Government targets are attacking unemployed people

Hot on the heels of my post about employment figures:

The Guardian newspaper reports today that Jobcentre employees are being instructed to use any means available to deny unemployed people the right to claim Jobseekers Allowance.

I have long experience, sadly, of living on JSA, and have been threatened with sanctions on a number of occasions (always falsely accused of not applying for a job that I can do - either I had applied, or I did not meet the essential requirements set by the employer). On one occasion, I was docked a week's allowance because it was felt that I had failed to apply for enough jobs in that period - all of that was before these new targets were introduced.

The Guardian says:

A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months. He said it was part of a "culture change" since last summer that had led to competition between advisers, teams and regional offices.

The whistleblower adds that on one occasion a dyslexic person was sanctioned for failing to make written applications!

The Guardian adds that there was "a change in the rules in April last year where sanctions were extended to claimants who were late for jobcentre interviews and other less serious offences." It is very hard to be sure of being on time for appointments, especially if you are dependent upon public transport, as many unemployed people are. if a bus is late, or if it breaks down, that's it for you! (This is one reason why I always aim to catch the bus before the one I need to get.)

The whistleblower blamed the targets. "We were told suddenly that [finding someone to sanction] once a week wasn't good enough, we were far behind other offices, and we went to a meeting where they compared us with other offices, and said we now have to do three a week to catch up. Most staff go into work and they're thinking about it from moment one – who am I going to stop this week?"

This is, without a doubt, a disgusting way to have to live. I feel sympathy for jobcentre employees, but at the same time, precisely because of these issues, when I am signing on I have to view them as the enemy.

The DWP denies there are specific targets, but the Guardian has seen email evidence of referral targets in one office, and the issue of targets has been raised by employees on online forums.

The advisor (who was an ex-jobcentre employee herself) at the external contractor business who had me on their case load last year, also told me about the targets, so the DWP, frankly, are lying through their teeth on this one.

The DWP said: "To say that we are targeting vulnerable people is ridiculous. We only sanction people if they do not adhere to their agreement. We are massively expanding the help and support that jobseekers will receive to ensure that they get the right help and support to get into work. If someone is incapable of work, they will continue to receive unconditional support."

Heard it before. It never happens that they give support and help - what they always give is advice to look harder. The jobcentre definitely do target vulnerable people. Why? Because they are easy targets. The DWP says, "We only sanction people if they do not adhere to their agreement," but the problem is that the jobcentre sets what the agreement is and can make it virtually impossible to live up to. That's how the dyslexia case mentioned above works, for example.

This is all about massaging the figures to make the government look like it is bringing unemployment down (because they use the number of people actually claiming JSA as the figures for unemployment) while at the same time laying waste to the lives of people who have it hard enough already.

Now, as I said, they have attempted to discipline me a few times, and they have also messed me around in other ways. Hopefully, they know now that I am not an easy mark. The last time they messed me around I wrote to my MP, who contacted the jobcentre and as a result I got a letter of apology out of them! They know I keep records of my jobsearch so that I am able to say what I did, when and how. They know that I will fight it. But I am not the usual case:

But the whistleblower said the policy hit the vulnerable instead of hardcore benefit cheats, who he said were a small group. "The young often fall into it, because they haven't been there long enough, they are generally a major target. The uneducated are another major target. I've seen people with … seriously low educational standards and it's easy to exploit them."

...

"You very rarely see the hardcore taken because they know the forms – they know it better than the staff, the system."

This has been a creeping process that I have seen unfold over the past 10 years or so. The government, in the name of (as the whistleblower says) "Saving the public purse", is seeking to find reasons to renege on its duties to protect the most vulnerable in society.