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campaign against welfare cuts and poverty

In today's BBC online article it says one man had his benefit stopped for not turning up for an appointment with an advisor, but that was because the Job Centre didn't know he'd moved away. Another man had his benefit stopped because he was doing a course. But that all depends on the hours - you're entitled to JSA if it's less than 16 hours per week. It seems that official was exploiting the claimant's ignorance of this. You have to know the system inside out.

The Job Centre staff's union, the PCS, have said, not for the first time, that they come under pressure to sanction a certain proportion of claimants' benefits. The DWP deny this. Can't the PCS produce any evidence?
 
SpookyFrank said:
It's not even just turning down an offer of work (and there are plenty of unreasonable offers of work, like commission-only door to door sales jobs and zero-hour agency jobs) it can be something as stupid as failure to apply for a job you're not even qualified for.

I can't believe that the idea that leaving someone (and possibly that person's dependants) with an income of zero for a whole month is a fitting punishment for anything is so readily accepted by so many people.
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Nah, I totally get it (I don't agree with it anymore though). If someone can support themselves financially through working, why shouldn't they do so? Someone who turns down a reasonable job (and I totally agree with Frances that defining reasonable is impossible, I never thought too hard about it before I don't think) is refusing to do so, choosing instead to skank me and you for money. Why should we support someone who refuses to help themselves? I don't like being taken for a mug and that's what they are doing.
There's a load of problems with this from both a practical and moral perspective but I think it's perfectly understandable, even from a socialist viewpoint - from each according to their ability is just as important as to each according to their needs. No reason why one shouldn't depend on the other - by giving according to your abilities you get according to your needs. Choose not to give according to your abilities, why should you get according to your needs?

For me, it is why it's important that we fight against the idea that unemployment is a choice, and highlight how JCPs are using sanctions in ways that can not possibly be described as someone choosing not to work who could. There's much more bizarre examples of sanctions than what you say - someone gets a job starting in 2 weeks, gets sanctioned for not doing jobsearch in those two weeks... someone 9 minutes late for a JCP appointment because an interview ran late... someone who couldn't afford to travel for a workfare placement, offered to do it at a charity shop they could walk to, was refused this and got sanctioned for non-attendance.. people who have Work Programme (or other schemes) appointments at the same time as JCP appointments and get sanctioned for not attending one or the other. Nobody can defend these sanctions, even people who really agree with sanctions, and then you can chip away at them by arguing that it's not possible to have a system that stops these sanctions from happening. tbh I think the three year sanction is too much for a lot of people who support sanctions, ime when I've talked to people about this they've been shocked and appalled even when they'd support shorter sanctions.

Also, in the past, I had no real conception of how quickly you get to having less than nothing on benefits. I doubt I would have accepted a month if I'd known then what I know now, not even a week. I knew someone would sell stuff, go into debt with friends/family, short themselves on food or at worst not have money for the gas/electric meter but I didn't see just how fucked that actually got people, not least because I didn't realise how many poeple had nothing to sell and no friends/family who could lend them money. Lots of people are missing that view, and I wouldn't pretend I ever got very close to real poverty personally - at least in part because I was able to spend most of my time on WTC not JSA having realised that I'd rather take £20 less a week than suffer the JCP (and I know JCPs have only got worse since I signed on for a few months a few years back), and continue doing the odd bit of freelancing without any concern, never had an income of over £6k from march 2008 - april 2013 (when I started a new job) though.
 
BigTom said:
400,000 sanctioned Oct 2012 - June 2013 under new sanctions regime - minimum 4 weeks, maximum 3 years - 48,000 people got the three year sanction.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24833627

List of utterly ridiculous sanctions that is useful for challenging the idea that these are applied fairly (though personally I am now against sanctions entirely, used to be that I was ok with them when people turned down jobs they could reasonably do but seeing how they are misused I am now fully against them) :http://birminghamagainstthecuts.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/a-selection-of-especially-stupid-sanctions/
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Murderous cunts. :mad:
 
SpookyFrank said:
I can't believe that the idea that leaving someone (and possibly that person's dependants) with an income of zero for a whole month is a fitting punishment for anything is so readily accepted by so many people.
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Standard politics of governance - create a scapegoat, and scared people will load their fears onto the scapegoat rather than onto the rulers.
 
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/07/universal-credit-waste-mps

Iain Duncan Smith's flagship benefit reform has been severely criticised by MPs for failures that are expected to waste at least £140m of public money....The universal credit scheme has been overseen by "alarmingly weak" management...described a pilot set up under Duncan Smith's guidance as inadequate and open to fraud....said the implementation of the system so far had been "extraordinarily poor"...Hodge also claimed that the pilot programme is not a proper pilot. "It does not deal with the key issues that universal credit must address: the volume of claims; their complexity; change in claimants' circumstances; and the need for claimants to meet conditions for continuing entitlement to benefit," she said.
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Dunked in Shit...who'd have thunk it?:facepalm:
 
Classic Drunken Shit....

10.01am GMT

The splash in today's Times says that Iain Duncan Smith intervened to try to ensure that today's damning report from the public accounts committee into universal credit blamed Robert Devereux, the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions. Here's an extract from Jill Sherman's story (paywall).

Iain Duncan Smith tried to shift the blame for a £140 million waste of taxpayers’ money on to his senior civil servant by attempting to influence an MPs’ report, The Times understands ...

Mr Duncan Smith and members of his parliamentary team are understood to have approached at least three Tory MPs on the cross-party committee to ask them to ensure that Robert Devereux, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, was singled out for censure.

The MPs were asked to make sure that the report “heaped blame on to the Permanent Secretary” and that “Robert Devereux was to be associated with the key failings”, a source said ...

Sources close to the committee confirmed that the report, originally due to be published on Tuesday, was delayed for two days while MPs debated its contents and argued the case for Mr Devereux to be criticised. The remaining MPs on the committee refused to agree, and in the final report Mr Devereux is mentioned only once, by his title as “accounting officer”.

The source said: “It was obvious there was some kind of co-ordinated effort going on. Some of the Conservative members wanted us to be much tougher on the Permanent Secretary than the rest of us were comfortable with.”

Duncan Smith has denied asking for Devereux to be named in the report. A spokeswoman for the work and pensions secretary said this:

Iain has not asked for anyone to be named in the report. He has publicly supported the Department for Work and Pensions permanent secretary throughout this whole process.

But Margaret Hodge, the committee chair, has been more equivocal. This is what she said when asked about it on BBC News.

Iain Duncan Smith didn't approach me. Beyond that I can't comment.
​
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It's almost like the cunt olympics are just around the corner, and the intensity of his training programme is reaching new 'heights'.
 
Deveraux is not blame free, much social policy is driven by the civil service, though these days it is more driven by politicians.
 
A friend of mine who unselfishly helps lots of people in different ways, has been helping a guy who has just lost all of his DLA which was high rate, he is in crisis: he is 'obese' cannot walk and pays for his own care, or he did, he can't now, this is truly criminal, can he appeal?, I think they were moving people to PIP even if they win their appeal.
 
Rutita1 said:
Independent Living Fund victory: McVey silent over possible resignation

The former minister for disabled people has refused to say whether she will resign from her new post in the same department, after her decision to close the Independent Living Fund was overturned in the court of appeal.

http://disabilitynewsservice.com/20...ctory-mcvey-silent-over-possible-resignation/
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Resign , a politician, having a laugh, they never do now..

Its good news, does this mean it will remain till at least the GE?
 
Last edited:
treelover said:
A friend of mine who unselfishly helps lots of people in different ways, has been helping a guy who has just lost all of his DLA which was high rate, he is in crisis: he is 'obese' cannot walk and pays for his own care, or he did, he can't now, this is truly criminal, can he appeal?, I think they were moving people to PIP even if they win their appeal.
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Yes, he can appeal, and yes, he will eventually be moved to PIP even if he wins his appeal.
His grounds should be based around him/an advisor assessing the decision of the adjudicating officer. Often they fail to properly read guidance on conditions or to take into account how multiple conditions may interact, even if you've set out the issues fully in your application/renewal form. Tell him he should request a copy of his paperwork post-haste!
 
treelover said:
Can he ask for a 'reconsideration' first, or is it straight to appeal?
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AFAIK yes, you can request reconsideration giving your reasons why you want this (eg "I can't believe that you've read what I said: This bit clearly states that I can't do X at all, can only do Y with assistance, and last time I attempted Z I had to rest in bed for a week afterwards"), but you still need to know why the bloke was turned down.

In any case, the deadline for saying that you want to appeal is so short (one month from the decision) that it's a very good idea to start preparing for an appeal, even while still hoping that the reconsideration will be in the claimant's favour.
 
This is nice.

Housing trusts mis-representing the law, and implicitly threatening those in arrears with having their children taken off them.

Good effort from Paul @ TCF in response.

'kinnel.:mad:
 
Just read on F/B that in the early 2000's Smith made several "paid for" visits to the Right Wing Libertarian American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation.

The Heritage Foundation's 2011 "Study On Poverty" was criticized "for being "distorted, " "misleading," "wrong," and embracing "anti-poor stereotypes"
in order to justify the further retrenchment of the social safety net."

Clear where he got his ideas for The Centre For Social Justice and his policies.
 
Paul T said:
matthew oakley, ex of right wing Policy Exchange, undertaking "independent" review of JSA and sanctions :facepalm:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions-independent-review
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We always knew it would be a whitewash, not even an attempt to hide the bias. Matthew Oakley is proper scum. Conclusion of the report will be that sanctions are useful and although there are isolated incidents of sanctions being wrongfully applied they are mostly used correctly and the review/appeal process is good enough. Knew that before we heard Oakley was going to write the report though.
 
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