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Daily signing
We are starting to accumulate cases in which claimants (UC and JSA) are being required to attend the Jobcentre every day at the beginning of their claim.
This appears to be a standard requirement, without any apparent justification in terms of how it will help the claimant.
I have been told in one case that it is an ‘intervention’ meant to support the claimant, but JC+ have not said what support they intend to provide. It’s as if just breathing the air in a Jobcentre will invigorate the claimants and make them job-hungry.
Is anyone else seeing this phenomenon?
My guess is that it’s used to support people in possibly breaking out of some malaise that may have set in (they may be at risk of being sanctioned or claim being ended as not ASE) or where someone is suspected of working on the side.
But these are new claims.
We’ve seen it too.
Call me cynical but I think it’s simply bully tactics.
But these are new claims.
How new?
Repeat or literally new?
Maybe they are in response to ‘barriers’ indicated by the claimant at the initial interview?
Many are UC claims so they are brand-new. One recent one (a JSA claim during ESA MR) has ‘barriers’ of being unable to walk and would have to have someone take him there and fetch him back every day.
Nobody (UC or JSA claimants) has been told why they have to go in every day. They are just told to do it.
I think in original concept this was meant to address existing problems and barriers - but I agree with 1964, there is ‘mission creep’, it’s being adopted just as a way of making claiming as inconvenient as possible.
i think the onus should be on DWP to explain (not least to the claimant) why they are applying the policy in each case and to specify how they are going to provide support, it should not be routine.
A colleague has just been told that all new UC claimants will be placed in a ‘2-week Job Club’ requiring daily signing. We are told we will get written confirmation of this from JC+.
The claimant whose case he was querying lives a long way from the Jobcentre and the costs of attending daily will be considerable, as will the potential job-search time wasted in travelling to and fro.
Cui bono?