Giving a mother with poor literacy skills little time to do pointless tasks or face 'sanction' is deeply unethical
We now have evidence that some sections of society really are regarded as less valuable or even sub-human by those "at the top" – the treatment of struggling people as lab rats by coercing them to complete meaningless tasks that are beyond the reach of many.
Two weeks ago a friend who runs our local foodbank gave me a letter that a neighbour had brought to him to ask for his help. This letter was a "Jobseeker's Direction" from the local jobcentre that advised his neighbour, "Maggie" that she must complete a set of tasks or else face "sanction" – the loss of her benefits. I write a blog called The Skwarkbox about social justice issues and my friend knew that I'd be interested in the letter and the tasks it demanded.
The letter told Maggie that she must research 15 companies, identify and write about their ethos and how it best fit her skills; register with three employment agencies and apply for jobs through them; complete a 48-question psychometric test online – all in the space of about three days before a set appointment at which she had to report on what she had done and the results.
I had a vague sense of building outrage about the scale of the task being imposed, under threat, on a woman with poor literacy skills and two young children to look after.
I wrote about this letter, noting how unrealistic it was to expect someone of Maggie's ability to complete such a complex task at all, let alone in such a short space of time. But then, based on a comment left on that article, I decided to try the test myself. Several times, in fact. It was the start of a disquieting process of discovery.
The test is structured so that you select from a list of possible answers to a series of statements, from "very like me" to "very unlike me", with three intermediate responses as well. Not only did I find that the test gave identical results whether you answered "very unlike me" or "very like me" to all questions, but it gave almost indistinguishable results if you clicked through the test without providing any answers at all (this can no longer be done as the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has changed it ). If you selected that you'd never go out of your way to visit a museum and were never curious about anything, the top result was still: "You are curious about everything."
Clearly this test was not intended to provide any meaningful feedback to respondents. Rather it appears designed to make them jump through hoops to the effect of psychological manipulation or to create an excuse to remove the benefits that are the sole, scant source of income for many.
To threaten someone with the removal of their benefits in this way if they don't take a meaningless test is, at the least, deeply unethical.
The government, and especially the DWP, is busy in the demonisation of anyone it wishes to target to save money . This kind of divide and conquer tactic is all too obvious in the current "striver v skiver" rhetoric.
The DWP has denied that anyone could lose their benefits over this bogus test, but it's there in black and white in the Jobseeker's Direction issued to Maggie. If someone takes desperate measures because of the fear created by such a letter, it's too late by then for the DWP to say "sorry, we didn't really mean it".
