5 Months 1 Successful Appeal And Still The DWP Is Screwing Me

It finally happened after mandatory reconsiderations, appeals and all that other fun stuff my month long Sanction got turned over at Tribunal in five minutes. No new evidence, no legal gymnastics just the simple facts that were available on the Monday when my so called Work Coach chose to blow up my life.

This is not the first time, second or third that the JCP have tried to bully me through a completely spurious sanction and I am sick and tired of it. Alongside fighting this sanction and in fact before it I started a complaint procedure which DWP have refused to properly respond to for 6 months.

Without the support of an advisor who helps people fight against JCP and DWP nonsense I would have given up or curled up into a ball a long time ago. So if you’re one of the thousands who get targeted by your local jobcentre know that you’re not the only one suffering and that there are people out there that can help.

As I said my sanction was overturned which means that I was due some money back unfortunately my figures don’t tally with the DWP’s as by my math as well as the math of one of the advisers at my local JCP. I was supposed to hear from them on Monday discussing the payment but surprise, surprise they didn’t return the call in the 4 hour window.

I don’t want to make this a pity party but the sheer amount of effort that goes into combating JCP lies is hard to grasp if you’re outside the system and it definitely impinges on your job search time and effort. 

The only way to change it would be a fundamental reworking of the system, I don’t see how the staff could stay given the way they’ve been brought up with the sanction targets that the DWP swears don’t exist and the way they treat people as little more than pests.

That’s all from me I just wanted to write something positive about being proved right but it went a bit negative

Job Centre Plus Will Be The Death Of Me

It has been months since I've written on this particular blog,  Mainly because this is my personal blog and because of that it has tied itself to some of my negative experiences with the Jobcentre Plus. Well it seems more than time enough to get back to complaining about JCP.

The beginning of the year came had a lot of back and forth with my then new Work Coach with her being openly hostile and rude to me during my fortnightly signings resulting in me having to make an official complaint regarding that and other behaviour that amounted to bullying. To make a long story short it involved my Work Coach, another one and their manager all lying to my face about procedure regarding the Claimant Commitment.

The complaint went all the way to pre-hearing stage, basically the hearing had been called for and I was just waiting for a date to attend and then suddenly out of nowhere they cancelled the hearing and agreed to the my version of the Claimant Commitment in my view because they knew they were about to lose.

Because of the fallout of the complaint (which was denied) and the changes to my CC (decided in my favour) I was switched to a new advisor then lo and behold the shenanigans started all over again with this advisor deciding that my CC needed to be changed 2 months after it was newly signed.

The change he wanted was to force me to use Universal Jobmatch and I disagreed so we'll just have to wait and see how that works out as it has been at the DM for more than a month already. Then a month after that here comes the kicker I got sanctioned in my last meeting. As usual no real reason was given just the normal not doing enough to look for work.

That happened despite:

• 18 jobs applied for over the fortnight
• voluntary job gaining new skills

So now I am waiting to see what happens with the appeal and so on I will obviously keep things updated on here.

What Scares You? Taking A Risk?

Things are not looking rosey at the moment career wise, I am feeling more and more pressure at the Job Centre now with weekly pointless meetings were I am left in no doubt about how little my advisor thinks of me asking me the same old questions each week. I half think they are looking for me to have a blowup so I can get sanctioned or something. According to the advisor there are no end of jobs in my field in the local area and everyone wants to hire someone who has been out of work for 5 years.

I can think of few things that are more likely to put someone off doing their best to find work than condescending job coaches (which I think is their proper title???). Anyway it has been clear to me that as well as pounding the virtual pavement of the job boards I need to look at other ways of creating cash. I was talking to a friend who definitely personifies that man of all seasons thing and he suggested I take a look at Teespring and see if I can run a successful campaign through it.

Other ideas might be to put up my comic collection for sale, I'd would feel bad selling it off at this point but in reality it has been more than a decade since I collected comics with any regularity and I haven't had access to them in about the same amount of time, they are all boxed up so I am stuck in that I really need to take a look at them research whether or not they are worth anything and take pictures and the like before I put them up for sale.

So subject to work commitments next weekend at Comic Con and all the transcribing after I am going to be working on some designs for T-shirts then maybe I will put them up for a poll or just consult some people who I respect to see which one I should go with. Obviously I need to make a brand to put them under at least on that I have some ideas.

Seetec Complaint And Independent Case Examiner

So there it is after well 2 years and a whole lot of follow up this week I finally got an answer to my complaint lodged with ICE (Independent Case Examiner). To find out why you only need search my blog for Seetec and do some reading on my various issues with them. 

In the end I got what is called a partially upheld complaint which according to those in the know is a win and doesn't often happen. I won’t bore you with the details as it will take me way too long to decide what I can and cannot share but what I will say is that it is a lot of work to get that partial victory and the way Seetec twists the truth may not be worth the stress once you review the reasons given for the decision.

I have to thank a lot of people for supporting me through this:

- Unemployment Movement forums – great place to get general

- Refuted great website full of resources lots of guidelines

- Jobseekers Sanction Advice unfortunately not sure if they are continuing past January

Tips

If you think that you are going to go forward with a complaint there is one thing I must stress RECORD everything. My complaint to ICE took over two years and in that time I was contacted more than once and asked about things that happened over a year in the past and then asked if I have documentary evidence to prove things. It drove me mad and was a good part of the reason I think for only getting a partially upheld complaint.

As a result of my partial victory I should say that Seetec has to pay ICE £5000 apparently as well as giving me compensation for their poor service.

EDIT: Just when I thought my problems with DWP and their croneys was at an end I get a package from the DWP that I had to pay £15 to get from the post office. It was a data request that I had lodged more than a year ago. A request that should have been filled in 40 days at no cost to me.

First Day At Community Work Placement

So this is the second day of my start at my placement, I will be not be naming it here to lessen the chance of blowback. On my first day I got in early not necessarily by choice that is just the train timetable crumbles. I was the third person to get in before me were two other members of staff both of whom had no idea I was coming and were definitely not prepared for me.

Then the manager came in and things… pretty much stayed the same. I spent hours just waiting for a tour of the office. At no point did they sit me down and talk to me about what they expected me to do, they were incredibly vague.

The manager barely acknowledged me the whole time when she wanted me to do something did she come to me and explain? No she went to another member of staff in my hearing telling them what I should do it was incredibly rude and made me feel like I was worthless.

I was told that everyone would muck in on the less desirable tasks and then got a taste of those tasks when I was taking some documents downstairs to a classroom got handed the manager’s glass of water to take down with me. Maybe I made too much of it but it just felt wrong.

Oh and here is where we get into the rules and regulation stuff. To fully understand the import of this we need to go back to before the placement last week Monday when I was at Seetec and the Manager sprang the fact that I had a placement on me without warning. Now some of you out there have a tingle of where this is going but let me lay it out for the rest.

If you ever get sent to a Work Programme or Community Work Placement Provider or like me if you do the double because you did something unspeakable in a past life THE MOST IMPORTANT THING to remember is DO NOT SIGN the data waiver. The data waiver is this form in the case of Seetec that is at the back of the booklet you get to keep that tells you all about the wonderful things Seetec will do for you, if you read the small print you will realise that if signed will authorise Seetec to do whatever they want with your CV and personal information leaving little real comeback for you.

As far as I know you can revoke the data waiver later I think it is in the regulations but you’ll learn that the DWP and Work Programme Providers (WPPs) only ever use the rules and regulations that benefit them and do the best to hide the ones that protect you.

So I did not sign the data waiver both times I went to Seetec so that means that they cannot share my information with third parties, that is a bit legalese so you probably want an example of what a third party is, a placement for the Community Work Programme is a third party so when the Seetec Manager handed me my letter/Job Seekers’ Direction and said “the manager was very excited to have you at the placement after seeing your CV” I knew that yet again Seetec had done something very, very wrong AGAIN.

Seetec should never have shared my CV with the placement I got sent to, they broke laws in doing so, Seetec never should have kept a copy of my CV I made it clear to them on a number of occasions in WRITING that I did not consent to them holding a copy of my CV. What they should have done is got in contact with me and asked me to send my CV to the placement, of course I could have refused but wouldn’t as I find that 5 attempts at wrongful sanctions in two years is probably as much as I can take without just giving up. However it seems Seetec much like the DWP who referred me to the CWP without informing me of my write to appeal just don’t do rules.

There is more to be said next time perhaps I will write more about the actual experience of CWP and whether this placement is helping me to learn new skills or is based around my preferred job type. Got questions about something you didn’t understand then just leave a comment and I’ll get back to you if I can answer or at least try to point you in a direction that can help.

Sentenced To Six Months - For Being Unemployed

So it happened for the terrible crime of not being able to find a job in one of the most deprived areas in the UK I have been sentenced to 6 months of unpaid labour which is longer than you can be sentenced for committing an actual crime. It came out of the blue in my second meeting and hit me for a loop.

Apparently three years admin experience

is not good enough

Now I’m stressing out wondering how I am going to find time for actually looking for work and also how I am going to avoid getting more spurious sanctions from Seetec who manage the CWP programme. They have already put me up for 3 or 4 sanctions that I managed to get overturned in the end. My relationship with them can be best described as poor as I am currently waiting for the result of a complaint I escalated up to OIA.

So now I spend yet another series of nights writing letters to complain about my treatment by the DWP instead of researching new places to look for work or finishing off an online application. This is a short post because honestly I am too mad to trust myself to write more. Time after time I have to overcome the obstacles put in place by the DWP and the WPP and CWP organisations trying to profit from my misfortune.

I have read that in a lot of cases people get referred to Community Work Placement after challenging their advisors which it could be argued I did when I refused to sign the Claimant Commitment without having the chance to look at it in detail or maybe when I didn’t hand over my CV. That is where things have got to people who exercise their rights or simply the rules and guidelines of being a Job Seeker are punished and transferred away to be someone else’s problem. So if you’re reading this don’t believe the government and media hype about the unemployed being lazy you wouldn’t believe how much strength it truly takes to be treated like this and not snap.

Sanction Update

If you’re a keen reader of this blog firstly I thank you and then I say that you’ll remember my recent sanction which I talked about here:

http://shaftsword.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/sanctioned-again.html

This can be described as an update but I’m afraid all the updated actions will be from my side as you the reader may know or suspect that the DWP bureaucracy moves slower than molasses especially when they have your money.

Since the sanction I have sent out a request for a written statement of reasons which I finally got and I did what is called a Subject Access Request which means they have to send me documents around the sanction, their reasons and such which I intend to use to form the basis of another complaint against the DWP.

If you were wondering about my complaint against SEETEC then according to ICE that investigation is ongoing after they asked me for some more evidence a couple months ago with no real timeline on a decision.

Back to the DWP and the written statement of reasons basically put the reason for my sanction down to not having evidence of the unannounced visit to install my phone line. Maybe you think they have a point but what advisers have said to me is that in a situation like this where I had requested of the visit is that the DWP should have agreed to allow for more time for the proof to arrive instead of sanctioning me.

Sounds like Maladministration to me so I’ll be writing up a complaint about that but mostly I am just going to try and chase up my sanction being overturned so it doesn’t take 3 months like last time to get the money back.

So if you’re sanctioned and it was for reasons check out the links below and don’t give up hope WHILE still being aware of the fact it is going to take months to get your money back.

Refuted

Great for the detail of how to deal with sanctions

Unemployment Movement - JobCentre Discussion

The place for discussion for all things Job Centre

Sanctioned Again

It always happens just when you manage to quiet the nightmares from the previous. A slip up thanks to a BT Engineer that needed extended access to my apartment to put my line back in. I have again gotten myself a sanction. Looking at things logically it has been a year since the previous WRONGFUL sanction but logic doesn't count for shit when you got bills to pay and 4 weeks with no money. I do have to say that it is too early to know whether or not my reasons were acceptable or not because surprise I have still yet to receive my Decision Letter despite the sanction going through and the fact that my Good Reason letter was sent more than a week ago.

UPDATE:

What I've done

I have sent an email of complaint that has been passed on my Job Centre.

Still no Decision Letter.

Picked up my hardship form today and hand delivered my request for a written statement of reasons.

Also somewhat calmed down and stopped freaking out (THIS IS IMPORTANT)

Left a message with my local CAB as far as I know from last time they prefer a call and then they tell you a day to go in with a sort of pseudo appointment but heard nothing back yet. So will have to do that again.

What next

The next steps are to return the hardship form and request the mandatory reconsideration which I would hope to start before the end of the week as I know it took more than 3 months last time to go through the process but this time is far less straightforward so I'm not sure I'll be successful.

The Bad

Out of nowhere I get a letter saying I've missed Council Tax payments which is nonsense but I now have to chase up or get called to court over.

I was planning on paying off some bills with this week's money which included my 2nd to last payment of my current over priced phone contract which I am more than happy to get out of to save some money and my phoneline/broadband payment. When it rains it pours.

The Indifferent

After nearly two weeks I got a call from one of the panel at my last ingterview who gave me feedback saying nice things like don't change your approach, you researched the role well, you were a good candidate. He told me the reason I didn't get either of the roles (I think there were two) was that the people they hired were doing the exact same job at other institutions.

I guess it is nice to hear you are doing the right things at an interview but to me that is erased by the whole you pretty much had no chance of getting this when we could just hire some people already doing it but maybe that is my jaded perspective.

This link right here from @refuted got me started with what I needed to do and it was with help from @refuted that I managed to get compensation for the royal mess that happened last time when I was wrongfully sanctioned and it took more than 3 and a half months for the DWP to realise they had been totally ignoring their own rules in order to sanction me.

Make no mistake sanctions are just a multi-faceted tool for propaganda and to be used against the unemployed and under-employed.

1. Figures on high numbers of sanctions each month or year adds credence to the foolish idea that all the unemployed are out there trying to scam the system and that there are plenty of jobs.
2. Sanctions are a legal way to steal our money and for the government to profit from it. If person A gets wrongfully sanctioned and loses say £290 that he was entitled to help him survive while looking for work firstly there is only a 50% chance he is going to take it further just for the first level of appeal and god knows what that percentage will be for those who go through all 4 stages of appealing meanwhile Person A's money is sitting in the government coffers making them money and even if he is ultimately successful it will take MONTHS before he gets the cash with no compensation to help mitigate the costs of missed direct debit payments, fines, court action or anything else that may have arisen from the wrongful sanction.

Just a personal story to share after leaving university I would now and then be lucky enough to get temporary jobs from the employment bureau there while claiming JSA. That meant each week having to fill out a complicated bit of paperwork putting out in excruciating detail days and times of each role, fair enough. 

After I did a temporary job let's say as waiting staff at a graduation it would likely take two weeks before my payment came around with the payment slip sent to me but oh JSA won't release funds of any kind without my pay cheque so that meant I was often going without any money for up to a month which lead to missed payments on my bank account which charged £30 per OD transaction, my bank must have made £300 from me easily before I just stopped taking short term roles and it was only years later and too late according to the JSA that I learned that I could have claimed back for all that messing around.

The DWP and JSA just want you the unemployed to disappear off their books one way or another and then slap themselves on the back about how the unemployment figures are going down all the while ignoring more and more stories of horrific incidences were unemployed people crack under the pressure and commit suicide because of the circumstances and stigma of being unemployed in this country it makes me sick.

DWP Complaint - RESOLVED with Compensation

So when I went to the Jobcentre to talk with their CSOM about my ongoing issues with Seetec during that visit I mentioned the complaint that I had sent to DWP and he said he would chase it up. On Monday I got a letter back from the DWP from their Customer Services Team. I copied it below because unfortunately I don't have a scanner.

Thank you for your letter received xx-xx-xx regarding the sanction that was applied to your claim for Jobseekers Allowance (JSA). I apologise for the delay in my reply.

I would like to assure you that Jobcentre Plus considers very seriously all customer complaints made about the delivery of its service. I am very sorry that your experience did not meet the high standards to which we aspire and I apologise for the delay in getting the decision overturned and distress and inconvenience that you suffered.

I have looked at your claim and can confirm your case has been submitted for a special payment for gross inconvenience.

In the exceptional circumstances of your case I have decided to award a special payment of £50.00.

Special consolatory payments are made in very exceptional circumstances where an official error has had a direct adverse effect on the life of the customer and/or on the life of another person. It should be remembered that some dealings with the Department, whether or not an error occurs, may take time and that complying with the law can often be frustrating or inconvenient and sometimes stressful.

A payment for gross inconvenience resulting from official error will only be made if the errors made are so persistent and over such a protracted period of time that it causes the customer clear difficulties in the pursuit of benefits, or pursuing a justified complaint about relevant matters.

After considering the circumstances of your case it is clear that this applies to your dealings with the Department for Work and Pensions. I have therefore awarded a special consolatory payment of £50.00 in recognition of the errors made with your benefit claim. This amount is similar to other awards made to other Jobcentre Plus customers where customer service standards have fallen short.

This could not have happened without the help of Refuted.org.uk a resource that anyone feeling pressured by the Jobcentre or Work Programme Providers like Seetec should visit to arm themselves with knowledge.

Seetec Update

Also today I got a letter from Seetec head office (FINALLY), an acknowledgement of the complaint and explaining that the details of complaint had been passed onto my local Seetec, which is going to make for a few awkward visits to Seetec starting from next week when I have another Job search.

My Meeting With Jobcentre Re: Seetec Tactics

So on I went to see the CSOM at my local Jobcentre. That is the Customer Services Operations Manager for those who don’t know, I know I certainly didn’t until a friend who worked in DWP explained things to me. The reason for setting up the meeting was because CSOMs meet up weekly with the Work Programme Providers in the area for whatever reason. I thought that CSOM should know what Seetec is up to.

He listened to my issues though the pad on which he could make notes remained clean. He advised me to follow through with the complaints procedure at Seetec and I explained to him how the manager there tried to circumvent their own complaint procedures by refusing to respond to a written complaint.

One thing that did seem to get a slight reaction out of him was when I mentioned Seetec using a mysterious Jobcentre employee to agree with their decision to refuse to help with the costs of attending interviews. That got an eye twitch but not much more than that.

That is all that is happening on the soap opera that is my ongoing Seetec struggles the next update will happen sometime after Monday but it might take some time as I am preparing for interviews on Tuesday and Friday.

Keep warm people and stay strong.

Brand New Year - Same Old Battle

[So things are still much the same I enclose this post from Unemployment Movement that talks about getting threatened with sanctions after continuing my complaint about not getting help with the costs of interviews]

You can see the thread here.

So there has been an ongoing argument regarding help with the costs of going to interviews which has gone back and forth and resulted in letters to my MP, complaints to Seetec head office and a whole lot of intimidation when attending Seetec. Things came to a head on the 30/12 when I was in for a job search. I had been asked to write a letter if I disagreed with the decision that the Seetec local manager made to deny all future requests for the reimbursement of interview expenses so I did back on the 03/12 only to hear nothing.

I asked about it and finally got called to the manager's office. Despite making it clear in the letter that as I had to write to her I expected a written response, she said that she preferred to speak in person. She then stated that she had been on the phone to the Jobcentre who told her that they agree with her decision to stop helping because I had been unsuccessful in previous interviews (This was a lie) she also went on to state that Seetec could change the details of my jobseeker's agreement on a whim because I had been unemployed for more than a year and the Jobcentre representative apparently agreed to that to, I told her politely that was a load of nonsense.

She then threatened to start submitting me for a load of jobs I was unsuitable for so she could sanction me and then said it was up to me whether or not I wanted to continue with my written complaint.

So there it is threatening me to try and get me to quiet down which is not going to happen and using the Jobcentre to lend her credibility, I have a friend who works as the assistant to CSOM and explained about the dozens of complaints she gets about Seetec where she works and no one in the jobcentre would say the things the Seetec manager claimed.

I am now going to book a meeting with my local CSOM after the New Year to tell the Jobcentre about the fraudulent activity of Seetec and I will be continuing with my complaint including these latest details.

Look forward to future posts with a little more positive content plus there is a job interview coming up.

What I've Been Up To + This Week

So what have I been up to. If you were around last week you will have heard the latest from Seetec that because I have failed to get a job from my previous interviews they will no longer pay for any travel expenses that I accrue. Not that they have paid for all that many of them in the past but that is yet another story. So we left things with the Seetec Manager telling me that if I disagreed with that decision then I should write a letter to her.

That letter went to Seetec the next day and I hand delivered it as last time I made a complaint about them they managed to lose the first one I sent. In the letter I specified a written response within 14 days of the letter if it doesn’t come within that time or they fob me off with just an oral response then I’m going to escalate things and send an actual complaint letter to their head office and maybe copy if to DWP.

I do have some good news well at least partly good in my view. After about 5 months of back and forth I finally had my unfair sanction over ruled or at least the money from the sanction given over with a letter following up in a few days saying that “the doubt no longer applies”.

Really after an appeal, a letter to my MP, a reconsideration, formal procedure appeal and another letter to my MP to get them to admit the obvious that Seetec were disregarding the rules and regulations they signed up to and that DWP were doing nothing to keep them in line shame it took them nearly half a year and cost me a lot of money in fines and missed bills.

I will be filing a complaint about that too but I don’t hold a lot of hope out for it, I probably wouldn’t have bothered if they had actually written a proper letter to me with an explanation or you know an apology but they this is the government we are talking about and as an unemployed person they barely register me as human.

The plan for this week is signing on Monday, job search on Tuesday but other than that there is not a lot going on but at the end of this week there should be some job deadlines coming up so hopefully something develops from that.

If I get a response from Seetec I might transcribe it for you guys minus personal details of course just sharing evidence like others have with me. We are all in this together after all. That is all I can think of to share for now so I will leave it there and hope your Holiday season is going a bit more smoothly than mine.

WORK PROGRAMME - 2ND VISIT

So this is a summary of my second meeting with the people of SEETEC

One of the first things that we covered once we got started was the CV, last interview I was asked to send my CV in which I decided to comply with subject to making some changes. The first changes I made to the CV itself was to add a watermark (you can do this easily in Windows or if you’re advanced you can edit the PDF with Acrobat) which said ‘DO NOT COPY’. I also removed my telephone number and e-mail address. Finally I added a line in red that said please do not disseminate (fine word).

As you might guess my data is important to me so to ensure that there would be no mistakes I wrote an e-mail stating that I was providing this CV only because I had been directed to do so in my previous appointment and that by accepting this copy of my CV, SEETEC (my provider) were agreeing to destroy any previous electronic or paper copies of my CV that they may have had as a result of me being on their New Deal programme previously or that they may have somehow received from DWP.

The advisor accepted this and told me that my e-mail had been passed on to the manager so that everyone knew how seriously I took my data which was great. A little later I was asked whether or not I was using the e-mail and I said that I was not comfortable using it and then the advisor spilled this little bit of info. The reason that they do this is for lazy people who they feel don’t do enough to look for jobs so they (SEETEC) can then send off applications to jobs. The advisor agreed with me that if there are jobs they want me to go for they can get in touch with me.

So overall an excellent interview with no one trying to screw me over.

OTHER THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO

I have to attend a 2 hour CV workshop compulsory but a total waste of time. I only went to a CV interview at the job centre maybe 2 months ago which was pretty useful more for the interview practice than the CV thing as my CV was made by someone who used to work in recruitment and it has proven reasonably successful in getting interviews.

I also have a two hour VTC Elvis session. This is an online training area which to be honest I have to check out but when I do I will try to write a little something about it.

So big thanks to everyone over at the Unemployment Movement

http://unemploymentmovement.com/forum/welfare-to-work

Without the advice from those guys I don’t know where I would be. Keep your eyes peeled for WP labelled posts if you want to hear of my misadventures but be warned it is not the only thing I blog about.