DWP lost case on work programme legality but are appealing

[daveydavey]

She's taking the Gov't to Court - best of luck !

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16039599

[daggersedge]

Well I hope she loses. I listened to the interview and it was clear that she only wanted to work in a museum and if she didn't get that, then she didn't want to work. I'm afraid that she is being too picky and she needs to learn that she isn't entitled to the job of her choice.

 

She said that she had gained no relevant skills when she worked for Poundland; I agree, because she should have learned that she can't have everything her way and that would have been a valuable lesson. What gives her the right to demand that taxpayers subsidise her until she finds her dream job?

 

She doesn't seem to realise that her JSA money doesn't get into her pocket by magic: other people have to get up and go to jobs - jobs that may very well not be their dream jobs - and work so that quite a bit of their money can be taken from them in taxes and given to ungrateful people like her.

 

Instead of spending her time on lawsuits, she should be looking for work and doing everything she can to get a job, any job.

Edited December 6, 2011 by daggersedge
Corrected a spelling error

[Conniff]

We we we, she, has been put up to this by some anti conservative or anti government group.

 

'uman rights strikes again.

 

She was getting paid, she was receiving her JSA.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Conniff

[count orlok]

Next thing she'll be claiming is she's too good to clean toilets. Some are lucky and do jobs they like but most are not and have to do jobs that they hate. I didn't like my job, but carried on doing it till it crippled me. I then went to University and got a diploma, only to be told by an A4e job advisor that all my qualifications where worthless. I couldn't stack shelves, and had to go through the humiliation of many DWP medicals to get benefits.

[Nystagmite]

Well I hope she loses. I listened to the interview and it was clear that she only wanted to work in a museum and if she didn't get that, then she didn't want to work. I'm afraid that she is being too picky and she needs to learn that she isn't entitled to the job of her choice.

 

I don't understand why some people think that once they come out of uni, they'll walk straight into a decent highly paid job.

[Surfer01]

I qualified with a HND in Tourism and a BA(Hons) in Business Studies, but could not get a job in the tourism sector so went to work for a utility company as a clerk and rose quickly through the ranks. My first pay increase was £3000 per annum with promotion.

[antone]

Well, since she's under 25, she gets about £53 per week in JSA. Her age isn't specified, but since she's a graduate we'll assume she's over 21.

 

So NMW is £6.08 per hour. 53/6.08 = 8.7. So let's hope she's not being forced to work more than 9 or so hours per week.

[count orlok]

The minimum wage does not apply to people being forced to work for their benefits.

[Nystagmite]

She could also be getting council tax and housing benefits, which may well push her up to NMW of 25 hours a week or so

[Conniff]

She isn't being forced to do anything. She is putting something back the the handout she is getting.

[Nystagmite]

Since when was someone forced to claim JSA?

[antone]

The minimum wage does not apply to people being forced to work for their benefits.

 

I realise that, I'm more commenting on what the law should be, rather than what it actually is. It's not clear to me why companies such as Poundland should be gifted cheap labour at the expense of the taxpayer. If they have a job that needs to be done, they should pay someone to do it. I'd have absolutely no problem telling this young woman that she must accept this job or be subject to sanction.

[Conniff]

I realise that, I'm more commenting on what the law should be, rather than what it actually is. It's not clear to me why companies such as Poundland should be gifted cheap labour at the expense of the taxpayer. If they have a job that needs to be done, they should pay someone to do it. I'd have absolutely no problem telling this young woman that she must accept this job or be subject to sanction.

 

 

I couldn't agree more. And the JSA stopped while they are in this temp employment learning lifeskills.

[antone]

She isn't being forced to do anything. She is putting something back the the handout she is getting.

 

I'd feel easier about things if she was working for a charity. It's the fact that, well, why should companies like Poundland ever be motivated to create actual jobs if the government will supply cheap labour? Something about this makes me deeply uneasy.

[Conniff]

I think it has always been like this, the government has these ideas but never follows them through to the end.

[antone]

I couldn't agree more. And the JSA stopped while they are in this temp employment learning lifeskills.

 

Agreed - if she's being paid NMW then she is, in effect, working, and so should not receive JSA. Or rather, the employment should be subject to the normal JSA rules - £5 disregard, no more than 16 hours, and so on.

[Conniff]

She's taking the Gov't to Court - best of luck !

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16039599

 

Something tells me the OP was hoping for more sympathetic replies.

[honeybee13]

Something tells me the OP was hoping for more sympathetic replies.

 

And then the over 25 brigade turned up . Deepest apologies to anyone lucky enough to be younger than that.

 

My best, HB

[antone]

I think it has always been like this, the government has these ideas but never follows them through to the end.

 

Definitely. The stuff I've seen from my time at DWP and the stories told here...well, I've spent a lot of time pondering these things over the years. And IMO you're right - a problem is identified, a half-baked solution poorly implemented, things get no better, the Daily Mail howls about how scroungers cause cancer, lather, rinse, repeat.

 

It seems to me that there's a fundamental disconnect. Two things are asserted simultaneously: a) that there are jobs available if claimants would just look hard enough; and b) that companies which don't create jobs are entitled to government-subsidised forced labour in order to make up the shortfalls in their workforce.

[sfuk]

I wish the ex student the best. When you go to university, you work your backside off and like most graduates she has been forced to claim JSA. Whilst I accept that she should be made to work for her benefits, I don't accept that she should be made to work for a chain who's sole purpose is to make profit. The main product of this is greed. It is more viable for a business to refuse to employ and get handouts from the government as free labour then it is for them to take someone on.

 

Personally I worked for 10 years before going to university and getting qualified and at the end of it there was no job to answer for. The government have to be partly responsible for this as they have these half baked schemes giving out free labour. If the student had been taken through all levels including management then she would have gotten something out of it and i could have agreed with the scheme. She was however used as a general dogsbody which is wrong.

 

Students dont come out of uni expecting to walk straight into a highly paid job and in her case if she was placed in a museum, she could have helped ease the councils economic worries and thus helped to reduce the council tax!!!

[daggersedge]

I wish the ex student the best. When you go to university, you work your backside off and like most graduates she has been forced to claim JSA. Whilst I accept that she should be made to work for her benefits, I don't accept that she should be made to work for a chain who's sole purpose is to make profit. The main product of this is greed. It is more viable for a business to refuse to employ and get handouts from the government as free labour then it is for them to take someone on.

 

Personally I worked for 10 years before going to university and getting qualified and at the end of it there was no job to answer for. The government have to be partly responsible for this as they have these half baked schemes giving out free labour. If the student had been taken through all levels including management then she would have gotten something out of it and i could have agreed with the scheme. She was however used as a general dogsbody which is wrong.

 

Students dont come out of uni expecting to walk straight into a highly paid job and in her case if she was placed in a museum, she could have helped ease the councils economic worries and thus helped to reduce the council tax!!!

 

 

The point is that she clearly only wanted to work in a museum. That was it. It didn't matter whether there were jobs available for her in museum: that is what she wanted and she wasn't willing to accept anything else. Now if she wasn't accepting money from taxpayers, then that would be fine; she can be as picky as she likes if she is footing the bill. She isn't footing the bill, however; she is expecting taxpayers to subsidise her until she finds her dream job and that just isn't right.

 

It is rare, even in good economic times, for someone to find his dream job straight out of university. Most people have to accept something else and work towards their aspiration. That's just the way of the world. As I said before, you can't have everything you want and this woman needs to learn that lesson.

[Surfer01]

BTW who pays for the transport to and from work as surely this cannot come out of the JSA payment?

[flowerchild]

As usual, the government is trying the easy solutions rather than going to the heart of the problem. Yes, there are a lot of people on benefits, yes, it costs the country a lot, yes, it's not fair on those who work and pay taxes BUT the crux of the problem is that there aren't enough jobs for everyone, simples!

 

If you have 10 kids and just 7 toys then some are not going to get anything this Xmas, you may try to tell some of them they've been naughty and won't be getting anything or tell some they're too old for toys, or send them over to their gran's, or make any other excuse but when it comes down to it, it's not the kids fault, there just aren't enough toys!

 

Have you guys seen the ad for Resolva weed killer which says "this perennial weed will grow again and again..." then goes on to say "kill the root, kill the weed"? That sums it all up, the governments 'measures' don't go to the root of the problem!

 

It's all well and good to 'clamp down on scroungers', investigate everyone for potential benefit fraud and employ a private company to fail most ESA assessments but that doesn't go to the root of the problem and, like the weed, it will come back again and again!

 

Rather than coming up with ways to deprive people of benefits the government should first concentrate on job creation, offer incentives to small businesses and restrict the expansion of big chains like Poundland and many others that are killing independent businesses. What can the owners of businesses that have gone bust do? Claim benefits of course!

 

When you are claiming benefits all they focus on is trying to get you off their books so they can say they are getting people back to work, however, the so-called 'training and development' opportunities just aren't there! Their programs only really address the needs of teenage school leavers rather than graduates and older adults and there's virtually nothing to encourage entrepreneurship or self-employment. On the contrary, self-employed people are routinely subjected to investigation and interviews under caution.

 

If they are going to force people to work for their benefits (which I believe goes against the idea of a safety net) then it should be on community projects, etc. Why not get grads with relevant skills to work for CABs for example? rather than shutting them down or reducing opening hours...

 

It's high time this country woke up and smelled the coffee: Unrestrained US style capitalism just doesn't work! Without government intervention to the tune of nearly $1tn (which is totally against the principles of unrestrained capitalism), that system would have been dead in the water 3 years ago!

 

Time to admit responsibility for the situation we're in rather than blaming the 'scroungers'!

[daggersedge]

Yes, the government is looking for an easy solution, but you, too, flowerchild, are doing the same thing. Yes, not everyone on benefits is a scrounger, but many people - on and off benefits - were perfectly happy to vote in government after government that promised them easy solutions to difficult problems. Did any of these voters question these 'solutions'? Did they ever question the availability of easy credit while wages stagnated, for instance? Or were they just happy to live for today, just as the government is? Certainly the tabloids just want to stir up problems with their stories, but who buys these newspapers, or, otherwise said, who is it that keeps them in business?

 

You say the government should be doing this, that, and the other thing. What about asking people to do things for themselves, too? No-one is forced to buy anything in Poundland, for instance, so if people want small shops to stay open, all they have to do is shun the big chains. They don't, though, do they? When the small businesses close down, they scream that it is all the government's fault. Some of the blame lies with the government, but some of the blame also lies with the people.

 

The reason I even responded on this thread is that the woman who is suing the government really just gets to me. She has a dream, fine, but why does the government have to give it to her? Why can't she work at, say, a supermarket, while looking for jobs at a museum? She didn't say that there were no jobs, just that she wasn't in her dream job. She just wants everyone to pay for her dreams and I don't see why anyone should have to do so.

 

Look, the government is made up of people and they are human; it's not sane to ask them to be some sort of gods. They will make mistakes, they will live for the short-term, they will do stupid things. It is wiser, therefore, not to put yourself entirely at the mercy of the government. People should work harder to improve themselves and their society.

[Nystagmite]

Rather than coming up with ways to deprive people of benefits

 

How are they doing this? (for JSA, I mean)