I wrote this on my Facebook page and people were shocked. I don’t think the enormity of it all actually hits you unless you either are or have been in a similar situation or you spend a lot of time outside a Jobcentre like we do. Its easy to forget I suppose, if you aren’t reminded about it all that time like I and my comrades are. The news obviously doesn’t cover this issue, unless it is spoken about in parliament. Even then its only a few lines in the paper. The only newspaper that will freely write about it is The Morning Star. The paper that I’m lucky enough to get my articles in. If you don’t buy it try it. Its a refreshing change to read the real news.
It was freezing today outside the Jobcentre. It was already cold but the wind chill was bad today. The Jobcentre is situated on a corner and we are lucky to have a bit of shelter.
Whilst I was stood discussing recent events in Parliament with a comrade a man asked us what we were doing. I replied that we were there to provide advice and support for those who are at risk from being sanctioned or have been sanctioned. He then became quite agitated. He said “That place, don’t talk to me about that place. Its terrible. My brother went into there, they decided to sanction him. He went home and committed suicide. They are murderers. The government are evil. How long is this going to continue for?” It was very clear to see that he was very angry and upset. He wasn’t hanging around either. He rushed off without giving his name and I don’t blame him.
Nothings changed within the Jobcentres. You are proven guilty without being given the chance to have a say. Sanctions are supposed to be referred to a decision maker and you are supposed to have a chance to appeal against their decision. This isn’t the case though. Sanctions are rushed through, with the correct procedure ignored. Claimants often go to the bank or post office to collect their pittance and are told there is nothing in their account. Its shocking but this happens all the time.
The work programme also refer people for sanctions. I would guess that they are on the same par as the Jobcentre for referring people for sanctions. When I questioned Standguide one of our local Work programme centres they said that they didn’t sanction people. Of course they don’t they just refer people for sanctions. They are often as bad as the Jobcentre. After all they are also paid by the DWP.
Also responsible for referring people for sanctioning are the workfare providers. Although there is talk about workfare stopping they aren’t. They are just changing the name for it. Rebrand it and they wait to see how long it will be before the public catch on that it is the same thing. They must think that we are stupid. One charity that has locally got most of its staff working there on the workfare programme is Barnados. Almost all of their staff are workfare victims. Made to work at least 16 hours there a week, and according to my source they have to work very hard whilst they are there. This is another charity that I will be boycotting. The hypocrisy of this is astounding. They claim to help people but are at the same time exploiting them.
Update on my last post. A young man approached us today and spoke to us about his experience at Standguide. He was made to stay inside the building for 6 hours and wasn’t allowed to go out for his dinner or to have a break. He had to spend all that time in front of a computer. He was told not to be aspirational, he is very highly educated but he wasn’t to look for work he was qualified for. He was told to look for jobs like shelf stacking etc. That made me wonder if they have some kind of agreement with a supermarket chain. He also stated that the demanded to have access to his personal emails, he of course said no. He was also visited at home by the same man that visited myself. In the end he had enough. He walked into the Jobcentre and signed off. Now he’s struggling for money.
As you can see people feel like they are forced to sign off. of course the government love this. They will then say that these people have found work, which of course they haven’t.
Sorry for the long blog. I had a lot to say today.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/personal-independence-payment-aids-and-appliances-descriptors
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The poor side of life 
While a lot of claimants do record there DWP interviews, still not enough are taking this method on board.
If DWP think every claimant is recording them they wouldn’t do what they do not to mention would prevent government claiming it to be an isolated incident, like it only ever happened once.
Part 4 section 1 of the data protection act gives you the right to record and use another persons data without consent when under suspicion of a crime. Remember the key word hear, suspicion of.
Also as any judge will tell you, there a public service and as such have a no right legal or otherwise to assume they have a right to privacy while in the course of there business.
The DPA states personal data as any two or more bits of personal data that can be used to confirm the identity of a person, well recording say an advisers face does not constitute this unless say clearly visible is there name tag for argument sake within said picture. Also remember there’s programs that can block certain parts of a picture so for argument sake if an adviser tries to put there name tag next to their face but you make clear during said recording that that would be edited, again you can continue to record without fear of breaching said act. The same goes for other peoples voices in the background which is a lame attempt to prevent recording and often as Ive found while recording never actually reveals these details about people DWP claim it would.
The more we record them and they know, the less there try to lie and rig situations that they later use to suspend your benefit.
As for arriving late. just declare you were paid by a person you know 5 to 10 pounds to say mow there lawn,do shopping or something as this is reasonable grounds for not attending an interview, sure it will make your welfare light by say 5 if you declare 10 but that’s a hell of a lot better than no benefit and has to be entered onto the system that day as all work must be declared and recorded for taxation purposes (make sure they do this and show you).
You do not have to produce an employer as your basically self employed and thus making you yourself the employer and the customer a client meaning under the data protection act, DWP cannot insist in any manner you state who the customer is or where they reside. As for the tax office, they wont be bothered as its a one off that doesn’t form a regular pattern of income not to mention you reported to DWP swiftly when you could so your not tax evading.
I know you should be able to say what really happened but we all know DWP will just ignore it, well when it comes to you declaring work, sadly for them DWP cant.
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Society has a lot to answer for. It’s the systems that are in place and the people who make the rules who are at fault. A lot of people who can work and want to work can’t find employment because there is nothing available and those who can’t /won’t work for one reason or another are told they have to because of some stupid reason that if u don’t work u r useless. U r not. Nobody is completely useless unless ur sat on ur fat arse in parliament being paid stupid amounts of money for nothing. If only we could pay them jsa or DLA n tell them to survive like a lot of us do. My heart goes out to all who have had to endure this mental torture of jcp n DWP. I am told I am not allowed to give free info out but I want to help, it’s in my nature to assist where I can. We need more like this within the system not outside it.
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Reblogged this on amnesiaclinic and commented:
This is very, very tragic. Thank you for all you do in being a supportive presence outside the job centre and to be there for people. If this man had met and talked to you he may not have seen suicide as the only way out.
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Thank you I wish we had seen him as well
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I’ve had dealings with this place, not nice people
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Reblogged this on lawrencerowntree.
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Shared. Abasalutly awful. This government don’t give a shit. My sister in law who as very bad depression was sent to work in B&M she didn’t get a job at the end of this so called back to work thing. She cried every day at work because of the stuff she was made to do.
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Workfare is disgusting. The only ones to benefit from workfare are the DWP and the companies profiteering from workfare. They don’t want to pay people for a decent days work they obviously put profit first. Disgusting. I hope that your sister in law is ok and age shouldn’t have had to go through that. Much love to her.
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I don’t know how this can be stopped I really can’t. The government are elected to look after the country and the people. If it was animals that were getting mistreated the way we are everyone would be up in arms.
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True people don’t bother
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Reblogged this on campertess and commented:
My sister committed suicide in 2013 after being found fit for work, I wouldn’t say that instead of applying for a hardship payment or a crisis loan she killed herself she didn’t get that choice, she was told that she wasn’t allowed to appeal because she had zero points.
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I urge everyone to make a note of the names of these jobsworths in the DWP.
When the government changes then we can get a day of reckoning and these terrible ppl can be held to account.
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Wrong! Sanctioning started under Gordon Brown, Labour and has continued ever since. The colour of political leader is not relevant and to quote ‘THEY ARE ALL IN IT TOGETHER’. There is no respect for human life in this policy. IT IS THE POLICY AND THE PEOPLE EXECUTING IT MUST CHANGE.
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It’s sad to see nothing has changed since I signed on back in 2011. Back then they were more than willing to attempt to sanction me for not applying for a job I wasn’t qualified for – I think it needed a technical qualification so after requesting they print it out I didn’t apply for it. Apparently they didn’t like this – so they said they’d sanction me and I had to fill out a form explaining why I didn’t apply for a job when provided with the information for it. I think they expected me to write a couple of lines. I filled both sides telling them exactly how despicable their behaviour was. They didn’t sanction me and meekly said ‘just don’t do it again’.
Unfortunately they are harsher on people they know can’t fight back and that’s when the pain and death starts.
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Never ask them to print out a job if you don’t intend to apply for it. The one time I got sanctioned (under the old regime) was for doing this. Though it may be that if you don’t ask them to do it, they may sanction you as well these days, but I don’t know if that’s true or not (never happened to me but I took the signing off route and decided to concentrate on shoving Betterware catalogues through people’s doors instead).
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I see you all out in Ashton every Thursday n so glad there are ppl standing up for us. Both my mum and I have had problems with the job centres in Stalybridge n Hyde but thankfully we no longer have any contact with them as we’re now both in the esa support group.
I hate this government for what they’re doing.
Keep up the good work , u do an amazing job 🙂
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Thanks col it’s hard but we won’t stop. Compassion is needed by some people commenting on here it seems
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So instead of applying for hardship payments or a crisis loan, he kills himself. Not the Government’s fault. Yes they are twats who don’t really care but he made that choice.
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Because he could see no other way out of the situation. Crisis loans take time to come through and that’s if they decide that you can have one. The system is evil. My heart goes out to this man and his family.
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And how can you judge so harshly? You don’t know if he was depressed or of he had been sanctioned before. Do you realise the the Jobcentre do not hand out hardship forms like they should and. Crisis loans are not easy to get. Maybe he thought he couldn’t fight anymore.
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You are a despicable apology for a human being
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The was that once you are sanctioned you are not eligible to apply for a hardship payment.
Once sanctioned to can take some 13 or weeks for the DWP to work through the paperwork during which time the applicant have no money to live on and cannot pay any bills.
The distress of unfair and abusive treatment my your own country is like being thrown into a torture chamber for which there is no way out.
This is criminal and breaches international law. The taxpayers are paying for their government to comment these criminal acts so they are being done in your name. Yet do you understand the consequences? You taxpayer are an accessory before, during and after the fact that makes you part of the criminal process.
THE LAW STATES ‘IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE’. So if you are not aware of the law you are still guilty under it. THINK ON!
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Reblogged this on Same Difference.
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I have a friend who had suicidal thoughts after his visit, he felt that no-one could help him and felt very lost.
I’m so sorry to hear of someone actually doing this, it’s so very sad and should not be happening.
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That’s terrible. It happens all the time but no one speaks about it
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Please send him my best wishes x
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he is dead ?
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Yes
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Reblogged this on sdbast.
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Tweeted @melissacade68
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Reblogged this on disabledsingleparent.
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