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Me and My Various Benefit Claims and issues


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I have my next advisor meeting on Tuesday, no idea what for next. Then apparently i'll be assigned to a proper PWP advisor and still have to continue signing on. Hopefully it won't be every week....

 

The PWP advisors I've seen are far more easy going and pleasant than the regular 'signing on' clerks. I think in some respects all they're really doing is just checking on you and being seen to be doing something with you. If you come across as being organised and doing all you can to find work (or at least looking like you are) then the interviews are a formality.

 

I still see claimants turning up for their interviews with no jobsearch evidence and a surly manner - definitely not the way to go.

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It's been the opposite apart from one guy who was decent

 

Many here have no people skills and are bullying petty and useless and trying to actively sanction you

I have heard the word "sanction" more with them in the past 5 or 6 months then the previous 2 years of WP

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This is what annoys me constantly - every advisor should be singing off the same hymn sheet but we all know they aren't. What's perfectly acceptable to one is not what is acceptable to another.

 

This nit-picking by them is why I use Reed and CV-Library - not so much because they're any good but simply because every job you apply for is listed and dated and a print-out of the 'My Applications' section contains all the hard evidence the JC need. Make it a point to always click on a couple of vacancies every day - including weekends - from both sites and at the end of the fortnight you have at least 50 jobs applications to show them, all nicely detailed and dated.

 

It's the quantity they're after, not the quality - they usually just glance at them. If I'm in a bad mood I make them sign and date every sheet as being acceptable :)

 

I'm actually thinking of adding a line to every page of evidence I submit saying something like 'I hereby certify that the Jobseekers Agreement requirements have been met for this period *signed & dated by advisor*.'

 

This is why i made this thread, because like you said from one to the next things can differ and you can end up sanctioned. Another reason I don't like UJ you see, they use it to effectively spy on you and I don't want to give them more ways to say oh look you didn't do that thing sanction.... even if you have applied for jobs and provided sufficient evidence.

 

Also why I was concerned by the UJ point on my claimant commitment, technically if I don't check UJ they can sanction me, at least that's how I see it.

 

They also havn't changed my Jobseekers agreement, it say's it is still same as it was when I first claimed which is like 3 jobs a week lol. I mean I do apply for more anyway but that was interesting thing I noticed.

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My 'adviser' at INGEUS actually said to my face "there is not much we can do with you as you are job ready so simply carry on what you are doing and something will happen" They have realised I do not need help with my CV (done professionally) and I even wrote a covering letter for a job with my adviser last week who said it was spot on for the advertised job. I need no help with interview skills as I have been interviewed many times in front of panels of people as well as interviewed candidates myself. Basically my time there is pointless as I am set up fully at home with IT to apply for jobs properly and have my own folders set up for applications, letters and CV's. The reason I have been out of work for just over a year is not because I am not trying or being lazy but because THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH JOBS and I reckon most of the ones I apply for are fake of auto-rejected.

 

I am now on my 5th visit to INGEUS and my 'adviser' puts me down for fortnightly appointments as any more than that is pointless as she knows how committed I am as my diary/tracker is in WORD, in a smart table with full contact details, a column/row for each date I have done something and around 15-20 applications per fortnight some taking 2-3 hours to do because I actually do want the job rather than applying for the sake of it.

 

These WP schemes have been set up as a tick box exercise and should be for people that need the additional support. People who are job ready should simply be allowed to sign on every fortnight and be allowed to get on with looking for work as they are the ones (like me) that want to work and get off this inhumane system of JSA and WP providers.

 

As (so far) they have left me alone as I really think they are struggling to know what to do with me I treat it as a free day out in town paid for by INGEUS as they pay for travel. Go for coffee, some lunch and get the fare paid and simply go for my 30 min appointment, nod my head blah blah blah and get out for another 2 weeks.

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Read the attached case law to have evidence and understand that by law you do not have to do the number of steps and each activity listed in your Jobseeker's Agreement.

 

A print out given to the JCP manager in case your adviser is troublesome will save you from a sanction for "not actively seeking employment".

 

I've been on PWPS for two months now and you need to know the law and their internal guidance / policy to save yourself from unfair sanctions.

 

This case law made my day. Save the file now in case you can not find this thread later.

 

CJSA/1814/2007

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]49809[/ATTACH]

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In CJSA/1814/2007 Mr Commissioner Williams held that taking three adequate steps per week which give you the best prospect of finding employment is enough by law: the DWP's decision to sanction for not doing what is agreed in Jobseeker's Agreement was overturned.

 

JCP staff is not likely to know case law and they get bonuses for sanctioning you so it is your job to inform them and retweet this file all around Britain to prevent unfair sanctions.

 

Seen it on RightsNet that Agreement has no real legal status and at appeals they use CJSA/1814/2007 to knock down sanctions for not actively seeking employment.

 

You got written evidence that you took your three adequate weekly steps to secure employment and you have knowledge of the above law and convincing power / rhetoric abilities to talk advisers / JCP managers out of referring you for sanction doubt: you will keep your JSA allowance.

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These WP schemes have been set up as a tick box exercise and should be for people that need the additional support. People who are job ready should simply be allowed to sign on every fortnight and be allowed to get on with looking for work as they are the ones (like me) that want to work and get off this inhumane system of JSA and WP providers.

 

Amen to that! Agree totally.

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Read the attached case law to have evidence and understand that by law you do not have to do the number of steps and each activity listed in your Jobseeker's Agreement.

 

A print out given to the JCP manager in case your adviser is troublesome will save you from a sanction for "not actively seeking employment".

 

I've been on PWPS for two months now and you need to know the law and their internal guidance / policy to save yourself from unfair sanctions.

 

This case law made my day. Save the file now in case you can not find this thread later.

 

CJSA/1814/2007

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]49809[/ATTACH]

 

That's an excellent document - I've added it to my collection. We all know how ambiguous the JC can be when 'inventing' JS Agreements and it's high time they were taken to task about it. Fortunately my own JSAg only contains about 3 activites anyway but I'll be quoting this letter if they ever try and increase it.

 

The wording of my own JSAg actually doesn't require me to apply for jobs if you interpret it at face value. It merely asks me to 'look' or 'check' or 'use'.

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I am on month 8 after the work programme, I attend the job centre on my sign on days to which I also see my advisor (if you can call them that? ) my advisor is okay...ish, they have their moments when you can tell their boss is on their back as that is when she tries to get me on another course, like this week when I signed on she told me her boss is on her back to get things moving and she is trying to get me to go on a 3 week full day course to which I will get a guaranteed job interview at the end of it (it's a job I want guaranteed not interviews I can get them myself)......this is the same course she sent me on at the beginning of this year which I couldn't do as had just had surgery and the guy running the course said no days could be missed and I still had follow up appointments with the hospital. Again the day this course starts this time, I have a hospital appointment, she said she needs proof of this and needs to see my hospital letter (even though the course isn't mandatory until you are signed up on it (which I am not) my advisor and I both had the same kind of surgery (in fact me telling her about mine, made her go ask her GP about her problem) she let me have 4 days off sick to recover from my surgery, she took two weeks.....I was made to travel in to sign on while still recovering from the operation.

 

 

I now have just found out I have Vertigo and when I mentioned this to my advisor, she looked at me as if I was making it up and asked how I had got it.....now I am no Doctor but even I know you don't catch Vertigo so how she expected me to answer that I don't know.

She also told me that at the end of this month, they are changing the rules and post work programme claimants will either have to come and sign on daily or do community work ( I know we have all heard this rumour for a while yet she said it is starting end of month?) no idea if this is true of just a scare tactic on her part to try and get me to agree to go on courses etc.

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Come in and sign on daily? Yes, very productive when searching for work. Presumably they will also be paying your 5 days a week return fares to do this? If not then tell them to stick it (in a more polite manner of course)

 

As for community work, well don't you know how beneficial it will be for you to stand in a charity shop watching old hags rummaging through other people's junk? Yes, it is a great incentive to get you back to work, all heil our great leader IDS!

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Come in and sign on daily? Yes, very productive when searching for work. Presumably they will also be paying your 5 days a week return fares to do this? If not then tell them to stick it (in a more polite manner of course)

 

As for community work, well don't you know how beneficial it will be for you to stand in a charity shop watching old hags rummaging through other people's junk? Yes, it is a great incentive to get you back to work, all heil our great leader IDS!

 

 

 

 

The funny thing is I did voluntary work few years back, worked for a year and a half for free, the JC made me leave in the end as they said it got in the way of me looking for paid work....fast forward few years and now they want us all to do that.....plus if we have to sign on daily, it will cost them a hell of a lot more for all our travel expenses, it would be nearly £4 a day for my fares. how does IDS think that is a good way to save on welfare (he is so deluded)

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Matt, that's not a very kind way of describing either the staff or the customers of charity shops.

 

I think they have their place, especially as a form of recycling in this day and age. Have you ever been to one?

 

If I see this again, I shall remove it.

 

HB

Illegitimi non carborundum

 

 

 

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I like charity shops, they seem to have 'upped' their image a lot these days - must have bought hundreds of shirts from them over the years and I love a browse through old books and annuals; got a brand new aviation hardback book a few weeks ago for £3; price inside the jacket was £25. Result!

 

Doing a bit of work in a charity shop got me nicely out of 3 months with the dreaded A4e. I took the placement simply to avoid going there every day and because the shop was 5 feet from my normal bus stop in town - very handy. As I hadn't done retail work before I had a hard job convincing the A4e advisor to put me on the placement - usually we're trying to talk them out of putting us on placements.

 

I didn't expect much but the people in the shop were great and it was a very happy and informal atmosphere - plus I scored for a lot of good stuff as the staff had first pick, which included brand new end-of-line clothes donated from the big stores (I never knew that stores did that). Just wish they'd been able to offer me a paid, permanent position; I'd have taken it like a shot. Made a nice change from the front-line admin jobs I've had in the past..I prefer a quieter life these days :)

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So i've had 4 advisor meetings so far, after my first advisor meeting just asked about ingeus and my cv's etc and I updated my C.V for next meeting just gave me some advice / changes to make. She then booked me to my "proper" pwp advisor, so I went in and got told I had the wrong advisor she just told me to register with recruitment agencies and now i've seen someone else so all In all so far i've seen 3 diffent advisors already lol. Not much has changed, I'm going in weekly at the moment hopefully they won't see fit to up it to more and waste my time. But so far nothing interesting has happened really just generic stuff.

 

I'm being sent to some mandatory works day or something like that but that is about it so far.

 

PWP really seems like a total mess so far all I'm predicting is I carry on as normal except I get sent on pointless courses. But we will see.

 

They've also given up with universal jobmatch it seems only mentioned it in brief passing. I provide email printouts as I don't want to give them more ammo to use against me in some kind of form, I guess i'm just being paranoid.

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Update - Still on the PWP nonsense

Had a review with another lady a few weeks ago where I was forced to go for jobs of p/t hours and nothing to do with the areas of work I normally seek

The person was 15 minutes late and didn't even have the basic courtesy to apologise, she also tried to blame me for being unemployed

Next to me the interviewer was trying to claim the person wasn't committed to job seeking as he had no phone number on his UJM CV and stuff like about emails etc

Seems like the new way is to blame the unemployed and not the employers plus one other PWP staff member had a go at an unemployed person for wearing casual clothes and not shaving that day and then he criticised him for not having phone credit and a £20 smoking habit

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They sound a wonderful lot at your JC, Chester!

 

I'm well past the 6 month PWP mark now and they admit they haven't a clue what to do next so are just keeping it going - they call me in for a brief 1-to-1 every 6 weeks or so but they always seem happy with what I'm doing. I think I've been very lucky in getting decent advisers rather than 'stick 'em all on a course' types.

 

Pity that casually-dressed customer hadn't recorded the adviser being abusive - would have made one hell of a good complaint.

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Tell me about it - same guy berating the customer also had a go at me for failing to succeed with the various courses like WP etc they'd sent me on

 

The PWP also have this idea they pay you so you must jobseek only and nothing else

 

I am glad when I get a guy who signs me on, ask minimal questions and I can escape as he's the most professional one

 

I am past the 6 months mark too

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same guy berating the customer also had a go at me for failing to succeed with the various courses like WP etc they'd sent me on

 

Perhaps it would be worth pointing out the view of the Public Accounts Committee that the WP is very poor value for money and the DWP figures show extremely poor results across the board.

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Perhaps it would be worth pointing out the view of the Public Accounts Committee that the WP is very poor value for money and the DWP figures show extremely poor results across the board.

 

Had a second appointment supposedly to help with work

Some know that the PWP are over-zealous with abysmal abhorrent people skills it appears

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Doing a bit of work in a charity shop got me nicely out of 3 months with the dreaded A4e.

 

A4e tried to send me to a charity shop for 4 weeks once, it was working until they told me id be spending 3 days a week, upstairs in the shop ironing all the clothes, and the other 2 days posting their bags though people's doors......Where is the retail experience in that?

 

Ironing isn't retail work neither is posting things though people's letterboxes!

i refused to do it, and they said its ok we will find you something else to do. that was 6 months before i left A4e and they never did come up with anything!

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