New Deal and Flexible New Deal Exposed

Want to know the funny thing…

If you don’t find a job by the end of Flex New Deal, then you have to work for your benefits… which in itself I think is fair. HOWEVER you must work for 30 hours, so that means for me I’d be working for LESS than MINIMUM WAGE because in total my benefits come to less than £115 a week!

I suggest any one who reads this to crunch their own numbers and if that means you’ll be working for less than minimum wage, then you speak to someone, perhaps your local MP, this is something cannot be ignored or have a valid excuse as to why that is ok.

Flex New Deal IS a joke! Alot of the staff is incompetent and I could do a better job with my eyes closed. I cannot wait until I can break free from these mass of idiots and be self-employed.

Susan: Judging by your comment it appear your daughter hasn’t been given a start date for the compulsory course? In which case she might find that her college course starts before the compulsory one. So she’ll will have avoided it, and could just bide her time!

Alternatively, your daughter could ask the jobcentre for a written explanation of why they have enrolled on a compulsory jobcentre course when she will be returning to college in a few week time? Good luck

Rob: As far as I know , you should not have had you housing benefit stopped, must have been a mistake.

The training allowance is extra money on top of your benefit. I was on the old New Deal and continued to get housing benefit whilst I got an extra £15 a week Training Allowance for 13 weeks.

Unless the rules have changed? Hopefully someone can clarify this?

As a mature person I had taken myself to college and uni and obtained a good degree in a subject I had always wanted to attain. The Job Centre employee informed me that I had ‘a weird degree’. It took me all my time not to punch him, he was being so snide. Hilarious tho, he jst informed me recently that 30% of the staff at that Job Centre are being made redundant, including him! Devine intervention, or what? haha.

This week when I was in at my FND office, I’m sorry to say (one) of the fat girls who ‘work’ there came in from the cake shop with a massive tray of cakes (I presume) for the workers. She chatted with the receptionist/expenses girl for about 10mins (I was surfing for jobs right next to them). Then another (fat) male worker exclaimed to anyone within earshot ‘well I suppose we better start doing this then’ and appeared to just start work at his desk. It was 11 am. It just doesn’t look good, it’s not professional, and is depressing when the clients are desperately looking for work and are prepared to work hard. The government should be sending in ‘secret workers’ to see how they are being ripped off by these consultancies.

The courses are only mandatory when signing on. I agree that this is pointless waste of time attending for less than half the duration but in order to still receive jobseekers allowance she will have to do that or sign off.

JSA isn’t a huge amount but 4 weeks money isn’t to be sniffed at if she has some bills/rent/contribution to make and any few quid can help towards college. I would advise her if she decides to continue to sign on to not get too much into the training course as she will have to leave it and to leave it off her CV (non-completion wont do her any favours neither will leaving it early regardless of any perfectly valid reason).

May I ask what the 6-10 week training course is?

hi, my daughter receives JSA and has been doing so since she was 18 in April 2010. She’s going back to college at the beg of Sept 2010. At her 3 month review today she was told her jsa would be stopped unless she goes on some 6-10 wk training courses which are full time. As there are only 4 weeks to go till the start of college she’s reluctant to take on such a course which she wouldn’t have time to complete. She has applied for various jobs this last few months with no success. what are your thoughts on this?

regards, Susan

Been looking for work and signing on for JSA for 2 yrs-im now on FND-had funny conversation with guy at direct.gov. was phoning re some jobs I HAD BEEN ENCOURAGED to apply for at the FND office, but informing him I didnt have the SPECIFIC qualifications required. He said I was under no obligation to apply for work I did not think I was suitable for. Asked them at FND why they encouraged me to apply for them, they started back peddling and said ‘oh we didn’t say you SHOULD apply for them, but you could if you wanted’. Why do they then get all excited about looking at my applications booklet to see if I’m applying. It’s all a joke, there are not enough jobs to go round, it’s a farce.

Bulls*** … you see that’s why your broke ass don’t have nothing ? you too quick to blame your OWN hardship on other’s ie, on Black peeps … now if we say that kinda crap , were just branded lazy ? …. who says we get everything ? because i don’t get nothing special ??? …with that blame it on the next person mentality you will always be poor or hard up … Privilege is selfishly reserved for the wealthy and the Elites running this whole corrupt global system … what you think they really care about any of us ? … you just gotta work and hustle to survive … i suggest you do the same . smh

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Wiltedrose. flexi is probably the best person to provide with you a data protection request letter. One or two more things you could try and do is post on the spending challenge site and your freedom. This so called new benefit system is getting slammed alot please post as well.

Get your local MP involved. The one for your region I would suggest you google it if you are unsure as the local mp’s have surgery times or should have surgery time. you generally drop by and talk to the mp the mechanism tends to differ from mp to mp. Get some papwerowkr flyign their way.

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/ a site you could look atto ee whatyou can do

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i would appreciate a template very much as i have no idea what i am meant to write.

I got out of hospital last night because of my leg again, i have to go to a fracture clinic next week to get it assessed. finally have my appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon in september. i am fed up, and i will take this as far as i can go. i just dont know where to start lol

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I am sorry to say that I amnot sorry to hear this. It just goes to show that the DWP’s FND programme is so stupidly retarded that it is totally unhelpfull to everyone.

My example BEACONCENTREFORTHE BLIND in wolverhampton took me on as a favour allegedly for A4E, Since receiving the training from A4E I see them as no better charity or not they shouldn’t be messing with stuff like this. And threatening to sanction people willy nilly instead of helping the very people they are meant to is just wrong

THE DWP is pushing people off benefits by the thousands and those that are on the benefits are quite frankly treated shoddily and passed from pillar to post. I am sorry for other disabled people who workat derring now to be reclassed as fitto work and will now be put through a punative revenge set system. You dont punish you help people. Sanctions and all the crap that come out of it bring ill will. I know as a member of the public if people ask me about beacon i shall tell them of my experience. shoddy money grabbing tactics. A charity is a charity set out to help people not shaft and tell people if they dont like it sign off.

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oh yeah and now i have to take more time off, they are signing me off the course and i might be sanctioned if i cant sort out an esa form soon.

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I have some negative experience of JSA and FND. I have believed for some time that unfortunately there may be great social unrest just around the corner if the govt continues to punish ppl who are actively looking for work, which let’s face it is not easily attainable to say the least. Someone has mentioned the Greek situation, all we can do is wait and see, ppl have a breaking point. if those in power are happy to throw taxpayer’s cash at set-ups like FND with no positive results, apart from trying to squeeze well meaning applicants off benefits, this type of situation could boil over into something very nasty indeed.

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Further to flexible new deals suggestion, you should also ask the place you were sent for the information as well. See whatthis will do is it will clearly find out who is at fault. In my case the DWP gave me all the information that they gave to A4E and it clearly told them i was visually impaired. they ignored that. The next step like me was to go to the CAB and ask them for some help they will probably put you in contact with a discrimination case worker. Then the fun can start.

Wiltedrose dont give up plod on the more paperwork and the more grief you give them the better it is for everyone else.

The DWP has severely screwed up with me as well and hasn’t played fair again i am going do the lines of communication. the more you nuge them up the better.

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