Universal Jobmatch

[antone]

i am not in receipt of any benefits

 

may i ask what DMA is, you said she was going to refer you

 

DMA is Decision Making and Appeals, the DWP section that decides whether or not sanctions should be applied for this sort of thing. In the case San_d described, it was clearly being used as an empty threat.

[ismael urzaiz]

signed this morning.it's mandatory from Monday.i mentioned ticking the box so they can't see what i've done,my advisor who's very nice by the way.more or less said a sanction doubt would be raised.

[RebeccaPidgeon]

signed this morning.it's mandatory from Monday.i mentioned ticking the box so they can't see what i've done,my advisor who's very nice by the way.more or less said a sanction doubt would be raised.

It has yet to be established that creating an account within Universal Job Match is mandatory, or whether staff are giving the impression that it is going to be mandatory. In any event, the tickbox is irrelevant given that, in creating an account, the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Agreement which candidates must accept gives the authority to the DWP to disseminate Account Information to any designated party.

[ismael urzaiz]

3]It has yet to be established that creating an account within Universal Job Match is mandatory[/b]' date=' or whether staff are giving the impression that it is going to be mandatory. In any event, the tickbox is irrelevant given that, in creating an account, the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Agreement which candidates must accept gives the authority to the DWP to disseminate Account Information to any designated party.[/quote']

 

 

my advisor said it was and if i wanted to see his supervisor to confirm it he'd call him over..as i said he's sound so i never pushed it any further.. i know this lad from outside the jobcentre so i totally believe what he was saying...

Edited February 13, 2013 by ismael urzaiz

[Vincent Buenisides]

signed this morning.it's mandatory from Monday.i mentioned ticking the box so they can't see what i've done,my advisor who's very nice by the way.more or less said a sanction doubt would be raised.

On what grounds could a sanction doubt be raised? It's this kind of nonsense that's got the DWP in trouble over the Poundland business: Quickly rushing out statutes and regulations without checking the actual legalility of them.

[RebeccaPidgeon]

my advisor said it was and if i wanted to see his supervisor to confirm it he'd call him over..as i said he's sound so i never pushed it any further.. i know this lad from outside the jobcentre so i totally believe what he was saying...

There is, of course, nothing to stop a candidate from using Universal Job Match as a Job Search Portal, and having found a number of job leads, then proceed to apply for each, whilst maintaining a Job Search Record.

 

According to the Universal Job Match Toolkit, reported by the PCS Union most recently updated 17 Jan 2013

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/department_for_work_and_pensions_group/dwp-news.cfm/id/78E359C6-7B09-4FC6-98EBD4696432C199

 

Jobseeker Directions and Mandatory Use of UJ

PCS was aware that, despite assurances otherwise from the UJ project of DWP, management in some jobcentre districts were instructing advisers to tell claimants that UJ is mandatory and access must given to the DWP.

 

As a result of legal challenges and negative press attention, DWP have revised the guidance on UJ to make it clear that this cannot be done. The UJ Jobmatch toolkit chapter 3, paragraph 50, states: “You cannot issue a Jobseeker’s Direction to either require a claimant to create a profile and CV in Universal Jobmatch or to mandate a claimant to give us access to their account – this is their decision not ours.” Paragraph 52 also states that “We cannot specify to a JSA claimant how they provide us with records of their jobsearch activity and Universal Jobmatch will not change this.”

 

PCS is awaiting clarification from DWP management on the status of the many Jobseeker Directions that were incorrectly issued to claimants before the guidance was clarified. PCS members should contact their local representative to challenge any instruction to inform claimants that the use of UJ or access to it is mandatory.

 

Although it may be mandatory to create a UJ Account, and a JCS Advisor may aggressively suggest that it is mandatory, calling into the discussion any number of Supervisors and Managers, it may not be... and Managers may simply be responding to the pressure which is being placed on them from their Managers to coerce as many candidates as possible to sign up to UJ.

[flumps1976]

I have the email printed in front of me however in light of the court proceeding regarding the recent work experience the madation to use UJM has been put back until sometime in March now.

Jobseekers will be required to register an account and use that for their job search however it will not be mandatory to provide permission for the DWP to vuew the account the same as it is now, but the customer will be required to print off evidence of job search especially to show if matched vacancies have been given by te adviser to prove that an application was made and by what method on what date.

[Hacked_Off]

Turning into a bit of a shambles this isn't it?! Roll on September when i start university!!

[dyfed]

Could someone please let me know how you could be forced into signing up to UJM if you have no computer and cant use one?

It wouldnt be right to sanction me if I just cant manage to learn how to use a computer. Also who pays for phone line, broadband, computer, printer and ink? I dont get enough to pay for all of that.

[flumps1976]

You will be booked to a local facility or one of the internet access devices within the JCP and an account will be set up with you by your adviser (if on work program the providers will do this with you).

Further details will be made available closer to the time.

[SWLABR9]

but the customer will be required to print off evidence of job search especially to show if matched vacancies have been given by te adviser to prove that an application was made and by what method on what date.

Flumpster, does that mean emailing screenshots is out of the question? That's a lot of printing for poor folk to afford.

[SWLABR9]

You will be booked to a local facility or one of the internet access devices within the JCP and an account will be set up with you by your adviser (if on work program the providers will do this with you).

Further details will be made available closer to the time.

Haw haw... you know what that means? They Don't Know! They have no real idea of how this is going to work themselves and that's why it keeps getting put back and put back. Apparently they're going to have disabled and sick going theough all this too, Freud's just stood in the House of Lords and announced that while WCA appellants are waiting for their reconsideration they won't get ESA at all, not even at the basic rate, so people will have to claim JSA while they're waiting. Does this mean for them it won't be conditional as it normally would be? Nobody knows! It's an absolute shambles and it's going to get ten times worse after April when all these new laws kick in.

[dyfed]

You will be booked to a local facility or one of the internet access devices within the JCP and an account will be set up with you by your adviser (if on work program the providers will do this with you).

Further details will be made available closer to the time.

 

Thanks for the answer.

I take it then that someone who cant use a computer physicaly or through lack of computer skills will have one to one help throughout the use of UJM? Like at every visit?

 

I cant wait to watch them pull their hair out when I press delete instead of enter lol

 

It will use up a lot of man power having someone hold the hands of those who cant use a computer.

 

Anyway thanks again and look forward to the next government shambles.

[flumps1976]

Hey I'm not an adviser and am doing my best to try and give the answers to the questions that people ask.

 

As I have stated before I have to be extremely careful about what can and cannot be posted sorry.

 

With regards to the emailing of a screen shot I don't know as details haven't been posted to those of us who happen to work in the offices where the work is actually done, you can always ask your adviser if that would be sufficent but in all honesty I don't know, the advisory team are informed of these changes sooner than the rest of us who work in the JCP offices, the email that initially went out to advise that guidance was being changed (not finalised but due to be) was sent to the advisory team before being sent to the rest of the office. I posted on here to say that an email had been sent out and I hadn't had time to read it as I had to leave to collect my children from school and because I could specifically say yes from this date and under tese regs a few posters didn't believe me.

That is their choice of course but I'll be damned if I put myself through that again.

I can only advise that any questions that you have are directed to your advisor as it doesn't appear that I can answer questions on this without causing more problems which is not what I want to do.

[RebeccaPidgeon]

Originally Posted by flumps1976

but the customer will be required to print off evidence of job search especially to show if matched vacancies have been given by te adviser to prove that an application was made and by what method on what date.

Flumpster, does that mean emailing screenshots is out of the question? That's a lot of printing for poor folk to afford.

There remains some confusion over what Universal Job Match represents. Although, upon creating an account in Universal Job Match, candidates may be matched to Job Leads according to any number of factors (including automatic matching, personal choice, through the intervention of Delegated Authorities - such Admin Staff within JCP and plebs within the W2W Sector), there is no guarantee at the time of being matched to a specific job lead that each one represents a legitimate vacancy which may be applied for.

 

Candidates, upon creating an account within UJ, must agree to both Terms and Conditions and Privacy Conditions, within which the Monster Corporation explicitly makes it clear that they do not accept responsibility or liability for incorrect information on any external website. Ignoring such trivial concerns as the Data Protection Act, Cookies Policy etc, the reality is that candidates may be matched to job leads which do not exist. In some cases, if the candidate has to apply via an external Jobs Aggregator, then if a message is generated "the closing date for this vacancy has been passed" or "Error 404", the candidate may not even be able to confirm the name of the employer. Although an employer/agency may post a vacancy through any number of outlets, including Universal Job Match, they may pull the vacancy when filled (without reporting the matter to JCP or withdrawing the vacancy from UJ), or may even post incorrect information on UJ. This happened under the previous arrangement, and is nothing new.

 

Unfortunately for the candidate, if the DWP presumes that each Job Lead represents a legitimate vacancy, and the candidate has been matched to any number of Job Leads, if the candidate cannot prove that they have applied for each and every Job Lead, a sanction doubt will be raised.

 

Universal Job Match could become a good, great or even excellent system, if only for the fact that it remains a "work in progress", has not been fully tested, and neither the Job Seeker nor JCP Staff should be party to an alpha phase testing strategy.

Edited February 14, 2013 by RebeccaPidgeon
Additional Information Submitted

[jasta11]

The problem - when UJ becomes mandatory - will be the Jobcentre's usual policy of seeing everything in pure black and white; either you applied for the job or you didn't (and it doesn't matter about 'trivial' reasons like the vacancy not being genuine, the vacancy having expired, you applied via another route, the website not working, etc).

 

During my time with them, they've shown almost total inflexibility..even when they're aware of the rules, which most times they aren't.

 

I can see advisors - who always claim to be 'pushed for time' - quickly scanning someone's jobsearch record on UJ and hitting the 'refer for sanction' button at the first sign of apparent non-compliance. As usual, shoot first then cry 'Halt!' later. We're going to have to be on our toes to keep on top of them!

 

In an ideal world, I have a lovely mental picture of an advisor checking their pay at the end of the month and finding they're 2 weeks short. Upon questioning their manager, they're told 'Oh, you gave incorrect advice to a claimant so you've been sanctioned 2 weeks pay - didn't anyone bother to tell you then?'.

 

Seems quite fair to me

[bialoman]

It's the 18th of Feb on Monday, what's the latest on this? I take it it's not mandatory as was posted a few pages back?

[RebeccaPidgeon]

It's the 18th of Feb on Monday, what's the latest on this? I take it it's not mandatory as was posted a few pages back?

Another false start .... put back for a month or so, perhaps never.

[postggj]

Not going off topic

 

Is Universal Credit still being introduced on April 1st (April fools day) or has it been put back again, and again, and again

[sillygirl1]

I had a laugh this morning, the email from the UJM system (which was picking up on some skills I deleted due to my lack of experience in those skills) ended up in my Spam folder!

 

None of the jobs were suitable as I haven't used the particular systems for four years now.

 

I was well peeved on Monday when I went to the UJM centre, and apparently my feedback has been noted. I told my adviser I now know NOT to make any appointments in town on the day I see them as I've only been seen once on time. Just as well I don't have kids to pick up or car parking charges to worry about.

[bialoman]

Ah ok, thank Rebecca.

 

Didn't someone with links to DWP say it was.

 

What a disastrous week for the government/DWP -the bedroom tax, back to work scheme hitting the headlines and the horse meat (so much their fault) but still its in the news.

[ajax95]

Advisor I saw today struggled to get into UJM himself...

 

He did however pass me a vacancy for a shop supervisor. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for thinking outside the box, but I doubt the shop in question will want someone who's been an administrator since the early 90s with very little retail experience, let alone little experience of supervising anyone

[Guest]

shambles

[biggeorge]

Anyone else get the DWP letter now called: Schemes for Assisting Persons to Obtain Employment.

 

Anyone know now if we can claim back the payments we were sanctioned for since they had no right

to stop the payments since the so called Scheme/s were illegal?

 

May just write into DWP asking for the 4 weeks Sanction payments I lost in December, see what they say.

 

George

[stikky62]

Anyone else get the DWP letter now called: Schemes for Assisting Persons to Obtain Employment.

I think everyone on WP would have got that letter George. Apart from the new scheme we're all apparently taking part in now, they like to remind you regularly that they will sanction you given half a chance.

 

Anyone know now if we can claim back the payments we were sanctioned for since they had no right

to stop the payments since the so called Scheme/s were illegal?

I'm guessing not a hope in hell...

 

May just write into DWP asking for the 4 weeks Sanction payments I lost in December, see what they say.

 

George

...but good luck with that ;-)

 

 

edit: Oh, there's a 'work program letter' thread. Yep, looks like we all got the warning,,,erm, letter.