Imagine this situation if you can. You have no money either because your sanctioned or your income is so low that you don’t have a spare penny. You are forced to attend your local work programme provider and have to attend everyday from 8.30am until 5pm. You are told that you have to spend all that time looking on their computers if there is one available for non existent jobs, which prevent you from going out and looking for real work. You feel demoralised, depressed and feel that your future is going nowhere. Let’s just add this to the equation. Your work programme provider refuses to provide you with even a glass of water. You have no money to bring sandwiches and haven’t got enough money to bring a flask. You ask for a drink and they say no we aren’t going to provide anyone with a drink. You aren’t allowed any real breaks and those with food have to eat it at the computer. Those without food and a drink look longingly at the people eating and drinking wishing that they could have a drink. By now they are dehydrated and the smell of cooked food from the cafe on the lower floor is really getting to you. So near but so far away.
Sounds like a chapter from a book by Engles or Charles Dickens but unfortunately it isn’t. This is an everyday reality at a local work programme provider in my town. I know it to be true because I know a person attending quite well...
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