New Deal and Flexible New Deal Exposed

Spot on. its always promoted how the people on benefits get thousands and thousands of pounds. I am on the standard rate JSA and claim no other benefits. Approx every 2 months I lose 2 weeks money due to a sanction.

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So nothing is changing. The unemployed person will be required to work unpaid, for their benefits.
This is ok for someone who gets £1000 per week benefits.
What about the poor sod who only qualifies for £10 per week jsa?
All of this ‘placement’ trickery just creates an underclass of slave labour who are paid a small fraction of the minimum wage. When they complain they get nothing at all.

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Does anyone read this?

Well the last few weeks of the course consisted of totally boring, unproductive jobsearch – all RAW DEAL courses’ favourite word. I completed my minimum 165 hours and actually elected to extend it to 192 hours, which involved me having to make a five mile trip to another site for most of those extra hours. I also told the Jobcentre that I’d be interested in Future Jobs Fund positions so I could stay off the dreaded Community Task Force.

My trainer actually found an apprenticeship that looked like it would suit me, and I actually thought something good might come of the 192 boring hours of timeserving, but alas, I screwed up at the interview and am left in the cold yet again with no other prospects on the horizon. Still, it was my second ever interview of my 23 years – Thanks Labour!

I find myself as unemployable as ever, and no amount of RAW DEAL courses can force someone to employ me. Evidently, I can’t bullshit my way through an interview. I am simply not experienced enough, despite having some smarts. There will always be better candidates than me. I seem doomed to go in circles with this rotten system, that allows immigrants to live in relative luxury with no questions asked, but makes us go through bullshit courses for the pittance we get from them.

I wouldn’t mind going back to college, except I’m having trouble finding an adult full-time course in the areas I’d be interested in, plus the lack of information on any adult student benefits I could claim. I’d rather go on a college course of my own choosing and get a different/less benefit, than continue on JSA and get drafted on to RAW REAL again. Its a one-way conveyor belt to the scrapheap.

The Jobcentre have told me there apparently are FJF positions with my local council. I attended a session at the Jobcentre last week and declared my interest in a few of the positions. They were supposed to get back to me at the beginning of this week – no calls. Typical. I hope I get something soon, as my JSA claim will reach 12 months in September and I’ll either be drafted again or cut off.

God, I hate this.

hello my name is louisa i am 20 years old and i am still going to new deal AFTER i made a complant about one of the stuff calling ME A SLAG. i have been into the jobcenter and i have see leflets about new deal and it says u DONT have to go to new deal if u dont want to well i say bullshit at one point i thought i was p…regnant one day i was late because i have a long way to go by bus and when i got there i just finished having somthing to eat when the stuff looked at me and said (put that away before i put it in the bin) and i said to them (sorry but i’v had nuffin to eat and i might be pregnant) and they said I DONT CARE

THIS HAS TO STOP I AM UNDER ALOT OF STRESS AT THE MOMENT i have to go from southampton to portsmouths and i have to be there by 9 in the morning by BUS

some points raised here are of interest.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10680062

if there is a plan to “volunteering” many paid jobs would be lost,the government would be only to aware that there would be no shortage of free labour under the “volunteer” unemployed system it proposes.
this volunteering is nothing new and all courses for the unemployed tend to focus heavily on this as an outcome,however what is overlooked is the organisations that depend on it are completely full.

if not careful the fold from new deal could well result into collapsed into the same hole as it.

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Hi Everyone thought I would fill you in on the final straw.

My benefits were screwed up, i phoned a week later and they had not authorised em. they apologised and putthe money in the same day,

I then proceeded to ask for 28p back for the phone call.
three first class letters on yellow paper
one second class on white paper and small print, just to pay me 28 pence is it me or is that excessive and borderline taking the peee

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I must agree with your original poster.
Just like every other day been on the directgov jobsearch section, entered Gravesend (my local town), click show all jobs, “Your search has produced more than 100 results” so it shows me only the first 100.
Refine search to within 1 mile and still over 100 jobs. Refine again to todays jobs within 1 mile and AHHH. 27 jobs available. Thats more like it… Hang on…
Morecambe thats 275 miles away.
Llandudno 278 miles
Lemington Spa 124 miles
Carlisle 333 miles
Out of 27 jobs listed as new vacancies within 1 mile of my location today only FOUR are actually within 50 miles of my home

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The way the jobcentre is ran is pathetic they expect you to apply for phantom jobs for a start! The trainining courses they offer are of no use to the majority what so ever im sure what they do offer are helpfull to some but what about those who want to aim higher and be able to apply for the only vacancys they can that are just out of reach in a qualification sense but clearly cannot afford a private course? But are willing to learn and better themselves to be more competetive in the job market if you can call it that?
And the folks that work in there seem to have no thought for human existence at the click of a few buttons they can really make your life a living hell and i do know by experience some of these people do have a god complex and know damn well the power they possess its sickening maybe they should have some kind of psych test before they take them on?
And then make them live in our shoes for a month see what its like the other side of the desk eh?
I wonder what there going to make of me being a pre-op Ts i should think thats gonna bring some prejudice out the bag! Well if it does they will be exposed!

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It’s okay, Kyron. We all have our own opinion.

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The DWP have a HUGE task although by my calculations, if they employed me to overlook the budget etc. by axing the unnecessary paperwork regarding these sanctions, Jobseeker Directions (JSD) and malicious accusations etc. I am confident the budget could be reduced to £1.5bn

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No wondwer the DWP can afford to duplicate paperwork by endless amounts. the DWP’s administrative budget is 2.7bn

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Very good point raised. 4-8 weeks for a contract to be awarded. What worries me is how they are unsure how long it will take. Probably 4 weeks perfect case scenario or 8 weeks if the providers kick up a stink about the particulars such as payment – the answer is simple, if you really do not think you can run the programme than dont bid for it! Obviously DWP doesn’t understand this – they just see an organisation (for each) that they have had a past history of working with and are willing to negotiate terms to keep them. After all the Government have a stake in all this, first with Organisations such as Remploy which I believe the Government wholly owns and with organisations they partly own such as Working Links. It raises the question, to the tune of the phrase “if you want a job done properly do it yourself”. Although even these have limited success.

Couldn’t put it better myself…. a “complete rush”. There should be 3-4 months for this stage at least. This said, to my best knowledge, Work Programme is an closed doors affair. Renegotiation between New Deal and Flexible New Deal providers. It isn’t even a proper tender. This is just procedure, ConDem didn’t want the contracts automatically awarded to those who have already got them for previous schemes. They just wanted to burn some more taxpayers money to tick all the boxes. This said, its likely there is some EU rule which require them to do such process even though they obviously intend to give it to the previous contractors.

The Government likes a “bolt-on” system – my terminology. This applies to all different elements of Governance. For example, in child protection instead of rewriting the laws (although will take time, granted, not an overnight solution) they just publish new “guidelines”. If there is a serious flaw at the core, you need to fix it. You cannot just patch it up. If your new house didn’t have the proper foundations and support beams etc. you would get the builders to knock it down and build it properly, you do not stick up scaffolding hoping it will keep the structure sound.

To a similar concept there is the same with unemployment/welfare:

PROBLEM: UNEMPLOYMENT
CAUSE: A LAME LABOUR MARKET, RED TAPE, HIGH TAXES, GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN THE MARKETS, DISCRIMINATION, INADEQUATE LEGISLATION
SOLUTION: make the unemployed seek for jobs to get welfare (1), add a bolt on system of sanctions which prevents payment although doesn’t make them unentitled to claim (2), pay companies via spoof “training” courses (i.e. New Deal) to encourage claimants to sign off and call it an “employment” course where the provider is known as the participants “employer” thus under Social Security legislation it is treated as losing a job if they leave or get kicked off (3), change to “Flexible New Deal” so instead of 3 months it is a YEAR thing, persuade more people to sign off (4), researched US workfare, noted it didnt work but saw it as the ideal opportunity to get people to do council jobs for nothing and to persuade them to sign off to avoid it (5), realise none of this works, so set up a Future Jobs Fund and negotiate with employers to create jobs while the Government pays the wages, known here as Job Creation (6) new Government comes in, realises none of this works (as with their previous schemes and ideas such as the JS Act), wants to rename FND to the Work Programme, solely because they think it sounds better, and to smuggle in workfare through the backdoor (stick it as one scheme instead of a seperate one) (7)

(1) Jobseekers Act 1995: I do not agree with it in its entirety although the underlining concept is great: a) there are conditions to be met and b) people have to look for work to be able to claim. Sounds fair enough to me.

(2) Sanctions are unlawful. A major BOLT ON… that doesn’t affect the other provisions as they work side-by-side. You can perfectly comply to the Jobseekers Act 1995 but still be awarded a 6 month sanction. Social Security legislation has been allowed to let this in through the backdoor. Sanctions are determined outside a court. The key to this all is, a sanction doesn’t end your entitlement, if it did it would be wrong, but simply as they keep your claim open and get you to keep signing on… all the sanction legislation clauses has done is prevented your payment. I think this is a crucial element after all, thats the reason you sign on for – but the powers that be dont think so.

(3) Setting up a training course named an “employment” course and treating participants as “employees” and the provider as “employer”, is all wrong, you cannot claim JSA if you are employed. Which is it to be? Yes… you are a “participant” up until you get exited and a sanction doubt raised. I have done research that showed many people signed off to dodge New Deal.

(4) As most people on New Deal had done it 3 times, people got used to “the loop” as its called. To stamp this out, or more to the point get rid of the numbers that reclaim, they decided to replace New Deal with Flexible New Deal which never got time to succeed nationally – or even locally with TNG, they couldnt spell the word success. This replaced New Deal 13 week which was fulltime where you werent required to sign on (Approx 6 times lost), to Flexible New Deal where you had to sign on every 2 weeks still (so over 6 trips gained) and most people having to attend twice a week to the provider.

(5) Workfare… they know it didnt work. The report they tried to fix came as a disappointment, however, its best to forget about a report… and push ahead with it including with the legislation to make it happen.

(6) Job Creation means to create sustainable jobs at little cost. Setting up numerous (thousands) of 6 month temporary jobs where the Government pays all the wages, doesn’t create a job as such, as once the funding is stopped (6 months after the start) no job is left. Cost taxpayer more than for the person to be on benefits and the person goes back to join the dole afterwards. What a weak pathetic attempt of a solution!

(7) Creating a new scheme to merge Flexible New Deal like activity with workfare, isn’t going to work.

SORRY IF YOU ARE READING ALL THIS TO DISCOVER THAT THIS ISN’T A SOLUTION! ITS NOT…

In some ways I feel sorry for the Government. Job Creation is difficult because they keep dictating where jobs should be – a government has no right to do this – they should encourage new industries and let competition and innovation in business remain. This means when a million or so “high tech” jobs are created they are also deciding that some industry with 1.5 million jobs needs to close. Not only are we left with more unemployed – all the people need to be retrained and qualified to do the new jobs… this then strains courses through welfare budgets and of course the education budget.

Controversial as it may seem, the other problem we have is immigration. This goes hand in hand with the mothers without money who decided to have many many kids. By that I do not mean by race/nationality discrimination or that mothers are solely to blame for this although its their body so have the ultimate last say in the matter… the problem with immigration here is (and for future generation when families dont have their own money to raise the kids – excluding welfare strain) we DO NOT have the infrastructure in our labour markets to deal with so many people (please please nobody disagree, its impossible to have 3 million plus unemployed if that wasn’t the case).

Who to blame? Government’s lack of Job Creation (not immigration). We never have had a steady surge of jobs, never been that way. Its the case if while one business booms, another hits the wall. This is part of life in business, however, a system needs to allow more resilience and depth. You can almost call it the Tesco effect. Traders doing well, new Tesco superstore opens, bang they have displaced the trade. Small independent traders close. When a new industry opens and job opportunities arise, another dies. Some will call it “moving on with the times” but when the industries do not clash (i.e. direct or indirect competition) there is absolutely no reason why efforts shouldnt be made to safeguard the previous industry. The Government has already determined that 100% of employers should be the service sector industry, and well.. all other sectors (mining, farming; construction, manufacturing; research, design, development) should die.

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Nov/Dec 2010: Work Programme competition starts
January 2011: Work Programme contracts awarded

4-8 weeks’ for “competition” is risible,you would wonder if this isnt a “competition at all,the timescale to set up this program is another complete rush and bodge,all this will feed down to “customers”,poorly planned and implemented and another incompetence exercise in the making.

while reading the above sounding in a positive light,the reality is the work situation in the uk is not going to improve,these schemes do nothing to create employment at a suitable wage at today’s levels’ the dwps response is “we dont always get what we want” however tell this to the wider world in today’s prices,it would be more appropriate term for the dwp’s bungling efforts in attempting to be seen to be doing something to tackle the economic mess its hierarchies created.
while supermarkets may be quick to tap into this labour its only a tiny percentage of places’ the truth being that the uk has an excess of unwanted labour,the workplace is being demolished and replaced by flats’ and jobs lost for good.there is no training/recognised for what vacancies’ there are available leaving those without the skills’ training takes often a period of years’ this is simply not going to happen on these programs and those linked to them.no one wants to pay and is expected on tap often companies expectations are to high and the wages to low.

this will all end up back at square one,packed rooms’ people twiddling their fingers,everything included old newspapers,vintage equipment and not forgetting the filthy kitchen area.and someone making a killing.

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I’ve long been suspect of the efficacy of the Big Issue programme. It’s a great idea, but when you see so many homeless comopeting for pitches daily in central Bristol you begin to wonder just how much support these peopel get trying to earn a wage and how the Big Issue deals with problems amongst staff.

However I find Bird’s comments to be so wide of the mark as to be repesentative of either the misinformed or the terminally stupid. He offers no solutions, advocates the unworkable and unethical workfare (in a fairly offhand manner – how does he propose getting training for unemployed to work with the sick). Worse, he goes on to say that the unemployed contribute to crime as they spend their dole on drugs, junk food and gambling.

We’ve seen this guy dissemble before; an embarassing tirade in front of Hardeep Singh and the others on Famous, Rich and Homeless. I see no reason to give his rant the time of day.

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Pauly you have hit the nail on the head!

When a jobseeker applies for a job in the labour market which s/he isn’t interested in (Although lies on the application to get the job) or have any experience (Although focus on transferable skills) this displaces other people. Furthermore, you realise the effect this has, not only are people forced into low paid dull jobs they aren’t interested in and splits a “career” into a selection of “random jobs” rather than following a common path – i.e. in one industry etc. … but doing this stabs each and every jobseeker in the back.

This is exactly what happens, and even happened before the credit crunch. People who left uni who employers didnt want to touch because of lack of experience (although freshly qualified) started filling up the easy simple jobs, such as retail… working on tills, shelf filling etc. This left a hole in the labour market for dumb people (like me) or (for everyone else) those new to the labour market (school/college leavers, newly unemployed) who no longer could get the jobs to begin a career or even a job they could do. These people either luckily found a vacancy at places like poundland with high staff turnover (I wonder why) or stayed on the dole. There werent many alternatives, you couldnt jump ranks looking for a supervisor job without experience at lower level. Other jobs might be too skilled to take on.

The “credit crunch” forced people to expand their horizons. I’ll be honest, me personally have no desire to work in retail below management position, but I always considered retail from day one because its a relatively easy job to do (anyone can do it with training, although some people will eb better at it than others including experience) and rather easy to get.

If you employ an idiot in a bank or in your admin department, you risk losing serious money and losing cutomers. In retail, you be picky, and if you get the wrong person its easy to get rid of them and most retail positions your discretion and powers are extremely limited. In an office a “genuine” mistake could affect your business severely – money, clients, reputation. If you worked on a till and gave someone too much change or charged someone the wrong amount (i.e. £100 less than the proper price due to wrong barcode) you have to PAY BACK the difference out fo your own money (Even if genuine) or be pending a criminal prosecution. If you offend a customer in retail – the customer gets upset but in most cases the customer will accept the apology, perhaps an “good will” gesture (i.e. money off voucher/gift card) and realise its just a rogue employee. With admin, its direct… if you told one of your largest clients to “FUCK OFF YOU TWAT” its likely, as a direct representative, to lose that client forever.

This is why high staff turnover retailers end up employing so many different people keeping them part time with overtime @ same rate and rolling contracts to be able to easier get rid of the person. Its so sad how not many retail employers actually employ anyone fulltime anymore with a proper permanent contract.

Anyway, I feel to an extent its always “work smarter, not harder”… applying for more jobs of every different type when you have no chance of getting them is a waste of time. Focus on the jobs you want to get. Spend more time. Make sure you get feedback where applicable. Adventure sometimes from the jobs you want and can do, to jobs which you are underqualified for etc. to take the chance, a punt on ceasing the opportunity to do well for yourself.

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