did feel low at the time, but that was because she felt no sense of direction. Getting to work gave her that feeling that she belonged and that people respected her.

Of course this is only one example, far from applicable to everyone, but I do believe there are quite a few people like her who saw claiming ESA for depression/anxiety as a way of avoiding working when doing so would only add a bit more to their disposable income.

nannytone_2

i understand exactly what you are saying.
at the same time i also understand the predicament of people that are reluctant to give up the 'security' of benefits to take on minimum wage zero hour contract work.
the continual messing about with housing benefit and tax credits is ridiculous. they suspend claims and take months to make new awards .... and in between people are threatened with debt collection and bailiffs ( from the council ... not money they have borrowed)
if i was lucky enough to find employment, this wouldn't be an issue as i have disability benefits to tide me over ... but for people with kids it may seem like one big risk

FBaby

But benefits shouldn't be seen as security, this is the issue. This is why there are sanctions in place, to make it clear that relying on benefits for a regular income is no more secure than trying to gain security from employment.

Being on benefits is stressful, but so is work. If it wasn't stressful, then what incentive anyone would have to consider working again? A certain level of stress is inevitable whatever situation we are in. It's all relative. People in this country think they are under huge amount of stress, but if we compare it to those who life depends on finding food, shelter etc... for survival, our level of stress would be considered next to nil. The problem is that our level of resilience is at an all time low, so we as a society cope less and less well with any type of stress, leading increasing cases of anxiety and depression.

People need to take more responsibility. This for one mean not to have kids before finishing a certain level of education or training and ideally gaining some work experience so that even if you stop working, your chances of gaining employment again where you can be self-sufficient, albeit with some help with childcare costs, is higher. Unfortunately, there is a strong link between women having children at a young age and reliance of benefits for many years to come. I heard a conversation at the train station some time ago between two young mothers that left me aghast. Clearly one was a single mum and she was telling the second one laughing that as long as she continued to have kids every 5 years until she is well in her 40s, she will be able to claim tax credits until she retires and then claim pension credits never having to work. They both thought it was very funny. I thought it was the saddest thing I had heard for a long time.

rogerblack

FBaby wrote: »

But benefits shouldn't be seen as security, this is the issue. This is why there are sanctions in place, to make it clear that relying on benefits for a regular income is no more secure than trying to gain security from employment.

Benefits shouldn't be seen as security - for those who can be reasonably expected to be able to work.

I am currently not in a state I could hope to work.
If I was somewhat better, I might be able to undertake several hours of self-employment a week at irregular times, with some weeks working not at all, and maybe even some weeks making 16 hours.
In order for me to be sensibly able to do this, rather than do what I am legally required to do (nothing), some support is needed.

If I was to improve to the point I could come off benefits, this is unlikely to happen all at once.
Trying to go straight into work is almost certain to cause a relapse.

Lack of flexibility - and some security of income with flexibility allowing me to do some work is likely not to mean that I come off benefits sooner, but that to avoid a relapse, I don't try working until I am certain I can cope.
(This is not a relapse to 'feeling a bit tired' - at worst I'm having to pick between cooking for the day, washing myself, doing the washing up, or spending 15 minutes doing forms.)

FBaby

The problem is, and not talking about you personally, is that I don't believe that people suffering from MH disabilities (and even to a lesser extend people suffering from physical disabilities) forcibly know best what they are capable of doing work-wise or not. I'm not saying that clinicians know better either, I think no-one can really know until one tries and really give it a try.

My view is that anyone who suffers from a condition that is not going to get more severe as time goes by should be expected to seek (if not receive) treatment to try to get better. I know the response is usually that if the NHS offered a better service, then they would etc...). OK, the NHS is not perfect, far from, but again, those who really want to seek help do manage to get it, even if it is not as quickly as would be in a perfect world.

I guess I am strong believer that one's mental strength does a lot to get people better physically and mentally (again, not talking about conditions which how much you want it are not going to ever get better). However, to gain that strength, you do need an incentive. When all you are likely to gain by working is a few more £££ a month than you get on benefits, then clearly the incentive is seriously lacking.

I am being realistic and can imagine myself in that predicament. I've suffered from depression in my early 20s and I know what it is like. Would have recovered as I did if my outlook on life was facing going back to work with all the stress and demands that comes with it, all for nothing much to gain financially, and still the same worries about paying rent, utilities and little left to bring in a bit of enjoyment in life? Probably not. At least when on benefits, you get the luxury of time (although of course, that extra time to think even more often does more harm than good).