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.

SEETEC TIMELINE

2^nd January                         

After exhausting the internal complaints procedure ending with a written complaint that the Seetec manager refused to respond to in writing instead making veiled threats and intimidation at a meeting. [Written acknowledgement of your complaint should be sent 3 days after they receive it]

10^th January                       

Failed to receive acknowledgement of my complaint called Seetec head office, no record of receiving my letter so told to email the complaint through to the contact email.

17^th January                       

Still failed to receive acknowledgement of my complaint so called Seetec again, this time informed that the person who deals with complaints (amazingly there is only one in a business with more than a dozen offices around the UK) was away from the office. So I left my number and was told the staff member would be back in on Monday.

So there you have it after 2 weeks of submitting a formal complaint to Seetec, they have managed an amazing dance where they have yet to admit to actually receiving it in any form despite it being mailed and then emailed to them.

TIPS

So this doesn’t happen to you Recorded Delivery is an option but like me you may well be counting the pennies. You should also do what I did and keep chasing up regularly if you submit a written complaint to head office you should receive acknowledgement after 3 working days.

I should probably also mention that this is not my first trip to the rodeo as I put in a complaint a year ago or so and amazingly that one ended up being lost the first time around too but that is of course coincidence.

Back then I didn’t know about the acknowledgement step so wasted a month before chasing them up. So this post is there so hopefully you won’t suffer the same fate.

Seetec: No Support For You Or You or You

So today I came in to Seetec for another pointless Job Search session after a good job interview yesterday so you can probably guess what I am here to talk about. I handed in my bus ticket to get the travel expenses paid and headed off to a money talk. After I came out of that and went to do my job search I printed out the interview confirmation e-mail and got back to applying. Later on just before my hour was up (was that on purpose) my advisor came over to see me, this was a continuation of the last monthly review where I laid out in detail all the barriers to employer that Seetec was placing in front of me after she accused me of being defensive while being there.

The first thing she asked was why I didn’t take the train to the interview, the barracks where the interview was being held was nowhere near the either of the train stations in the town and I just went with a bus because it was cheaper and more straightforward after all if I have learned nothing from Seetec it is that travel expenses reimbursement is not a forgone conclusion so best to look after your own limited budget first.

Anyway after that she then went on to say that the manager at this Seetec branch had laid down the law and decided that I would no longer be eligible for travel expenses to any further job interviews that I may get for myself (Seetec has failed to offer me any job interviews in my time there). My advisor then went on to explain that this was because in my past job interviews had not resulted in a job.

Let me give you a second to consider that.

A little more.

Ok yes you read that correctly because I was unsuccessful in my previous interviews I can now no longer get any help with going to interviews from the people paid by the government to get me into work. Yeah. So many emotions, so many words so few of them have any place on a blog like this though so we move on, my advisor also said that if I had an issue with it I needed to put it in writing to the manager in question. I should also say that my advisor seemed generally upset with these developments which is a credit to her as I do believe that she has always tried to help but has been let down by a lack of proper training from Seetec.

So as you can imagine this had shaking my head and wanting to roll my eyes at yet another reason for not giving me back my travel expenses, I think this is the fourth reason given since I made a formal complaint to head office nearly a year ago. The letter asking for written details as to why Seetec are refusing to pay further travel expenses is already written and sitting on my table to be hand delivered tomorrow, Seetec have form for losing complaints in the mail so I figure it is better that way and thankfully I live within walking distance of the office.

So I guess if you are interested in this back and forth check in with me in fourteen days which is the deadline I specified in the letter.

Thanks for reading, comments will be read and replied to if requested. Stay warm people.

Just An Update

Things are moving slowly but I can’t say I have much to show for it. Still clearing quite a few job applications though now I have been warned that they cannot be all administration jobs “because you’re not getting them”. Yeah apparently getting a number of interviews in this economy is just not good enough and instead my time would be better spent applying for jobs for which I have no previous experience. It is not like I have a choice so I am just going with the flow.

The other side of this argument so to speak is my ongoing complaint with SEETEC, the complaint I made add which has been ongoing since January. Somehow they managed to lose my first complaint and they have not responded to the e-mailed complaint after 30 days (the second time I sent it). So now I am in an awkward position according to Independent Case Examiner I seemingly HAVE to receive a response I am unhappy with to my complaint it doesn’t say anything about an agency failing to respond. When you think about it that seems like a rather large flaw in their procedures doesn’t it? Well I should be making a call to ICE tomorrow to check up on things to make sure.

Other than that things are puttering along slowly and there is not a lot to report other than one new Word Press project that I have been working on. It is just something to help me get familiar with WP as an interface which I think might be useful in the future (you never know). You canhave a look here and I will add a link when it is properly ready.

Two Ways the Work Programme Providers Can Screw You

Way 1

Last month I had one of those pesky job search sessions where they require you to come in and sign up 2 hours of your life for no apparent reason in my case as I have Internet access at home and a computer that actually lets me right click things to keep a job advert open at the same time as the application process which TRUST me is incredibly useful. Moving on when I sat down at a computer I noticed that there was a written note at the top of the job search form which they require us to fill in with the details of any jobs we apply for. I took a picture because I couldn't believe their cheek in what could be politely described as misrepresenting the truth. I have included the photographic evidence below.

If you can’t read it I took the time to write down what it says.

“DO THIS FIRST”
“REGISTER WITH THE JCP SITE (UNIVERSAL JOB MATCH) AND GET ID NUMBER, GIVE ID NUMBER TO YOUR ADVISOR”
“THIS MUST BE DONE TODAY”

So there you have it they are trying to get access to your Universal Jobmatch details which they have absolutely no right to and if you were to read that without the foreknowledge of resources such as the Unemployment Movement or DoNotSign you would assume that failing to do what was written there would result in at least some sort of punishment, yet when I refused after having to explain my reasons for not handing over the details – that they were private and it says clearly in the terms and conditions NOT to share your details with a third party I was told that “Oh it is not important we just wanted to make a note of them in case you forgot your ID number.” That is some textbook social engineering right there and I am afraid that they got away with it in most cases though I did try to educate the people around me but I feel like it is a losing battle.

Way 2

So listen on as things go from bad to worse. On Monday I had great news that I got an interview for a great job that I would really love to do. Unfortunately there is a problem, my Work Programme provider do not provide help with travel costs for interviews outside of the local area which is one of the most backward theories I have ever encountered.

Not only are they breaking their agreement to take over the responsibility from the job centre they are putting unnecessary barriers to me returning to work which I find unacceptable especially when they are being PAID to get me work and they have done nothing but hinder me at every point.

The job is in London which is a long way away, commutes STARTING from just under 2 hrs, 1 way but I know of many people who do it because of the lack of any real jobs (more than that 18 hour nonsense) to be found in the local area.

To be honest at this point I am so upset and angry at how I have been treated I am going to stop here and go do some research on the job interview I WILL be going to on Thursday. WISH ME LUCK.