WRAG - correct group - various activities

Assuming a client   has   been   placed   in the WRAG correctly I did not realise   just   how detailed the   information people are asked to complete is.  A client sent   me the forms   hes asked to fill in -  they seem to be comprehensive and wide ranging

One   of the local   groups has   been   more than reasonable with a client   of   mine, I’m assuming that any   legal challenges will have to go through the DWP. 

Has anyone any experience   of   liason meetings with these groups?

I’ve not liaised with them however am replying to your “legal challenges” statement.

I assume you’re talking about a Work Programme Provider.

If there is a breach of the Equality Act; indirect discrimination was common by WPPs around these parts, then the the correct jurisdiction for Legal Challenges would appear to be the Employment Tribunal. The question is a thorny one mind but I would suggest that if you have any concerns and the problem arose less than 3 months ago a call first to ACAS to commence early conciliation then to Civil Legal Advice to get some advice would be a good move.

fat finger edit

I was more   interested   in liason than legal challenges- most   of the cases   I’ve come across in the   past are about   people who should not   be   in the WRAG so I concentrated   my efforts on getting them in the Support Group.

However the questionnaire supplied by the groupprovider was   interseting for   being comprehensive   if   nothing else.  The problem is that WROs have to explain why the DWP have altered totally the way claimants who are too sick to work are dealt with following the award and acknowledgment of   benefit

Another difficulty being that different providers are doing entirely different things and in entirely different ways. There doesn’t seem to be much consistency.

The Work Programme was developed using “black box” methodology which cutting through the BS means that the prime contractors were given some cash and told to get on with it with no departmental scrutiny or quality assurance. It was supposed to be “dynamic” and “responsive” but all that was just just flannel to cover the fact that the Govt wanted to look like it was doing something while not wasting any manpower on actually doing it.

There are unlikely to be two providers doing the same thing.

This is why IM was so pleasing; there is no mechanism for WPPs or indeed their subcontractors to feed back what activity they’re actually providing for claimants so the UT’s insistence that decision makers inform FtTs is almost impossible, at least for now, to comply with.