JSA claimants welcome sanctions…

Tony - Pretty much ‘snap’ with the response I received about the thank-you cards. I see you have corresponded with Jim Stones, who at least got a sort-of reply.

I have asked for a review, on the grounds that at least one other enquirer received a reply and that JC+ surely keep ‘compliments and complaints’ files and it shouldn’t be too much effort to look ‘em up.

Any thoughts about other steps? This was, after all, a supposedly neutral civil servant who was spouting blatant political propaganda.

My FOI reply; note the reference to reading rightsnet.

If you are reading this, DWP chaps, I am NOT impressed. I think we are entitled to an answer on a region-by-region basis,and avoided a request for national figures not as a tactic to avoid the cost threshold but to get to the truth without making unreasonable demands.

And your extrapolation of figures is questionable in the extreme.

Please just admit that a senior official made an exaggerated, unsustainable claim and apologise.

Dear Mr Dutton,
Thank you for your Freedom of Information (FOI) review request, which we received on
29 May 2014.
I am of a senior grade to the person who dealt with your request previously, and can
confirm that I have carried out an internal review. I am now in a position to respond to
you.
You have asked us: Thank you for your response. This is at odds with your response to
at least one other enquirer who received a specific response. If the Jobcentres were
‘inundated’ there would be a clear record of this. Do you not keep a ‘complaints and
compliments’ file or something similar?
I am content that your original request was dealt with in accordance with DWP
guidelines for FoI requests. Whilst DWP does collate information about complaints, no
central records exist for compliments nor thank you cards.
To provide you with further background information, DWP carried out a provisional
check across a selection of districts around the country; most reported that they have
received well over one hundred compliment or thank you letters this year. At an
aggregate level, this would amount to many thousands of compliments and thank you
cards received each year. However, the precise number of cards received is not
collated centrally.
In terms of the cost limit, we are aware that on “rightsnet” it was proposed that multiple
requests should be made to the Department for different JCP areas to try to avoid the
cost limit. However, as per regulation 5(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information and Data
Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, aggregate requests such as
these exceed the cost threshold; this provision was included in the legislation to prevent
numerous individual requests on the same topic being used as a tactic to avoid the cost
threshold.
I hope that this is helpful; if you have any queries about this letter please contact me
quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely,

In other words, ‘don’t think we don’t know what you bunch of scrounger-friendly, lefty, rabble-rising low-lifers are up to’...

“At an aggregate level, this would amount to many thousands of compliments and thank you cards received each year. However, the precise number of cards received is not collated centrally”.

First, that is not inundated.  Second, only a tiny fraction of those, if any, would be from people who were grateful for being sanctioned.  That is not inundated either.

Precisely so. they are stretching credulity ver-r-r-y thin. Not least, they are ‘aggregating’ a figure which is based upon optimistic guesswork in the first place.

And yes, 1964, the Big Brother tone was not lost on me. I was tempted for a while to advocate barring such persons from these pages, but on the grounds that we have nothing to hide whilst they have, let ‘em peek.

There now follows a coded message for all advisers ‘in the know’ that the DWP cannot break!!

hsggeoxcbngastrghr7dnmd90f9oxc. Oh yes.

So if they can’t provide figures on whether they have been “inundated” or not, where did Mr Couling get them from? His fevered imagination perhaps?

It does raise a serious issue that a senior civil servant apparently thinks it is acceptable to make uncorroborated statements to a Parliamentary Committee and to present them as fact, thereby causing the entire department to close ranks and defend him.

Why can’t they just admit that this was a foolish and poorly judged statement (also unprofessional) and apologise?

Sorry. I forgot, JCP never make mistakes!! So can’t apologise.

Andrew Dutton - 02 June 2014 02:57 PM

My FOI reply; note the reference to reading rightsnet.

In terms of the cost limit, we are aware that on “rightsnet” it was proposed that multiple
requests should be made to the Department for different JCP areas to try to avoid the
cost limit. However, as per regulation 5(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information and Data
Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, aggregate requests such as
these exceed the cost threshold; this provision was included in the legislation to prevent
numerous individual requests on the same topic being used as a tactic to avoid the cost
threshold.

Yours sincerely,

If they spent less time snooping on Rightsnet, they’d have more time to answer queries.  Just remember folks that they look at Rightsnet and as has happened here, will use it in evidence when it suits them.

And disregard anything they read here when it doesn’t…

Andrew, in answer to your coded message I can only repeat the old welf adage- @@&%%HHHbb$$ (etc, etc)

Dear Operations FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response.

I am extremely disappointed.

I asked for locally-based information not to ‘twist the system’ but to make a reasonable request on a county basis, as the service for which I work is county-based.

Other advisers have done the same in their own areas. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Furthermore, to refuse the information on cost grounds but then to attempt to justify Mr Couling’s claim in the way that you have simply compounds the problem. Your figures appear to be based upon purest guesswork but are delivered with a tone of certainty which I regard as unwarranted.

You have probably already seen the reaction on Rightsnet.

A senior figure in the DWP has made a strong and wholly remarkable claim: I feel it is reasonable that this claim should either be substantiated or withdrawn.

I shall make a complaint to the Information Commissioner.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Dutton

Latest on this - As you may guess, it’s going nowhere. Even if the Information Commissioner found that DWP had to reply to my request on a regional basis, DWP would just aggregate all requests made by advisers, accuse us of acting in concert, and hide behind the excuse of excessive cost.

So we’re back where we were: a very senior official makes a perfectly outrageous claim. Questions about from where and how he got his information are batted away, he is allowed to get away with the claim, we are not allowed to know whether he is making it up or not because the rules allow DWP to say it costs too much.

Mr Couling’s claim cannot be proved or disproved, DWP have no supporting evidence because it would cost too much to support it. So the claim should never have been made.

I am, erm, inundated with rage.

At least we have the satisfaction of knowing that he was re-shuffled out of a job.

Not that I entertain the slightest hope of his replacement being any improvement!

DWP these days is all about institutionalised mendacity. Goebels would have been proud.

A year and a half on, and it’s now changed into IDS personally knowing that a full seventy-five percent of people sanctioned welcome the jolt. He’s so sure of this number, he repeats it for clarity. He’s obviously talking out of off the top of his head.

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/IDS-sanctions

In addition:-

* sanctions have got more women into work,
* there’s a mandatory warning system,
* sanctions have brought world peace and unlimited rice pudding (even though it was all the last government’s awful idea really anyway.)

Mr Duncan Smith added: “The Labour Party had sanctions. We haven’t actually changed the sanctions regime. “

Well that’s an interesting take on things. They introduced the new sanctions regime with effect from 2012 with his own Welfare Reform Act, Section 46

It’s easy that these things slip ones mind I suppose…..

Labour to refer ‘groundless’ Iain Duncan Smith claim to statistics watchdog ...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/12/labour-refer-groundless-iain-duncan-smith-claim-statistics-watchdog

I often wonder where IDS gets his opinions. This is about as plausible as his assertion that leaving the EU will make all those nasty terrorist types take us off their hit-list!