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Jobcentres tricking people off benefits

As my fb friends know, today I feel targeted.
I recieved the ATOS "Limited capability for work questionnaire" this morning.
I feel/felt just like calling it a day - the simple way out. Wtf don't they understand about my MS?
The only thing that keeps me going is some good things that have happened in my personal life - finding the "little girl" that I brought up and who is 29 now.
Otherwise I was just feeling like doing my will and turning the lights out.

Do they know what they are doing?

Anything that can be done to help others is a good thing.
Thank you Tufty and Drew for starting this - it gives me some motivation.
 
yardbird said:
I feel/felt just like calling it a day - the simple way out. Wtf don't they understand about my MS?
Click to expand...
Don't get too upset... I know it seems bad, but that's how they want you to feel. Don't let 'em piss you off. This has turned into a very positive thread, so don't go doing anything drastic yet!!
 
Hope you are ok, Yardbird, opposition is now growing after all these years, there are also many dirty tricks, Grayling has said CAB are a partner for the Work Programme, yet the CAB CEO says this is rubbish and they are not sub-contracting, not surprising when A4E are trying to take over its role...

though of course they may in the future...
 
yardbird said:
As my fb friends know, today I feel targeted.
I recieved the ATOS "Limited capability for work questionnaire" this morning.
I feel/felt just like calling it a day - the simple way out. Wtf don't they understand about my MS?
Click to expand...

remember when you were a kid, and silence got you accused of "dumb insolence"? Well that's the game the ATOSsers play. They don't care about us as human beings with moderate to severe health problems. They only care about us as units of profit or loss, and their "dumb insolence" - the repeated forms, the interminable asking and re-asking of the same questions over and over, is all bent toward one goal: To make you a profitable unit, rather than one that loses them money. Their accountants will have analysed the DWPs' statistics, they'll know exactly how much pressure needs to be exerted to make someone cease their claim, and they really don't care about what happens to us, except if it garners them bad publicity.

The only thing that keeps me going is some good things that have happened in my personal life - finding the "little girl" that I brought up and who is 29 now.
Otherwise I was just feeling like doing my will and turning the lights out.

Do they know what they are doing?
Click to expand...

Yes, they do. That's why it's important for us all to be as dumbly insolent to them s they are to us - to stick the knife in and twist it as often as possible. That's why I always encourage people who get knocked back to keep on at the bastards:Eventually the weight of complaints, tribunal decisions and ratios of reversed decisions gets too heavy for them to hide, and like Schlumberger-Sema before them, their political paymasters get fed up with the high embarrassment factor.

Anything that can be done to help others is a good thing.
Thank you Tufty and Drew for starting this - it gives me some motivation.
Click to expand...

You're not sharpening your sword-stick, are you? :D I can imagine the headline: "Sliced green halfwits at the ATOS cafe!".
 
My son was recently told he needn't go in to sign on on a particular date. Having read some of this thread, I told him to check it out and make sure this was right. He called and was told that he was due in and they couldn't understand why he'd been given the wrong info. It might have been a genuine mistake, but, in the light of these targets, who knows?
 
shygirl said:
My son was recently told he needn't go in to sign on on a particular date. Having read some of this thread, I told him to check it out and make sure this was right. He called and was told that he was due in and they couldn't understand why he'd been given the wrong info. It might have been a genuine mistake, but, in the light of these targets, who knows?
Click to expand...

Well done mum! Well done thread!
 
Just wanted to let you know that this has got posted around the IWW mailing lists, though I've not actually seen any response except that our unemployed branch in the west mids should be getting in contact
 
Update: Am seeing a very sympathetic lawyer on Monday morning (working all day tomorrow so can't be anytime before unfortunately), mainly at first to help draft what can and can't be said on this mass printout that is to be distributed. My main concern is to legally protect anyone else involved with this. Once that is sorted then we are GO !!! :cool:
 
ymu said:
Well done mum!
Click to expand...

Indeed :cool: I've heard some real horror stories over the last few days even :( I'm trying to sort out a place/system/space on the site for people to post their problems with regards to being sanctioned, and then receiving a rapid response, this is where we will need real volunteers from people that can just offer some online time towards this. This is how you can help without even having to be that active. We are all in this together remember. ;)

BigTom said:
Just wanted to let you know that this has got posted around the IWW mailing lists, though I've not actually seen any response except that our unemployed branch in the west mids should be getting in contact
Click to expand...

Thank you :) Send us some contact details please.
 
They've admitted now, bunch of bastards

The government has admitted that jobcentre staff around the country have been involved in a drive to kick people off benefits amid pressure to meet welfare targets set by their managers.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) initially dismissed revelations in the Guardian last weekend that Jobcentre Plus employees were tricking vulnerable claimants into losing their welfare entitlements. A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months.

Grauniad
 
Also the person interviewed admitted the staff will pick on people with learning disabilities and people who don't speak English as a first language.. so disablist and racist, nice!
 
'Customers'. Ha!

I was threatened by management for asking too many questions. I felt what we were doing in some cases was unlawful." He said he believed offices had "their own take" on social security law in terms of the strictness with which they were sanctioning people, and that "management, and the culture of [Jobcentre Plus] – with only a few exceptions – viewed claimants with contempt.
Click to expand...

Well hasn't that always been the case, seeing as that is the message government has sent out since the advent of the poor law.
 
audiotech said:
'Customers'. Ha!



Well hasn't that always been the case, seeing as that is the message government has sent out since the advent of the poor law.
Click to expand...

Yes, but there have been times when the acceptability of actually letting claimants see your contempt has varied. Back when I first signed on in 1978 (between leaving school and taking the Queen's shilling), there was a big box as you were going out of the door at the signing office, with "if you have a complaint about staff please leave a complaint here, or post to...(gave an address)". Consequently, the staff actually tried to be polite and pleasant.
 
Sorry about my sideways derails about ATOS, but I think that they are part of an interlinked agenda.
I've been reading some mindblowing stuff about them because I was wondering about "duty of care" and googled it :eek:

I'm a fucking 'customer@ !
 
yardbird said:
Sorry about my sideways derails about ATOS, but I think that they are part of an interlinked agenda.
I've been reading some mindblowing stuff about them because I was wondering about "duty of care" and googled it :eek:

I'm a fucking 'customer@ !
Click to expand...

It's all part of the same thing. The so-called healthcare professionals working for Atos are subject to the same pressures to deny people benefits.
 
'Also the person interviewed admitted the staff will pick on people with learning disabilities and people who don't speak English as a first language.. so disablist and racist, nice! '


truly obscene, how can they sleep at night

btw, can this excellent thread go in politics, its not about protest...
 
ymu said:
It's all part of the same thing. The so-called healthcare professionals working for Atos are subject to the same pressures to deny people benefits.
Click to expand...

Just what I was reading.
I've decided that they will have to come to me, so I'm seeing my doc next week to get a letter saying that I can't travel.
I'll also have a friend to assist and write notes - I need the support and also a witness.
My doc will be furious about all this ATOS bollocks!
 
''The coalition's creed is looking less like the liberalism that it proclaims, and more like a desiccated libertarianism – which talks up the freedoms of people with means, and hurls those with none to the dogs.'


The Guardian bares some teeth at last
 
treelover said:
'Also the person interviewed admitted the staff will pick on people with learning disabilities and people who don't speak English as a first language.. so disablist and racist, nice! '


truly obscene, how can they sleep at night

btw, can this excellent thread go in politics, its not about protest...
Click to expand...

The thread was moved from General into P&P because it initiated ideas for protest and needed to be visible to people without a log-in.

I have no idea why you would object to it being in protest when you spend most of your time whinging about the lack of action on these issues.
 
Paulie Tandoori said:
They've admitted now, bunch of bastards

The government has admitted that jobcentre staff around the country have been involved in a drive to kick people off benefits amid pressure to meet welfare targets set by their managers.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) initially dismissed revelations in the Guardian last weekend that Jobcentre Plus employees were tricking vulnerable claimants into losing their welfare entitlements. A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months.

Grauniad
Click to expand...

The DWP has backtracked and released a statement confirming the practice had been going on in some offices due to a misunderstanding between the department and some jobcentre managers. It insisted this was no longer the case.

"A few weeks ago ministers discovered that their message to be clearer about conditionality had been misinterpreted by a small number of Jobcentre Plus offices who had imposed targets for the number of sanction referrals. These targets were immediately removed.

"We are clear that there is no wrong or right level of how many sanctions an office should make and they should only be made where people have not adhered to their jobseeker obligations. We have already taken rapid steps to reinforce this message to our staff. Ministers would not countenance any target for sanctioning customers."
Click to expand...

Errr..... BOLLOCKS, there was NO misunderstanding, the targets were part of PA competencies and part of their annual review. Staff were hauled into offices to explain why they hadn't sanction their targets. Let's make NO mistake it's NO misunderstanding. Indeed only recently they accepted that there should be no individual target but instead an office target.... It's a bare faced lie and they know PCS and staff have the e-mail and written evidence to show this.

"A few weeks ago ministers discovered that their message to be clearer about conditionality had been misinterpreted by a small number of Jobcentre Plus offices who had imposed targets for the number of sanction referrals. These targets were immediately removed.
Click to expand...

No, what was removed-certainly in regards to staff in offices near where I work-was targets for individual members of staff, offices meanwhile, still had a target that staff were/expected to 'contribute to'. This isn't a lie so much as a rather evasive answer.

"We are clear that there is no wrong or right level of how many sanctions an office should make and they should only be made where people have not adhered to their jobseeker obligations. We have already taken rapid steps to reinforce this message to our staff. Ministers would not countenance any target for sanctioning customers."
Click to expand...

Well if there is no wrong or right level perhaps they can explain why staff have been criticised by managers for not hitting those levels?
We are now in a position where targets 'do not exist' but where staff will be criticised for not achieving those non-existent targets, because, in all but name targets DO exist. Ministers DID countenance targets, knew they exosted, knew they were part of PA competencies and lied when asked about their existence.
 
Broken of Britain are running #tag campaign on Twitter for the next couple of days, for any clicktivists with a few seconds to spare.

#dwp45

#fitforwork
 
treelover said:
will the PCS strike be partly about these conditions?
Click to expand...

The strike on 18th April? Not so much, however i'm pretty sure the increased attacks on sickness will have been part of the strike vote. These measures got worse yesterday when they arbitrarily removed extra days before disciplinary procedures begin for all those except those classed as disabled. However the definition of who is disabled and who makes that decision is as yet unexplained. The strike is about the minute time management of staff in these centres including the imposition of a certain amount of time to use the toilet.....
 
It's a total fucker. Every second on a shift you have to type a code into the phone to account for your activites - too much time in one code and the managers are straight on you. It's awful for morale and something worth striking for imo. We never had strikes but that might be because everyone was on flimsy contracts rather than the union (CWU) being useless. Anyway good luck with it all.
 
tar1984 said:
Call-centres have had this for years.
Click to expand...

Some JCP call, sorry contact centre managers jump on people after 12 and a half minutes away from their desks for 'comfort' breaks. IN A WORKING DAY! So, if you've got the shits these days your fit enough to be at work but when you turn up we'll sack you for having a shit or two.
 
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