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Bad advice from Jobcentre Plus
One of our local DEA’s had a client’s first jobseeking step down as coming to see us for help with her appeal
I’ve had one of these, the case was around Reg 35 so we had an interesting dilemma- how would we prove that the client contacting me for an appeal was going to cause someone substantial harm ( I think there may have been a thread on this ?)
I keep a large axe in my desk drawer for that eventuality…
This highlights yet again the schizophrenic nature of the enterprise. On the one hand MR is all about paying the kind of attention to detail that the original DM should have been applying in the first place. Every decision is allegedly a learning experience and written reasons are increasingly demanded also (allegedly) as part of that. The lack of aspiration towards getting it right first time is bizarre but we’re expected to applaud the dedication to getting it right second time whilst turning away from the fact people are denied income during this supposed period of excellence.
On the other hand we have low paid, under-trained, well meaning but misguided JCP staff secretly directing people to us to challenge decisions.
If the whole were dedicated to the learning experience the first thing they would do is eradicate this sort of nonsense by referring people back for MRs. Unfortunately that crack between ESA and JSA has long turned into a crevice.
Reading that back I’m not sure it’s coherent. Hopefully you’ll get the gist.
Oh, I sound like a DWP letter. No, hang on, different thread. No, it’s all the same thing. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!