Interview with a Job Centre Advisor: sanction targets & corruption revealed

If YOU know anyone claiming JSA please show them this – a true account of life as a Job Centre Advisor; and how to ‘manage’ threat of sanctions.

A Taster –

 “Are the middle class jobseekers treated better than working class, unskilled or long term unemployed jobseekers?

Middle class, elder, all very rarely challenged on jobseekers allowance. 80% of sanctions come from young Britons. I can tell you too that not even 5% of foreign customers get sanctioned for actively seeking or anything else like that, why? Because its too difficult to do in the 10 minutes tops that we have with a customer. There is not enough support in my opinion for the unskilled person. nowadays you need pc skills, online cv, a licence for this, a certificate for that. Do you know you now need a certificate to be a cleaner???. Where do the unskilled start if thats the case?. its a bad circle that will not be broken until we treat people like individuals and not all as collectives.”

A MUST READ

Interview with a Job Centre Advisor: sanction targets & corruption revealed.

The battle is over…let the War Begin

Well I’m back home in one piece although parts of me don’t feel as if they belong. It was a wonderful day on Monday meeting the valiant  Debbie Sayers, the super people from change.org  Ros from the Mirror and other campaigners Paula Peters & Chris Ball who both came with Cameras.

Aside from the day challenging my photo-phobia, it was fantastic that both Liz Kendall,Shadow Minister for Care and Older People & my MP and Kate Green Shadow Spokesperson for Disabled People took the time out to meet with us, receive the final 105,069 signatures on our petition & more importantly; both women actively listened to what we had to say.

The only thing that took a slight shine off the experience was whilst  we were in the gallery of the House of Commons there was IDS & McVey both up to their old tricks – spinning the truth or Lying as I prefer to call it. This desire for straight talking did lead to a slight change in the wording of the petition but I believe it made it stronger; the exact wording that was formally placed into the green bag on Tuesday afternoon read –

To the House of Commons.

The Petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the Petitioners believe that Mr Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has used incorrect facts and statistics relating to the Disability Living Allowance; and further declares that an online petition demanding that the Work and Pensions Select Committee holds Mr Duncan Smith to account for his use of statistics has gathered more than 105,000 signatures.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Work and Pensions Select Committee to question Mr Duncan Smith at their earliest convenience to hold him to account on his use of statistics and further requests that the House requires Mr Duncan Smith to retract any incorrect statistics that may have been circulated in the public domain by his department.

And the petitioners remain, etc.

This now means that on December 9th when IDS goes in front of the Work & Pensions select Committee to answer to his misuse of statistics, 105,069 people request he not only is held to account but that he also RETRACTS his own lies and those of his junior minsters!

The day without doubt was a enormous success which I am extremely proud to have been a part of; now the question is What Next????

WATCH THIS SPACE…..

Our Petition FINALLY goes to Parliament

On Monday Debbie Sayers & I Finally submit our petition to Liz Kendall & Kate Green MPs at Parliament; there is to be an Exclusive in The Mirror next week so look out for that.

I’ll try to keep you updated on Monday but…A Full Report will be posted upon Return.

A MASSIVE THANK YOU to ALL who signed & shared both the open letter to Esther McVey (back in April) AND the Petition to bring IDS to Account.

This is YOUR Success & I Promise to try and do you all justice on Monday xxxx

The First Tory Truth??

I think I’ve read the first set of comments from a Tory I can believe in! Today’s Guardian covers a speech by Cameron to the Lord Mayor’s  banquet  wherein he finally admits the “government is to forge a leaner, more efficient state on a permanent basis…We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently.” I’m sure most of you will agree the ONLY word in this that isn’t true us WE!

Prior to this we’ve been forced to listen to the Lies that he and his Tory collaborators have claimed the cuts were ‘necessary’  and built on need rather than through “some ideological zeal”.

This recognition does two things, firstly it terrifies me; if the people of this country are either selfish or uninterested enough, this man and his cronies might actually get into Government again in 2015. This would spell the END to any real support for the  mid/low waged, the un/underemployed the sick and disabled and anyone who has the misfortune not to be at least a high rate tax payer with private pensions and insurances for Health, job loss etc.

Secondly in a strange way in gives me hope; maybe people might come to the same realisation that many of us in those ‘lower’ socio-economic groups have grasped and decide her and now they will not sit back and let this happen. Perhaps people might decide to take note, determine to fight back against the current status quo and…more importantly choose to participate in the next election and Vote these Bastards OUT!

Interestingly as I write this I’ve also just seen an article in The New Statesman that concurs with my thinking.

Your chance to #haveyoursayIDS

As you know from yesterdays blog we are going to meet with Liz Kendal and Kate Green on the 18th of November to submit our Petition about IDS & the DWP’s misuse of statistics, and asking the Work and Pensions Select Committee to hold Ian Duncan Smith to account for this and how it paints a dark and inaccurate picture of those on benefits, especially those on DLA and ESA.

As well as inviting those of you who signed our petition all 104,696 of us to attend the submission; we would like you to make a comment about how this misuse of Stats by the DWP has affected you, whether that’s emotionally, physically or if you have been a victim of hate crime associated with the media attacks fuelled by these Lies.

If you would like to make a comment please use the same email as before –  disabilitywatch@gmail.com and we will print out as many as we can, to bring with us to the hand over…

Lets tell the committee how we feel about what is happening… Please keep it clean, we don’t want to edit, we want it to be in your own words but we don’t want to lose the sympathy of the committee by being abusive…

Without all of you this campaign wouldn’t be going anywhere, it’s your voices that are important to us…

Jayne and Debbie xxx

Our Petition goes to Parliament at LAST

At last we finally have a date to submit our petition for the Work & Select Committee to hold IDS to Account for his persistent misuse of statistics; on Monday 18th November @ 2pm we are meeting with both Liz Kendall – Shadow Secretary for Care and older people and Kate Green – Shadow spokesperson for Disabled people at Parliament.

From there Liz will  place the petition in the Petition Bag (which hangs on the back of the Speaker’s Chair), and after presentation The Votes and Proceedings publication will record:

• The petition’s subject matter.
• Description of the petitioners.
• that the petition was presented formally.

The full text of the petition will then be printed in Hansard. A copy of the petition will be sent to the DWP who are expected to offer observations which will also then be printed in Hansard.

This process guarantees we will receive a response which should be that IDS is attending the Select Committee on December 9th and there he will be challenged on his untruths.

If anyone wishes to join us in submitting our petition please let us know by commenting below before Monday 11 November.

Academic study confirms: fake psych test is tool of neoliberal manipulation

This is probably one of The most important blogs you could read, Skarkbox has been researching the so called ‘psych test’ for Job seekers for a while and now his findings are supported by Martin Willia in Academis.edu.  so if you only read one post this weekend make it this one…

Academic Study Confirms: Fake Psych Test is a tool of neoliberal manipulation 

Back in May, the SKWAWKBOX exposed how the government, via the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) and David Cameron’s pet project the ‘Behavioural Insights Team’ (BIT), colloquially known as the Nudge Unit, was coercing benefit claimants to take an unvalidated, unscientific psychometric test devised by a US ‘torture guru’ by threatening them with the loss of their benefits if they didn’t comply.

The government claimed that this test was ‘scientifically proven’, but the truth turned out to be very different…

 Another example of how thisGovernment’s Welfare Reform is built on manoeuvred by Untruths!!   

 

neoliberal manipulation.