Jobcentre anger and bans. What a mess.
Kate Belgrave (repost) | 26.09.2013 18:50 | Workfare | Policing | Public sector cuts | Birmingham
It’s hardly surprising to hear that the tension is bad at jobcentres. Lengthy and ridiculous benefit sanctions, pointless courses and workfare placements that go nowhere – it’s no wonder that people are getting really, really angry.
Birmingham Against Cuts had a story recently about a man who smashed windows at the Sparkhill jobcentre after being sanctioned.
Broken Window at Sparkhill JCP
The Manchester Evening News has a story today about a man who set fire to phones in a jobcentre in the hope that he’d be arrested and given something to eat when in police custody..
And last week, I visited a few people in Bracknell who told me they and people they knew had been banned from their jobcentre for complaining about the centre and their workfare provider.
The jobcentre ban notices (which are not signed by a named officer) said they were banned for verbal and written abuse and behaviour “which was totally unacceptable” (no further details on that appear in the correspondence). The people in question denied the charges in the letters. More to the point – and this is the key point, whether we’re talking Bracknell, or wherever – they felt that they had little recourse. They said that they had nowhere to go to appeal those bans. They’d been issued with ban notices by London lawyers (I have copies of these) and then the jobcentre (I have those as well) and told to appear at another job centre for their fortnightly JSA interviews. That was the end of that.
Except that it’s not. Iain Duncan Smith has clearly decided to leave claimants and jobcentre staff to their hell together, to fight it out themselves. This can surely only get worse. As Birmingham Against The Cuts observes, people are dealing with increasingly lengthy sanctions and ridiculous reasons for them – absurd sanctions handed out by stressed staff who are under pressure to meet cruel targets. No wonder things kick off. What do people expect?
As for bans – heavy. And one-sided. I’ve got papers here which threaten Asbos and injunctions and costs if bans are broken. Wonder what happens if you disagree. Which you might. Of course jobcentre workers shouldn’t be abused – but what if there are two sides to a story? These are tense times, as I’ve said. Isn’t it possible for frustration and persistence to be interpreted as abuse? Can’t perspectives on a heated incident differ? Couldn’t jobcentres ban people who simply persist with a complaint and refuse to give up the fight for their money? (The DWP said, simply, that it banned people “who posed a threat” and that “we do not issue bans lightly.” I’d be interested to know if people think that’s the case. Certainly, the various people I’ve spoken to about this have issues with it).
And if someone disagrees with a ban, shouldn’t they at least be able to appeal that decision? Because if they can’t, or don’t know that they can, then the equation is not equal. So I asked the DWP about this as well. I tried to ask Bracknell jobcentre first, but kept getting bounced back to the DWP. Their advice seemed to be that anyone who disagreed with a ban would need to fork out for a lawyer – “they can seek legal advice – and additionally they could follow our complaints process if they disagree with the methods we adopt – but as a legal request the ban would stand, unless contested legally.” So – you’re sanctioned, you’re banned and you must find money for a lawyer. You’re hardly in a position to do that.
What a bloody mess. I can only imagine that IDS enjoys it – this power to throw people into a tinderbox and chuck in a match. Only a truly evil prick would foster that.
Kate Belgrave (repost)
Homepage:
http://www.katebelgrave.com/2013/09/jobcentre-anger-and-bans-what-a-mess/
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
A great scam.
28.09.2013 15:38
They have an economy locked down into austerity and are quite literally forcing the UK's most vulnerable into grabbing at high indebtedness by taking payday loans from companies that have been set up with funding from the Israeli's. So the British government gets to maximise that austerity to funnel money to Syrian rebels while indirectly funnelling large amounts into the Israeli economy. The Conservatives do this because many of them are paid and bought for by foreign governments. William Hague is a long term member of the Conservative "Friends of Israel" and the Conservative Party has many more Hague's among its ranks.
So austerity in the UK is a political strategy which has been bought about to aid a Conservative Party that is waging its own personal war against Muslims on behalf of Israeli fanatics.
Those people struggling against benefit sanctions in the UK are subject to a double edged scam. On the one hand they are being forced to pay the price for being vulnerable and on the other hand they are also being used by Labour Party activists who simply cannot see how things are, but see instead only the Tories.
Britain is a dumb place. Even its most ardent activists have very little grasp over the wider environment.
anonymous
You don't need to pay for a lawyer
30.09.2013 00:52
I am itching to see some one take the bastard DWP to court over illegal sanctions. Given the way sanctions have increased, I don't know why nobody has done it already. Use judicial review now while you can, the government is planning to change the way it is funded so that law firms don't get paid any costs on account, and only get paid anything if they win the case; they hope most will not be able to take the risk of running such cases, thus preventing ordinary people from getting justice.
pinkolady
Victorian age of wealthy patronage.
30.09.2013 14:10
Nobody in their right mind would ever represent a client that daft. Look, the lawyers don't have any morality. If you phone them up and have a conversation about some injustice or other and you tell them you want to take legal action, they will just wait on the phone till they get the other guys name, then they'll put the phone down and then phone the other guy and offer to represent them in court. The system is far too corrupt to reform and endlessly demanding people snivel here and snivel there does nothing to help...at all.
You don't have any money, that makes you a third class citizen and third class citizens get nothing. That is the way this system has been setup to work.
The courts are as bent as the morons that insist we waste our lives away trying to get justice inside them.
The whole system is corrupt, concentrating on just one part of it is pointless.
You will never get justice in a court against the tools of the state.
NEVER.
anonymous
Jobcentre
21.01.2014 15:58
I cant say
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