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conditionality
The guardian is picking up on this, in the context of people working/going on holiday and still being sanctioned. (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/14/dwp-punishing-low-paid-full-time-workers-under-new-benefits-rule)
But what really caught my eye was this comment in the comments thread:
It will be interesting to see what the DWP will do with its own staff in the Job Centres.
As this rolls out to 2020 these staff will be covered by UC and on current announced pay rises the bulk of its clerical staff. Will be on the minimum wage. A lot of its Executive Officers will be getting not a great deal more. The vast majority of these staff are female and a fair proportion of them work part time.
Who will be doing their UC interviews? Will they be sanctioning their own Job Advisers? Will a sanction be issued by one adviser, who can then swap seats and be sanctioned by the person they have just sanctioned?
and this one was also very on point
I just don’t see how they say they would work round the interviews at the job centre if for instance a single mum drops off a child just before nine in morning an then goes to job at 10 till 3 then picks child up and returns home to feed said child five days a week how would they phshsically be able to attend job centre if they were a fair way from it even if done by phone it would be like the same as a prostitute having a pimp and being hassled to get more clients people are bound to end up with sanctions its just a benefit denial exercise
This is what the academics researching Welfare Conditionality said about in-work conditionality in their submission to the W & P Committee
http://www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WP-UC-Inquiry-WelCond.pdf
maybe showing my ignorance of the real practicalities of UC due to my limited client experience but could the minimum income figure in these examples not be used to reduce the conditionality required?
The earnings threshold is itself the problem, as the default is 35 hours at the NMW, the number of hours able to be reduced at Work coach discretion. So someone working fewer hours either because that’s all they can get, or that’s all they can manage when juggling family commitments, will be subject to conditionality.
And we’re coming across people who’ve decided to end their UC claim because they’ve been told they need to continue to look for more / better paid work; and one person whose employer sacked them because they were looking for other work!
The other concern is that it appears DWP staff are telling people who are earning above the administrative earnings threshold (but below the conditionality threshold) that they have work-related requirements - even though these people are not in an In Work progression Pilot area.
We’re worried that some people may have ended up being sanctioned even though this conditionality should not have applied to them.
This is worrying mycatismo. Just shows that the so-called ‘test and learn’ approach where different bits of the ever-changing rules are switched on and off depending on to what degree the DWP feels it can get away with them, or to what degree the technology is anywhere near ready ... is leading to confusion for DWP’s own staff as well as claimants and advisers.
The abandoning of UC claims due to work related conditionality / nature of job centre encounters is of concern as a matter of principle but also heightened where there are housing costs. Where previously low earners could claim HB unconditionally and it could alter depending on changes in their wage levels.
This is what the academics researching Welfare Conditionality said about in-work conditionality in their submission to the W & P Committee
http://www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WP-UC-Inquiry-WelCond.pdf
I think they’re making a false assumption, that the government’s motives for this rigid conditionality is what government ministers say it is. Me, I believe the government has a secret agenda to prevent people claiming universal credit by making the conditions so impossible that people end their claims. Thus saving money and progressing the destruction of the welfare state.
This is what the academics researching Welfare Conditionality said about in-work conditionality in their submission to the W & P Committee
http://www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WP-UC-Inquiry-WelCond.pdf
I think they’re making a false assumption, that the government’s motives for this rigid conditionality is what government ministers say it is. Me, I believe the government has a secret agenda to prevent people claiming universal credit by making the conditions so impossible that people end their claims. Thus saving money and progressing the destruction of the welfare state.
I’m not entirely unsympathetic to that view.
New piece from Patrick Butler today in the Guardian: Universal credit: tough love for low-paid workers
.... includes a link to -
... a DWP guide, stamped “internal use only and not to be shared with external partners or claimants” which popped up this week on the work and pensions select committee website.
Looks like it was a submission to the W&P Committee’s ‘In-work progression in Universal Credit’ inquiry
Includes this handy tip:
If you are conducting an interview face to face, effective listening involves observing body language and noticing inconsistencies between verbal and non-verbal messages. For example, if someone tells you that they are happy with their life but through gritted teeth or with tears filling their eyes, it would be obvious to you that the verbal and non-verbal messages are in conflict, they probably don’t mean what they say.
Just done actual real-life LOLs n the almost empty office at the body language tips .... thanks shawn
But if anyone had observed me they may have noticed it was a LOL through gritted teeth .... having spent a day discussing UC and on hold with Vivaldi in my ear
if someone tells you that they are happy with their life but through gritted teeth or with tears filling their eyes, it would be obvious to you that the verbal and non-verbal messages are in conflict, they probably don’t mean what they say.
Time for some new emojis for emails to the DWP.
Look at the DWPs suggested claimant types! One is someone ‘who feels trapped in current employment because it works for them’. There is no option for someone who is in employment that works for them but doesn’t feel trapped, even if sometimes they may wish their circumstances or the labour market were such that there was a higher paid job that ‘works for them’.
Gritted teeth emoji
Priti Patel’s view on how conditionality works in the mandatory in-work progression trial -
Priti Patel’s view on how conditionality works in the mandatory in-work progression trial -
Trial participants who fail to engage in the process, or who fail to take the reasonable actions mutually agreed in their claimant commitment without good reason may have their Universal Credit payments reduced under a sanction.
Exactly what we were told was not happening at DWP OSEF meetings. It’s like they can’t help themselves….
that’s exactly what I thought Paul - I will be taking this answer with me on the 18th…
In-work conditionality pilots are due to complete ‘recruitment’ by Autumn 2016, according to Priti Patel in her written answer today -
‘The In-work Progression Randomised Control Trial is rolling out nationally but not yet complete. We plan to have recruited the necessary 15,000 participants by Autumn 2016. We will then continue to support claimants for a further year in the trial, with findings in early 2018.’
Have recently advised a UC claimant who has been selected for the in-work conditionality pilot because she works part time.
She’s currently Sanctioned so the UC previously used to pay rent is no longer in pay and she is living off her (low) wage. She has weekly JC appts in spite of being in 18 hrs work.
Bearing in mind that hardship payments are repaid out of UC once reinstated, jeopardising your chances of catching up with missed rent, we are now entering the era where the punishment for forgetting an appointment can be losing your home.
an extreme example of conditionality:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-37118850
whatever one’s view of the court order imposed on this chap (who was acquitted) it can’t be right that he be stopped from claiming UC because the DWP say he can’t be available for all work due to not being allowed to use IT…..
DWP stats this week highlight that almost 25,000 universal credit claimants are working ‘with requirements’ (out of a live caseload of c.300k)
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-29-apr-2013-to-4-aug-2016
Catching up with this thread and especially the original comments. I’m wracking my brain to recall the detail but I do recall that JCP have had a similar problem at some point in the recent past with the rate of pay of their own staff and the subsequent interaction with the benefits system. Now, I may be delusional, but my recollection was that there was a noticeable (albeit probably not significant) exit of staff to jobs elsewhere. This was obviously when the job market was better than at present (which admittedly wouldn’t be that difficult). Where staff, for whatever reason, stayed, I believe there was some evidence they dropped their claims because it was all a bit close to home.
Can anyone flesh this out?
Alternatively, call for a medical professional…
The client I spoke to was on her third sanction and yet had also received a letter from DWP and Ipsos Mori who are doing the research into in work conditionality asking if she would mind HELPING the DWP with their research by answering some questions.
This takes the biscuit if you ask me.
The client I spoke to was on her third sanction and yet had also received a letter from DWP and Ipsos Mori who are doing the research into in work conditionality asking if she would mind HELPING the DWP with their research by answering some questions.
This takes the biscuit if you ask me.
A nice way to encourage people who might be expected to express a negative opinion about the DWP to keep their views out of the survey.
https://mzolobajluk.wordpress.com/2016/08/21/my-challenge-to-lord-freud-minister-of-state-for-welfare-reform-can-you-live-on-63pence-per-week-for-nearly-seven-weeks/
Facts are facts - Lord Freud thinks human beings can live on 63pence a week for nearly seven weeks.!
The misery and distress that UC is causing is unspeakable, especially when we know what a state the UC programme is in.
Untested - using claimants as human guinea pigs, with UC crashing all over the place, over budget and ............ as for timescale ....... we are in the world of” There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. Donald Rumsfeld”
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/donaldrums148142.html
Meh, sorry - bit of a rant there - going for a walk