Fighting workfare and sanctions: there is no negotiating with the political class or corporates

Reblogged from Kate Belgrave:

Here are Boycott Workfare protestors outside Senate House, defying police clampdowns on campus protests and making plenty of noise about the political class’ disgusting embrace of workfare and benefit sanctions…






….and inside the building, the ultimate rogues’ gallery of thieves and state-funded robber barons who are making a filthy pile out of workfare, taxpayers and the misery of people who find themselves unemployed or unable to work. ERSA, the trade body for the so-called welfare-to-work industry, was holding an annual workfare conference in the building today. The roll-call of attendees included: Esther McVey and Stephen Timms, the DWP’s director of social justice (ironic job title of the millenium there), the CE and director of Tomorrow’s People – the organisation that brought you the scandal where unemployed people were forced to work without pay and had to get changed under a bridge during the Queen’s Jubilee. There was also, apparently, a smorgasbord of plundering work programme providers – the likes of Avanta, Seetec, G4S, A4e and Pinnacle People. Joy.

Anyway. History will judge these people harshly. It’s just a pity that the political classes, and organised labour and Labour refuse to judge them harshly now. To date, it has been the member-led groups that have beaten the government and pro-workfare companies and charities back – on the streets, online and in the courts. Same thing with the fight to save the Independent Living Fund – member-led groups like Disabled People Against Cuts were behind that success and pretty much on their own fighting for it. Established charities and the political class ignored them. So. There are people who are going to find themselves on the wrong side of history here and I only regret that I won’t be around to see it.

Workfare is absolutely a labour issue, but Labour was not to be seen today – unless you counted Timms, who was somewhere inside the conference, hoovering lunch up with the crooks. I counted a couple of Unite community flags at the protest, but really, there should have been a couple of thousand. And more. But there weren’t. Which was and is extraordinary, albeit totally expected… except the fact is that we’re seeing something very significant here.

We’ve been seeing it for a while. We’re at a point (again, we’ve been at it for while) where the very notion of a wage for work is under threat and if things continue as they are, very few jobs will pay. Everyone will be under the boot of a sadistic corporate. As for decent terms and conditions to go along with some sort of wage – forget it. As one speaker rightly said today – the workfare juggernaut will end up driving everyone’s wages into the dirt.

It’s bad enough that people on benefits are expected to work for free. It’s only a matter of time before everyone else will be. That has certainly been the case in America, which is something I’ve said before, but I might as well say it again. An example: several years into New York city’s workfare programme, District Council 37, a union which represented municipal employees, took Rudy Giuliani to court, saying that his workfare programme “had illegally replaced nearly 2000 unionised clerical workers with unpaid welfare recipients in three agencies.” That sort of thing. It’ll be that sort of thing all round.

And if you rely on a wage to get by – as opposed to a trust fund, etc – it’ll be that sort of thing coming your way soon, if it hasn’t hit you already. Meanwhile, the member-led fightback groups get on with the battle. They know that there is no negotiating with the political class and/or the major corporates that the political class represents. And they are right. Austerity governments of all stripes exist only to hand public money to the private sector. They will do that and do that until there is nothing left.

Ho hum.

Destitution [UK] From: UN Special Rapporteur On Extreme Poverty And Human Rights

Subject: Destitution [UK]
From: Special Rapporteur On Extreme Poverty And Human Rights
Date: 6:04 AM (2 hours ago)

Dear Mr. Miller,

On behalf of the Special Rapporteur, thank you very much for your communications and apologies for the delayed response. Ms. Sepúlveda is observing very closely the situation with the UK welfare policies and their effects on persons living in poverty, including persons with disability. She is doing her best within the limits of her mandate to address such situations not only in the UK but globally through direct engagement with Governments.

She would like to commend you for your tireless efforts and wishes you all the best in your endeavours.

Best regards,

Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Postal Address: UNOG-OHCHR, CH1211 Genève 10, Suisse
Tel: +41 22 917 94 02/ 96 43
Fax: + 41 22 917 90 06
Email: srextremepoverty@ohchr.org
Website: http://www.ohchr.org


Source

DWP denials: They would kill you and call it ‘help’

Reblogged from Vox Political:

Employment Minister Mark Hoban: His attempt to cover up the failings of the ESA Work Capability Assessment, and his nepotistic use of a former employer to rubber-stamp the cosmetic changes, bring all politics and politicians into disrepute.

Who do you believe about the Work Capability Assessment?

Not the government, obviously.

You may have missed this – because it hasn’t been reported widely in the mass media – but a quiet row has been running for several months, concerning the collection and use of medical evidence to support applications for Employment and Support Allowance, the benefit people taking the WCA have applied to receive.

The government – whose spokesman appears to be Employment Minister Mark Hoban rather than Esther McVey, the Minister who is actually responsible for Disabled People – insists that decisions are made after consideration of all medical evidence supplied by claimants, and that they can provide further evidence during the reconsideration process or appeals.

But there is a mountain of evidence that this is a load of bunkum.

Back in 2010, an ex-military claimant, ‘Mrs S’ wrote a damning report on the service at the time. It stated: “This dangerous DWP contract offers the medical opinion of the Atos Healthcare Disability Analyst as a PRIORITY, which the DWP Decision Makers accept verbatim, so all additional specialist medical opinion of consultants, offered by the patient/claimant, is totally overlooked. Consequently, desperately ill people are now being declared fit for work because they are physically capable of collecting a pen from the floor. Patients, welfare advisors and MPs all presume that specialist medical opinion by a consultant will be accepted because they are unfamiliar with the details of the contract.

“The contract requires specialist medical opinion for several conditions… This is routinely ignored by Atos Healthcare with devastating consequences, whilst the UK government offer total support for this private company.

“Atos Healthcare doctors do not have access to a patient’s detailed medical history at the interview with the patient, as confirmed by Atos Healthcare, so one needs to question why so much detailed medical evidence is requested, which will be totally ignored?

“Atos Healthcare is totally unaccountable for all medical examinations. All usual patient safety networks in place for NHS and private healthcare do not apply and, according to the GMC and the Healthcare Commission, Atos Healthcare, as a company, ‘…have total immunity from all medical regulation.’

“There is no clinical supervision whatsoever.”

Get the picture? This situation has not changed in three years, despite the claims of Mr Hoban that he is “committed to ensuring that the Work Capability Assessment is as fair and accurate as possible”.

On Tuesday (August 13), New Statesman published details of several Atos claimants with mental health problems who – surprise, surprise – have been let down by the system.

One of these, who had previously attempted suicide, was driven to a further attempt to take her own life after receiving a string of 18 letters from a Work Programme Provider, all sent after it was advised to leave her alone for the good of her health.

“The DWP said it would not investigate the matter because [the Work Programme Provider] has its own internal complaints procedure,” the article stated, before going on to report on how that worked.

The company refuted the allegation and went on to say that it “takes its responsibilities to its customers and staff seriously. We have robust policies on safeguarding and data protection in place to ensure their privacy and safety is always maintained. With this in mind, it would be inappropriate for [us] to comment on individual any cases”.

It is clear that there is a culture of unaccountability running right through this system; the only people who bear the consequences of Work Capability assessors’ actions are the claimants themselves.

Perhaps that is why so many are dying that the DWP is now afraid to publish mortality figures for people going through the process. The suicidal person mentioned in the Statesman article would have been one more to add to the multitude, if they had succeeded in taking their own life.

This is what your votes support – a state-sponsored drive for sick or disabled people to kill themselves, rather than continue to be a burden on a Conservative-led government. Compassionate Conservatism – and this is at its most compassionate.

Let’s add in a few details. We know that the government recently lost a court battle in which it claimed that the current process was fair to people with mental health conditions. The Upper Tribunal disagreed and now the DWP is appealing against that decision – because ministers don’t want their underlings to have to consider medical information on anyone that hasn’t been gathered in the biased way ensured by the Atos Healthcare training system.

“We already request claimants supply any evidence they feel will be relevant to the assessment in the ESA50 questionnaire,” the department said in an email quoted by the Statesman.

But we already know from ‘Mrs S’ that this information is “totally overlooked”. It was in 2010 and we have no reason to believe the current situation is any different, judging from the treatment of claimants.

Now it seems claimants are finding it harder to get the expert medical evidence they need, because GPs are either refusing to hand it over, or are charging more money for it than claimants receive for their personal survival.

In southeast Wales, Bro Taf Local Medical Committee has come under fire for ordering GPs to stop providing support information to disability benefit claimants who were appealing against WCA decisions. The LMC has said its problem is not with the provision of evidence itself, but with the “increasing number of appeals [which] has resulted in more GP appointments being taken up to deal with such requests”.

Hoban said last month that he was bringing in “additional providers” to carry out assessments from summer 2014 and had already directed Atos to improve the quality of its written reports following assessments.

This will do nothing to improve matters, if the contract and the training given to the new providers is the same as that given to Atos.

And he has engaged a company to “provide independent advice in relation to strengthening quality assurance processes”. This company is PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mr Hoban’s former employer. The connection with the Minister implies an inappropriate relationship from the get-go.

Put it all together and you have an attempt to carry out business as usual, under the veil of a ham-fisted cover-up involving friends of the Minister. Anyone bothering to check the facts will see it as further evidence of the corruption that is rotting the institutions of British government with staggering rapidity under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration.

But there is a worse effect, which has a bearing on all politicians: Even those who accept such announcements at face value will consider this to be a failure by government. “They can’t get anything right” will be the chorus from the Great Uninterested – and the continuing furore as mistakes – and deaths – continue to take place will only reinforce the view that we should not give any politicians the time of day.

They would kill us all and call it “help”.

How are those with mental health problems treated by Atos?

With complaints about the failed Atos work capability assessment flooding in, Alan White and Kate Belgrave look at some of them.

Atos. Photograph: Getty Images

Tony Lea, who runs the Cornish benefit advice charity Bufferzone, wants to tell us about Jane. She suffered abuse from the age of 13. She never went to school and she can’t read or write. She’s 33 years old and has tried to kill herself before.

In February this year, the outsourcing company Atos carried out her Employment and Support Allowance Work Capability Assessment (WCA). She didn’t score any points on the mental health ability descriptors, and was placed in the ESA Work Related Activity Group – the group for claimants that the DWP considers to be capable of work at some point.

She was assigned a career adviser by a company called Prospects, which is contracted to find jobs for the unemployed under the Government’s Work Programme. Jane told this adviser that she had mental health problems. The adviser called her a liar and sanctioned her benefits. By June, Jane had got a job. She was in the job for three days before she tried to commit suicide by overdose.

On 2nd July, Tony told the Prospects career adviser not to contact her, and asked a mental health crisis team to carry out an immediate assessment. On the 29th of that month she tried to take an overdose again. Tony says this was because Prospects sent her a letter. She’d been receiving them for months, asking why she hadn’t been in contact with them. She can’t read and didn’t want them read it out to her, so she’d been storing them in a drawer: 18 of them in total. She recognised the company’s logo on the top, and that tipped her over the edge.

Tony made an official complaint. The DWP said it would not investigate the matter because Prospects has its own internal complaints procedure. On 5th August another Prospects worker phoned Jane. Tony believes “we’d have been looking at another suicide attempt,” had another mental health team not visited her.

When we contacted them, Prospects issued the following statement:

“Prospects strongly refutes the allegations made by Bufferzone which purportedly relate to one of our customers on the Work Programme in South West. 

"Prospects takes its responsibilities to its customers and staff seriously. We have robust policies on safeguarding and data protection in place to ensure their privacy and safety is always maintained. With this in mind, it would be inappropriate for Prospects to comment on individual any cases. 

"Prospects is currently helping more than 18,000 long term unemployed people in the South West to return to work through its innovative ASCENT model of delivery. Prospects works with customers to help them overcome barriers to employment through bespoke support and training to increase confidence and develop skills.”

***

You can see why there is such concern about the way that the WCA deals with people who have mental health conditions - and concern about the DWP’s commitment to a real overhaul. Here’s a reason to question that commitment: the Upper Tribunal recently ruled that the current WCA process is unreasonable to people with mental health conditions. That ruling came after an action against the DWP was brought by the Mental Health Resistance Network. Two claimants argued that Atos work capability assessments discriminated against people with mental health conditions. The courts agreed.

That decision would have put the onus on the DWP to source medical information for people with mental health conditions right at the start of their ESA applications. Unfortunately, the DWP is fighting that decision tooth and nail - and was recently granted leave to appeal it. "We already request claimants supply any evidence they feel will be relevant to the assessment in the ESA50 questionnaire," the department said in an email. The fact that the change could improve the experience for people who must go through the appalling work capability process appears to be neither here nor there.

Neither is the fact that sourcing people’s medical information at the start of their WCAs might improve things as far as the public purse goes – people found eligible for ESA from the start would not need to take their case through the wildly oversubscribed and costly appeals process. You’d also think the fact that the minister for employment, Mark Hoban, has been forced to admit there are problems with the assessments and the written reports that Atos produces (“an unacceptable reduction in the quality”) would give the DWP reason to pause when looking to overturn decisions which could dramatically improve the information available to Atos assessors. (Hoban has also brought in his former employers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, “to provide independent advice in relation to strengthening quality assurance processes across all its health and disability assessments.” Ahem).

Which brings us to the growing problems that people have getting medical evidence. Tony tells us about Clive. Clive’s in his forties. His mother lives at his home and has palliative care provided by Clive and another carer. Tony managed to get him referred to a mental health team and then to an agency called Outlook South West following a suicide attempt. He’s got a tribunal to overturn his WCA next week. Outlook South West told him it would cost £70 for them to provide a letter outlining his mental health problems. But as Tony says: “People like Clive have to live on £71 a week. If they have to pay that, what do they live on? I feel so strongly about this. It has to be highlighted.”

And then Tony tells us about Claire. She has a history of depression and suicide attempts. The WCA said there was nothing to go on regarding her mental illness. But the mental health team and Tony told Atos and the DWP not to contact her because they strongly believed she had a paranoid schizophrenia condition.

When her case went to tribunal, Claire only had medical evidence that was over ten years old, because her GP refused to provide evidence. The DWP supplied no evidence to back up its case that she was in good mental health. The tribunal chair was deeply unimpressed with the stress to which she was being subjected, and demanded medical evidence from both the department and her GP. Now she faces another tribunal in six weeks’ time.

Tony will most likely win the tribunal. Last year he attended 104 tribunals with nine losses: a 93 per cent success rate. His overall rate of success is 98 per cent. As he says: “Atos are so bad they make my job easy.”

***

This whole scene is a catastrophe. The implosions are everywhere. A few weeks ago, disability benefit claimants and campaigners were shocked to read that GPs in south east Wales had been told by the Bro Taf local medical committee to stop providing support information for disability benefit claimants appealing “fit to work” decisions, because the work was an “abuse of resources”. We spoke to the Bro Taf LMC, which sent this statement (and they said they’d be issuing another one this week, so we’ll look out for that) to say that their problem was not with providing medical evidence for claims, but for the “increasing number of appeals [which] has resulted in more GP appointments being taken up to deal with such requests.”

None of which helps claimants and we’re looking for a legal view on that withholding of support information. Public Interest Lawyers’ Tessa Gregory says: "It can’t be right that claimants are left without vital medical evidence from their GPs to support them in their appeals against Atos assessments which are notoriously unfair. We are considering the position of both the DWP and the Local Medical Committee carefully to see whether a legal challenge can be brought to ensure that claimants get the assistance they require."
The WCA’s systemic failures are causing complete havoc.

Only a day before the Bro Taf story appeared, industry magazine Pulse reported that “GPs were struggling to cope with a 21 per cent rise in requests to verify work capability since January [2013]” – saying that figures obtained by Pulse “showed the number of requests to verify claimants’ ability to work have increased by over a fifth since the beginning of this year.”

Note the anger in the comments on that story, with people arguing that they're doing the extra work for social security “reform”, while Atos makes the profit - “ATOS collects the money. GPs do the work. Welcome to the Tory vision of privatisation.”

As far as charging for medical information is concerned: it's not new for GPs and consultants to charge (there's a list of some charges here) – but the problem in the case of disability benefits is that cost could be pricing people out of vital information they need to support their claims and leave them with absolutely nowhere to go. What happens then? Around the country, people are being asked to pay £20, £30, £50 and more for medical evidence (you can see in the comments here that even last year, people were being charged upwards of £100 for support information and saying they couldn’t afford to pay it).

The Citizens Advice Bureau saw all this a mile off: they raised the issue of cost back in their January 2012 investigation (called Right First Time) into the accuracy (or otherwise) of ESA reports. The CAB observed then that: "In many cases, NHS doctors will charge an average of £30 (we have evidence of consultants charging £200 an hour) for medical evidence and few people on low incomes can afford to pay this much out of an income of £67.50 ESA (assessment phase rate) per week." That was over 18 months ago. As the number of appeals skyrocketed, this problem could only grow.

And it’s grown into a right disaster. When the Bro Taf story broke, the disability campaigner Sue Marsh wrote about Mark Hoban’s attempts to shift responsibility for the ever-burgeoning appeal rate: as she said here, Hoban has implied that the high rate of ESA appeals is at least in part because people don’t have enough medical evidence:

“DWP ministers have blamed the staggering 43 per cent ESA (Employment and Support Allowance) appeal rate on claimants not requesting and submitting enough medical evidence. As Mark Hoban claimed, “What’s happening too often is people are suggesting to claimants ‘oh, just leave the medical evidence until the appeal’ – there’s a shared responsibility here.”

In theory, within the claim process, Atos is expected to request evidence from a claimant’s doctor when the claimant is likely to be placed in the Support Group. For the year up to October 2012, Atos only requested such evidence (as an ESA113 form) in 27.2 per cent of all ESA referrals; 23.8 per cent of these were not returned by GPs.” The DWP would have us believe that extra sourcing of information is a robust part of the WCA process: when we asked why it was trying to overturn the Upper Tribunal decision on mental health claimants, the department said: “Atos healthcare professionals will continue to seek further medical evidence in accordance with the Department’s guidelines.” Doesn’t sound like that’s going too well.

Sue Marsh tells us that Hoban needs to sort it out. “The ESA50 clearly suggests that a claimant sends in medical evidence from a consultant or GP that knows them best. If those medical professionals are now withholding that vital support and Mr Hoban insists that it is necessary for an accurate WCA decision, he MUST act immediately to make sure that medical professionals cannot refuse to provide this evidence and that they are not allowed to charge punitive fees for obtaining it."

All Bufferzone client names have been changed

New Statesman

CHARITIES, ORGIES AND SPOOKS

Reblogged from aangirfan:

In 2005, The Sunday Mirror had a front page story about an orgy held in London.

Among those attending the orgy was the director of an international charity.

"The international charity director had sex with a female TV production company boss."

EXCLUSIVE: BIGGEST EVER FILTHY-RICH ORGY

Bubb

Sir Stephen Bubb is head of the UK's Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo)

 Sir Stephen Bubb is a defender of charity boardroom excess.

Sir Stephen earns £100,000 per year.

Sir Stephen Bubb, who defended six-figure salaries for bosses of charities, had his 60th birthday party funded by donations

At his birthday celebration in the UK parliament, Bubb received a card from Tony and Cherie Blair saying: "thanks for your fantastic contribution to the nation..."

Bubb was a member of Lambeth Borough Council from 1982,[8] serving as chief whip for the Labour group.[1]

He spent nearly 20 years as a Youth Court Magistrate in inner London (1980-2000).[1]

aangirfan: 'CHILD ABUSE RING IN LAMBETH'

Forsyth

Justin Forsyth was Tony Blair's director of strategic communications.

Forsyth then became chief executive of Save the Children UK .

Save The Children’s chief executive Justin Forsyth was paid £163,000 last year.

aangirfan: SAVE THE CHILDREN - FRONT FOR CIA?

Sir Nicholas Young

Sir Nicholas Young of the British Red Cross earned £184,000 last year.

Young was Secretary for development at the Sue Ryder Foundation.[4]

There was "a Regional Crime Squad inquiry into the Ryder and Cheshire charity homes (suppressed by Special Branch liaison) in 1972.

"The RCS were looking at GP death registration malpractices, identity thefts and the smuggling of people to UK -  Vatican ratlines for escaping Nazi war criminals.

"This followed on the 1971 German internment "Release scheme" run by Airey Neave (charity founder) and Sue Ryder (who was arrested in the 50s by German police on suspicion of being an MI6 spy)"

The Random Fish

Dame Barbara Stocking

Dame Barbara Stocking of Oxfam easrned £119,560 last year.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Shawcross

William Hartley Hume Shawcross is the Chairman of the Charity Commission for England and Wales,[1]

In 2008 he became a Patron of the Wiener Library and in 2011 he joined the board of the Anglo-Israel Association and was appointed to the board of the Henry Jackson Society.

William Shawcross's father was reportedly a top man in MI6.

Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300



aangirfan: CHARITIES RUN BY THE SPIES?



Trip trap, Trip trap, went the hooves

The 50 worst Charities, ranked by money blown on soliciting costs - RETANK 

A4e and the government

The latest edition of Private Eye has shown once again the unhealthy relationship between A4e (and the other Work Programme primes) and the government.  They have documents released under FoI relating to a meeting which Chris grayling had last July with A4e directors.  At that point it was already clear, or should have been, that the WP was failing, and the publicity around A4e had been terrible.  But Grayling tells them, "In six months it will be all forgotten," and that he's grateful for what they're doing.  Grayling was replaced by Mark Hoban, who was similarly congratulatory at a meeting with Maximus in September.  The article continues: "The most revealing document, a 'short feedback' email, says Hoban wants Maximus' views on 'how we "sell" the Work Programme'."

Hoban has since made stern noises about tackling under-performance on the WP.  But, as the Eye points out, this is indicative of the fact that the government is more concerned with covering up the failures than securing value for money.

One important link with government for A4e was Jonty Olliff-Cooper, and he has gone.  The only publication to have picked up this fact is the Guardian, with a diary piece by Hugh Muir.  He points out that Cooper used to be "assistant to eccentric [Tory] strategy guru Steve Hilton".  Muir seems to be suggesting that Cooper has departed because the WP figures, due out shortly, are going to be terrible, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's clearing his path to a seat in parliament.  Nor would I be surprised if his position became untenable after his appallingly ill-judged tweets.  His going leaves one strong link between A4e and government, however.  After the meltdown last year and Emma Harrison's departure, the company hired the PR consultants Quiller, which includes George Bridges, "a pal of Chancellor George" as Muir puts it.  This was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, and Jonty confirmed that in a tweet not long ago.  But Quiller is still there.

Outsourcing by government is not a straightforward business relationship.  There are mutual interests, which are not necessarily those of the people who ultimately pay the bills - us.

Source

Call for NGOs and sick and disabled individuals willing to act as "victim" in a UN complaint or inquiry

I need to hear from NGOs and sick and disabled individuals willing to act as "victim" in a UN complaint or inquiry

Please circulate this widely in Britain.

I recently contacted a human rights solicitor at Leigh Day regarding the submission of a United Nations complaint (UNCRPD) or inquiry into Britain's draconian welfare reform policies. The solicitor has expressed interest. I need to hear from NGOs and sick and disabled individuals willing to act as "victim" in the UN complaint or inquiry.

For further information, please see http://www.twitlonger.com/show/lbeqbu http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rkmam4 http://mydisabilitystudiesblackboard.blogspot.ca/2013/03/the-jobcentre-sanctions-scandal-in.html

I am especially interested in hearing from individuals (disabled and non-disabled) who have been unjustly sanctioned by Jobcentre and/or the DWP.

Please contact: Samuel Miller at disabilityinliterature@gmail.com

--
Samuel Miller

http://independent.academia.edu/SamuelMiller
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/letter-to-the-icc-at-the-hague-re-mistreatment-of-the-disabled-and-sick
http://mikesivier.wordpress.com//?s=Samuel+Miller&search=Go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnHBfW0_u5A&feature=youtu.be
E-Mail: disabilityinliterature@gmail.com
Blog: Hephaestus: Disability Studies
http://illnessandcivilization.blogspot.com/
Blog: My Disability Studies Blackboard
http://mydisabilitystudiesblackboard.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Hephaestus7
(Montreal, Canada)

AT LEAST 100k a year hit by highest-level benefit sanctions

Reblogged from The SKWAWKBOX Blog:



I’ve come across something which frightens me. As I wrote almost a week ago, one of the DWP’s (Department of Work and Pensions) own reports told it that sanctions were not only widely damaging, unfair and ineffective, but actually impaired people’s chances of finding work – and yet the DWP increased the number of sanctions (immediate suspension of benefits) applied to jobseekers by more than 47% in most recent 12-month period for which figures are available.

This increase – in the year up to October 2012 – took the total number of sanctions applied to a record 778,000. New figures were due to be published last month – but the DWP has delayed their release indefinitely. The reasons given for the delay were nebulous – but the previous rates of increase and the fact that new rules kicked in in October that could only accelerate the rate of increase make it extremely likely that the figures are so hideous that even this government is afraid to put them out there without some kind of recalculation to make them look less damning.

All this is obscene enough, but what has frightened me is another report by the DWP. This one dates back to 2006 and was commissioned by the previous Labour government. But before we look at that, we need a little background.

In September last year, Work and Pensions Minister Mark Hoban – a Tory whose crassness and insensitivity makes even that of many of his colleagues seem mild by comparison – answered questions on the new sanction regime that was due to begin in October. Among the answers he gave was this:

I was asked why we are introducing a three-year sanction. As I said, it will apply only in the most extreme cases, where claimants have serially and deliberately breached their most important requirements, and where other sanctions have not worked to change behaviour. We anticipate that few claimants will be subject to this length of sanction, but we do believe it is necessary to act as a deterrent and to ensure compliance with the conditionality regime, which is critical to help these claimants back into work.

In order to get through the debate, Hoban was prepared to cast this 3-year sanction option as unlikely to be used at all, and even then only on the most persistent and intransigent ‘serial offenders’. However, this did not tally with another Hoban’s statements in the same debate:

Sanctions will also be tougher for those who repeatedly fail to meet their requirements, because the length of sanction will increase with each failure. The longest sanctions will apply to non-compliance with requirements directly linked to employment, such as leaving a job voluntarily, refusing to take up a job offer or failing to participate in mandatory work experience. For such failures, the sanction periods will be: 13 weeks for the first failure; 26 weeks for a second failure within a year of the previous one; and 156 weeks—3 years—for a third, or further, failure within a year of a previous failure that led to either a 26-week or 156-week sanction.

Nothing there about ‘only in the most extreme cases’ – just ‘those who repeatedly fail’. ‘Repeatedly’ is a cover-all word and applies to simply failing to meet a requirement three times, which is exactly what the regulations, when they were published by the DWP a month or so later, said and continue to say:

Under the new regime:

• Higher level sanctions (for example for leaving a job voluntarily) will lead to claimants losing all of their JSA for a fixed period of 13 weeks for a first failure, 26 weeks for a second failure and 156 weeks for a third and subsequent failure (within a 52 week period of their last failure).

Nothing there about it being applied only to the most persistent serial offenders – just a simple ’3 strikes and you’re out for 3 years’. Nothing about it only applying to the most serious offences, either. A DWP document outlining the differences between the new regime and its predecessor describes which offences can result in a ‘higher level sanction’:

Higher level sanction

Fixed period sanction for:
• leaving a job voluntarily without good reason
• losing a job through misconduct
• refusal/failure to apply for, or accept if offered a suitable job without good reason
• refusal/failure to participate in mandatory work activity without good reason

Simply failing to apply for a particular job can be considered a serious breach and incur a higher level sanction, depending on the opinion of the Jobcentre Plus (JCP) adviser. Similarly, what’s ‘suitable’, or what is a ‘good reason’ for any of the things considered a breach is down to the opinion of the adviser, who can decide instantly to apply a sanction. 3 of these and people face the immediate suspension of their benefits for 3 years.

Even for lesser ‘offences’, penalties are draconian. Simply turning up a few minutes late to sign on can now result in the immediate imposition of a sanction – and the minimum sanction length is now 4 weeks. Commit a second of these insignificant ‘offences’ in a 12-month period and you are hit with another 4 week sanction. A third, and it increases to 13 weeks – 3 months with no income.

Commit an ‘intermediate’ offence – which means nothing more than being considered not ‘available’ enough for work, or not looking hard enough, so once again entirely dependent on the opinion of your adviser – and the first offence incurs a 13-week sanction, followed by another, and then a 26-week penalty. 6 months, based on nothing more than the opinion of a JCP adviser.

Under this government, incurring a sanction is now as easy as falling off a log – and a lot more likely. When forced to by a Freedom of Information request, the DWP admitted that as many as 19% of all claimants were sanctioned at least once:



Even this response was disingenuous, because it uses a period beginning in 2007, when sanction numbers were tiny compared to under this government, to disguise the fact that a far higher proportion of claimants are sanctioned now.

So, back to the 2006 DWP report. This was written for the DWP by Mark Peters and Lucy Joyce, examining the extent and effectiveness of sanctions applied under the Labour government – when rules for JCP advisers meant that sanctions were considered a last resort and were applied far less readily than now, when sanctions can be and are applied for something as minor as arriving a few minutes late for ‘signing on’.

In their report, Peters and Joyce included information on the proportion of claimants sanctioned 3 or more times:

data from the Sanctions Evaluation Database (SED) show that the large majority of customers (73 per cent) have only been sanctioned once, while smaller proportions have been sanctioned
twice (16 per cent) or more than twice (10 per cent).

10% of claimants sanctioned 3 or more times - when sanctions were hard to incur. Under this government, by design, sanctions are applied freely and only require the JCP adviser to decide to apply one for it to be in force.

But let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that the figure hasn’t changed, and only 10% of claimants are sanctioned 3 times or more. Based on the 778,000 sanctions applied in the year to October 2012, that means almost 80,000 people hit under the new penalty regime by sanctions of at least 3 months, and many facing 6-month and even 36-month deprivation of income.

That – though it seems incredible to call it such – is our best-case scenario. The reality is that, under the regulations that came into force in October, we could be looking at double or even triple the percentage incurring 3 or more sanctions. Even if we assumed no increase in the total number of sanctions applied, that would mean well over 200,000 people deprived of income for 3 months or longer.

And if – as seems very likely – the number of sanctions has increased by a similar proportion to the leap up to October 2012, that would mean more than 1.1 million sanctions applied, with at least 100,000 sanctions of at least 3 months and as many as 300,000.

And don’t forget, each sanction impacts not only on dependents of sanctioned people but on their family and friends, too. We could easily be looking at a million or more people impacted by summary deprivation of income.

No wonder the government decided the latest data on sanctions ‘wasn’t ready for publication’. Even many natural Tory voters would baulk at the idea of throwing a million people into either immediate penury or the burden of having to eke out already-meagre resources to prevent family members or friends from starving.
I’m frightened by it – but I’m even more incensed. I hope you are too.

Is it constitutional for Parliament to reverse a judicial decision (in a hurry)?

The House of Lords Constitution Committee published its report earlier today on the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill. (Professor Adam Tomkins has drawn attention to this issue on his blog, and has promised a longer post on the subject in due course.)

The background to the Bill is formed by the Court of Appeal’s recent decision in R (Reilly and Wilson) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2013] EWCA Civ 66, in which certain regulations concerning entitlement to benefits were struck down. New secondary legislation has already been made in order to fill the legal gap left by the quashing of the old regulations, but the new rules operate only prospectively. What, then, about people who were sanctioned improperly (i.e. by reference to the old, invalid rules)?

Normally, when a court quashes administrative acts or secondary legislation, the effect is to render (or, more accurately, confirm) that the measures are void ab initio (i.e. legally ineffective “from the very beginning”). So those who were sanctioned under the old rules were treated unlawfully, and are entitled to be paid the benefits they were improperly denied. But, says the Government, this would cost it £130 million: and so it is inviting Parliament to pass legislation—the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill—which would retrospectively change the law. That is, the Bill would make lawful the denial of benefits to individuals, even though the Court of Appeal ruled that denial to have been unlawful. What this amounts to, therefore, is the Executive using primary legislation to reverse the effect of a judicial decision.

One of the concerns raised by the Constitution Committee relates to the use of a fast-track procedure in order to enact this legislation—the effect of which is to reduce the time for parliamentary scrutiny. Even more fundamental, however, is the other issue raised in the report: namely, the retrospective nature of the legislation. As the Committee notes at para 14 of its report, this

engages the cardinal rule of law principle that individuals may be punished or penalised only for contravening what was at the time a valid legal requirement. According to the doctrine of the sovereignty of Parliament, retrospective legislation is lawful. Nonetheless, from a constitutional point of view it should wherever possible be avoided, since the law should so far as possible be clear, accessible and predictable. This applies to civil penalties as well as criminal offences. In the words of the late Lord Bingham of Cornhill: “If anyone—you or I—is to be penalised it must not be for breaking some rule dreamt up by an ingenious minister or official … It must be for a proven breach of the established law of the land.”

This will not be the first time that a judicial decision has been undone via primary legislation. But that does not detract from the compelling nature of the points raised by the Constitution Committee. At root, this episode calls into question the relationship between the rule of law and the sovereignty of Parliament—and in this context it is worth reminding oneself that not all judges today accept that the latter necessarily prevails over the former. For example, in Jackson v Attorney-General [2005] UKHL 56, Lord Hope said:

Our constitution is dominated by the sovereignty of Parliament. But Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute. It is not uncontrolled in the sense referred to by Lord Birkenhead LC in McCawley v The King [1920] AC 691, 720. It is no longer right to say that its freedom to legislate admits of no qualification whatever. Step by step, gradually but surely, the English principle of the absolute legislative sovereignty of Parliament which Dicey derived from Coke and Blackstone is being qualified.

Of course, it does not follow from this that the courts would respond to the new legislation by putting Parliament back it its place; such an outcome is highly unlikely. But what this episode does demonstrate is a profound lack of respect by the Executive (which is, inevitably, behind this legislation) for the judicial branch of Government. That lack of respect is evidenced by the use of a fast-track procedure to enact legislation which, given the enormity of any decision to reverse a judicial decision, deserves close and searching scrutiny.

The broader point, then, is that if our constitution is (as I think it is) based upon an unwritten but crucial mutual respect between the political and judicial branches, there are likely to be (unpredictable) consequences if one party ceases to treat the other with adequate respect. The capacity of courts to ensure the lawfulness of Executive action forms the centerpiece of our constitutional machinery for upholding the rule of law. And the use of primary legislation to reverse the effects of that process is therefore a fundamental attack upon it. If politicians fail to treat the courts and the rule of law with appropriate respect, politicians should not be surprised if the courts repay them in kind. Nor should it be assumed that judges would be acting unconstitutionally in doing so. This is not a plea for judicial supremacism. Far from it: it is a plea for the Executive and Parliament to recognise the need for restraint that is essential to the effective operation of our unwritten constitution.

Public law for everyone

What is forced labour?

What is the problem?

Forced labour is any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form punishment.  Almost all slavery practices, including trafficking in people and bonded labour, contain some element of forced labour.

Forced labour affects millions of men, women and children around the world and is most frequently found in labour intensive and/or under-regulated industries, such as:

• Agriculture and fishing 
• Domestic work
• Construction, mining, quarrying and brick kilns 
• Manufacturing, processing and packaging
• Prostitution and sexual exploitation
• Market trading and illegal activities

 

How big is the problem?

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are at least 20.9 million people in forced labour worldwide. The figure means that, at any given point in time, around three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are suffering in forced labour.
Some more detailed ILO's statistic:

• 18.7 million (90%) people are in forced labour in the private economy, exploited by individuals or enterprises. Out of these, 4.5 million (22%) are in forced sexual exploitation, and 14.2 million (68%) in forced labour exploitation in activities such as agriculture, construction, domestic work and manufacturing.
• Women and girls represent the greater share of forced labour victims 11.4 million (55%), as compared to 9.5 million (45%) men and boys.
• Adults are more affected than children 74% (15.4 million) of victims fall in the age group of 18 years and above, whereas children are 26% of the total (or 5.5 million child victims).
• 2.2 million (10%) work in state-imposed forms of forced labour, for example in prisons under conditions which violate ILO standards, or in work imposed by the state military or by rebel armed forces.

Why is there a problem?

In around 10 per cent of cases the State or the military is directly responsible for the use of forced labour. Notable examples where this takes place are Burma, North Korea and China.  However, in the vast majority of cases forced labour is used by private individuals who are seeking to make profits from the exploitation of other people.

Victims of forced labour are frequently from minority or marginalised groups who face institutionalised discrimination and live on the margins of society where they are vulnerable to slavery practices. Forced labour is usually obtained as a result of trapping the individual in debt bondage or by restricting their freedom of movement.  In other cases violence, threats and intimidation are used and/or there is an absence of effective State protection.

Where is the problem?

Forced labour is a global problem, although some regions have larger numbers of people affected than others.  The regional distribution of forced labour is:

• Asia and Pacific: 11.7 million (56%)
• Africa: 3.7 million (18%)
• Latin America and the Caribbean: 1.8 million (9%)
• The Developed Economies (US, Canada, Australia, European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Japan): 1.5 million (7%)
• Central, Southeast and Eastern Europe (non EU) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CSEE): 1.6 million (7%)
• Middle East: 600,000 (3%)

Laws

The ILO defines forced labour as: “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of a penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. 

This definition is set out in the ILO’s Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29).  This Convention has been ratified by over 170 states and obliges governments to “suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period”.

The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also prohibits the use of forced labour (Article 8) and has been ratified by more than 160 states. 

China is the only country in the world which has not ratified either of these international standards.  However, many countries have not passed specific laws defining and prohibiting forced labour with adequate punishments for those responsible.  Where these laws exist they are often not enforced properly.


Read more...

Workfare: Will we get more results?

We were told that more Work Programme performance data would be published this month.  I would be very surprised if that happens.  It would be only four more months after the last lot, and one cannot imagine that there's been such a dramatic improvement that the government will be keen to publish.  Without that improvement, A4e and the other providers will be in real difficulties.  The attachment fees were just about keeping them ticking over, and we know that A4e were in trouble a year ago.  So, will we soon hear about contracts being ended?

While we wait and wonder, you might care to read a couple of DWP documents.  There's an impact assessment justifying the legislation to ensure that they don't have to pay back the £130m wrongly taken from people who were sanctioned while the compulsory work schemes were illegal.  Then you could look at a number of documents which tell "the DWP reform story", downloadable from their website.  They call it a "communications toolkit".

Last week we were told that under Universal Credit, enquiries would have to be made via an 0845 phone number - in other words, expensively.  In fact, this was raised a year ago by the Mirror.  Last November the DWP confirmed this but said that "free claimant access phones" would be available in "a large number" of Jobcentres.  So that's all right, then.

One other item: there's an article about the Trussell Trust and food banks on the Independent's website.  What caught my attention was a comment by someone calling himself Marchie1053 - scroll down and find it.    He draws attention to the close links between the Trussell Trust and the Conservative party.  Interesting. 

Watching A4e

Contact workfare exploiter Salvation Army – Day 2 Workfare Week of Action

Salvation Army International and UK HQs were paid a surprise visit to launch the week of action. [Photo: Sinister Pics]

Join the online day of action on Tuesday 19th March and tell workfare exploiters The Salvation Army exactly what the public think about their use of forced labour.

The Salvation Army released an astonishing statement recently which seems to suggest they will force people on sickness or disability benefits into unpaid work.

In a series of answers to questions asked on social media, the charity are unrepentant about their use of workfare. Responding to a question asking how they “can morally take sick and disabled people and force them to work?” the charity reply that they believe in “emancipation through employment” – a chillingly familiar phrase.

The Salvation Army have shown they are happy to act as Iain Duncan Smith’s workfare foot soldiers and yesterday their fight for the right to use unpaid workers was aggressive. The response to a peaceful protest at their UK head office was heavy handed, leaving one person temporarily arrested (until the police realised the accusation was entirely fabricated) after being falsely accused of assault.

Salvation Army need to be shown just how many people object to their use of forced unpaid labour. Join in the online day of action and tell them what you think!

Salvation Army UK can be contacted on facebook and on Twitter:
Tweet to @salvationarmyuk
Boycott Workfare

The myth of the “welfare scrounger”

A little noticed piece of DWP research shows that four out of five claimants spent at least three quarters of the past four years off unemployment benefit.

BY IAN MULHEIRN PUBLISHED 15 MARCH 2013 14:58

A man stands outside the Jobcentre Plus on January 18, 2012 in Trowbridge, England. Photograph: Getty Images.

In its effort to save money on the working age welfare bill, the government has used some bold imagery. The Chancellor is fond of saying, 

“where is the fairness…for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next-door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?”

And the Prime Minister has talked of the benefits bill

“sky-rocketing”

while

“generations languish on the dole and dependency”.

The benefit scrounger is the bogeyman of British politics, stalking the corridors of Westminster.

In the real world, it’s pretty hard to find families that have never worked, let alone generations of people on the dole.

But as well as being political cover for the public spending squeeze, this rhetoric reflects an apparent hardening of public attitudes.

The British Social Attitudes survey shows that in 2011 54 per cent of people thought that if benefits were lower people would “learn to stand on their own two feet”, more than double the 26 per cent who felt that way just 20 years earlier. It appears that the idea of dependency is almost synonymous with the dole in many people’s minds. As a result, moves to erode benefits, through things like the 1 per cent up-rating plan, garner widespread public support.

Into this rhetorical maelstrom, was last week released a fascinating – and little noticed -piece of research by the Department for Work and Pensions on the benefit histories of dole recipients.

It’s a precious piece of evidence in an argument that tends to be fuelled by anecdote, prejudice and fear (on all sides). And it rather undermines the picture that our welfare system is awash with people taking advantage of its ‘something for nothing’ deal.

The analysis looks at the benefit claims history, going back four years, of people who made a claim for unemployment benefit in 2010-11.

For a sample group of 32-33 year olds who claimed Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) in 2010-11, 40 per cent of them had not made a claim before in that period.

Sixty three per cent had spent no more than six months of the previous four years on JSA.

And almost four out of five claimants had spent at least three quarters of the past four years off the dole.

The idea that these claimants are ‘trapped’ in a ‘dependency culture’ is absurd.

What all this implies is that the overwhelming majority of people who claim unemployment benefit each year spend at least three-quarters of their time in work.

And for 40 per cent of claimants, the need to claim JSA clearly comes as quite a shock since they have no recent history of having done so before.
But you would never tell that from the tone of the debate.

Only a small minority of adults – 11 per cent of claimants in 2010-11 – have a history of spending more than half of recent years on the dole.

The government is right to want to take action to help that 11 per cent achieve sustainable employment rather than spending half their time on the dole. But when four out of five claimants draw benefits for an unemployment spell that is obviously an unfortunate aberration, it’s clear that the excoriating rhetoric isn’t based in reality.

If all claimants are to be labelled ‘scroungers’, then today’s striver is tomorrow’s scrounger – and that could be any of us.

It’s worth remembering that the next time we hear a welfare squeeze being justified by a pervasive ‘culture of dependency’.

The New Statesman 

True Face of the Salvation Army – Workfare Protest Marred By False Arrest and Staff Aggression

There were shocking scenes at the South London offices of workfare exploiters the Salvation Army today as employees of the charity manhandled anti-workfare protesters, tried to seize personal property and then physically prevented them from leaving the building.

Astonishingly one person who managed to escape from the premises  before staff blockaded protesters inside was falsely accused of assault and then arrested.

The UK offices of the charity were visited by campaigners today as part of the National Week of Action Against Workfare.  Salvation Army are one of the largest charities left who use forced labour – under threat of benefit sanctions -  to staff their charity shops.  Most decent charities have pulled out in disgust at the exploitative nature of the scheme. The Salvation Army have no such principles and recently appeared to admit that they are even happy to use those on sickness or disability benefits as forced unpaid workers.
Today’s action began at the charity’s plush International Headquarters in the City of London.  A workfare army visited the charity holding a sermon extolling the benefits of forced labour in their reception area.  Meanwhile several people went downstairs to the cafe run by the charity and handed out leaflets.

Many people were shocked at the organisation’s open use of workfare, and thanked the protesters for making them aware of it.  The protest (pictured above) was good-natured and non-violent throughout and eventually a Major from the charity agreed to speak to those present.

The Major claimed that as the international headquarters for the charity, they were not responsible for the actions of the UK section of the Salvation Army.  When it was pointed out that protesters were there to show what was being done in the organisation’s name, he agreed that he was happy for the protest to remain in the building until they closed for the day.

He also suggested that campaigners should visit the UK Headquarters in Elephant & Castle who have the ultimate say of the charity’s use of workfare.  Not wanting to disobey an order from a Major that’s exactly what those present decided to do.

On arrival at the charity’s Elephant & Castle offices it was clear that a very different side of this supposedly Christian organisation would be on display.

At first several staff – who may have been security but never identified themselves as such – refused to allow protesters into the building.  In what appeared to be a change of heart they then relented and opened the doors to allow people inside.

Once inside another workfare sermon began and then some of those present began to sing hymns.  This seemed to particularly annoy the charity’s staff who called the police.  The mood quickly turned ugly as the Salvation Army’s bully boys began shouting at protesters that they were blocking fire exists and would be arrested – a claim which was clearly nonsense as there was easy access in and out of the building.

Despite not only having been told to visit by the organisation’s International Headquarters, and allowed onto the premises, they then began accusing people of trespass and demanding that people should give them their mobile phones and cameras.

Shocked at the aggresive response to a completely peaceful and non threatening action, a decision was made by the protesters to leave.  Sadly only one person made it out of the building as the Salvation Army thugs blocked the door and attempted to grab hold of people to physically prevent anyone from leaving.
As this took place the police arrived and one Salvation Army staff member began insisting the person who had escaped from the building had assaulted him, leading to the individual being arrested.  A stand off ensued as those inside were finally freed – the charity presumably deciding that kidnapping people in full view of the police was a step too far even for their shady operation.

Police were heard discussing amongst themselves that they had witnessed people being trapped inside by Salvation Army employees.  After tense negotiations it appeared even the police didn’t believe the charity’s wild claims and the individual accused of assault was de-arrested and allowed to leave.

After the good-natured protest earlier in the day this shocking sequence of events showed the true nature of this charity’s response to criticism.  Physical force, false allegations and abuse replaced the fake cheery PR front that the charity have attempted to portray when criticised for using workfare.

It seems that the Salvation Army are determined to silence any criticism of their dirty little workfare exploitation.  A day of online action in response to these events has now been called by Boycott Workfare tomorrow (Tues 18th March).

The Salvation Army are on twitter @salvationarmyuk
They can be found on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/salvationarmyuk

Spread the word and let’s tell the Salvation Army exactly what the public thinks of their workfare exploitation and attempted use of force and false allegations to silence criticism.

(watch this space for more contact info)

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

The Void

Workfare & Sanctions: Using Benefits to Blackmail

Gillian Wilkes, from the West Midlands, was recently made redundant after working all her life. She describes her shock at the Job Centre’s treatment of claimants, and explains the reasons for her refusal to participate in one of the government’s workfare programmes.


Following redundancy I had to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance. I read the rules and regulations to ensure I didn't fall foul of any stipulations and dutifully carried out my job search.


However, at my fourth signing on appointment I was told by the advisor that because I had not applied for two jobs within the last fortnight, my search was not adequate and that my benefit would be stopped. I pointed out that I had completed the required six 'tasks' on the agreement, which included contacting two companies to see if there were any job vacancies available. The regulations did not stipulate that applying for 2 jobs was a condition of receiving benefit. The advisor didn't agree with me and informed me that my job search would be sent to the 'Decision Makers' to see if the doubt was justified. In the meantime, my benefits would be stopped immediately for two weeks.


I was horrified as my disabled husband and I had no other income (his claim is linked to mine). Those two weeks without money were the most humiliating of my life. We had to ask for food hand-outs from friends and family, couldn't pay any bills and had to scrounge tins of food for our dogs and cat. After both of us working for 45 years (I'm 60 and my husband is 63) and paying a lifetime of tax and contributions, we were being punished because I hadn't applied for two jobs.


That was in May and, to date, I have still not been notified of a decision by the Decision Makers. I appealed against the sanction and heard nothing. When I contacted the appeals department, I was told that my case would not be heard until around September.



‘Granny Groundworker’


Then, after signing on for just ten weeks, my advisor said she was referring me to the Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) programme. She handed me a letter without any explanation of what it was about. I asked her for some details and she mumbled something about skills.


A week later I received a text message from a company called Groundwork West Midlands telling me I had been referred to them. I checked them out on the internet and discovered they were an environmental company that trains young people in ‘groundwork’. I then started to worry what this was all about. Am I to be trained as ‘Granny Groundworker’, I wondered.


I then received a letter from this company, thanking me for attending an engagement meeting or telephone interview (I had been offered neither), and informing me that I was to start my MWA programme on the Monday coming. It said I must participate for 30 hours a week for four weeks at ‘Acorns’. The letter stated if I did not have good reason for turning up then, for my first offence, I would lose my benefit for 13 weeks, and for my second offence I would lose it for 26 weeks.


What am I now? A criminal it seems! I was simply told that I must dress smartly in black trousers and white shirt. There were no details about the work or the company so I contacted them to request some information.


Acorns turned out to be a charity shop. Now, I don't wish to sound like I am above charity shop work, as I know charity shop workers do a wonderful job, but what skills am I going to learn that will help me find the sort of job I am seeking? I do not need discipline or time-keeping lessons. I have worked as an Administrator, Secretary and Finance Officer for the past 45 years but now I am just being used for free labour.


Adding ten hours a week travelling time amounts to a 40 hour week but I would still have had to sign on, attend interviews and complete a job search every day. That means I would have had to complete my job searches in the evening. I would have thought it was illegal to expect people to work day and evening.

The Department for Work and Pensions contradicts itself as this programme stops people from doing the very thing they need to be doing: looking for paid and fulfilling work.


I have paid enough tax and contributions in my lifetime to cover the cost of my benefit so I find it insulting that after just a few weeks of claiming, I am expected to work for every penny. The programme is a total waste of taxpayer's money, which would be better spent on skills courses for the young unemployed, not placing the older, experienced generation on these money wasting programmes.



Money owed


I have now read other people's accounts and experiences on the internet regarding this MWA and believe advisors pick on claimants that have been sanctioned before or have challenged them over other issues. I personally believe it is very wrong they can use a claimant's benefit to blackmail them. Why should someone's welfare be in the hands of some judgemental advisor who is anxious to show her superiors that she is fulfilling her quota? There doesn't seem to be any way of complaining about this or challenging the referral without going to the very people who have placed you on the programme in the first place.


The DWP claim the sanctioning of benefits has stopped on ‘workfare’ programmes but it is clearly continuing. The greedy employers who exploit the unemployed should try living themselves without income for 26 weeks. They would soon back out of this scheme.


I have refused to attend this program and have now received a letter warning me that my benefit may be sanctioned. Fortunately, my husband is now entitled to receive Pension Credit so I can sign off JSA.

I will fight for a refund of my sanctioned benefit from May. After all, I feel it is money I am owed and will sue for it in court if necessary. I hope others will do the same.


And I will continue to campaign against the injustices of this MWA program, both for the benefit of those who do not have the means to fight back and for taxpayers in general, who are not aware of how their contributions are being used.


Thank you for taking the time and trouble to read this.

Corporate Watch