Getting it right for every child, on benefits

A young mother with two young children in primary school, single parent, needs to go to the job centre and use their computer to job search. Each time she applies for a job she has to click on the appropriate button and send a copy of her CV. When she responded to an advertisement to help with research of the benefit system she was asked: "How many jobs have you applied for?"

"About 200," she said.

"And how many responses have you had ?"

"None."

Part of the problem is there are few jobs which work within school hours and are off on the school holidays. Nevertheless proving that she is searching for work is compulsory and the system is set up via the internet.  Failure to comply would mean she would be sanctioned.  Meanwhile there are a lot of obscure companies collecting her private information:  name, address, age, contact number, education, work experience.

"Have you ever been sanctioned?" she was asked.

"Yes," she replied. "I was doing workfare in a charity shop, but I didn`t know I was still expected to do the job searches. I got sanctioned for that. At the same time  even though I had no bus fare, I still had to work in the charity shop and do the job searches, or they would have sanctioned me the following week as well."

Back room Princes Trust Charity Shop

"I`d worked in a charity shop before, but voluntarily, in the front of the shop, using the till and working with the customers. But at the Princes Trust we were put in the back room. No windows, airless, no breaks, nothing. We had to go through dead people`s clothes. Some of them were stained and had sick on them. We were told this was to build up our self esteem. It couldn`t have been more depressing."

It doesn`t matter what the government says about helping people back into work, or how many TV programmes show the easy life of the benefit scrounger - that`s not reality.  Life on the dole for a single parent is a punishment.

Here`s the samedifference blog:

SINGLE parents participating in the Government’s flagship back-to-work scheme are being told to leave children as young as nine at home unsupervised in order to attend, according to a North-East MP. Labour’s Jenny Chapman, the member for Darlington, told MPs some of her constituents undertaking the Work Programme had been to see her to raise their concerns about advice given to them.

Speaking during work and pensions questions in the Commons on Monday (December 8), she said: "Single parents in the Work Programme in Darlington have been to see me because they are being told to leave their nine and ten-year-old children at home unsupervised during the school holidays to be able to attend...

In a leaflet explaining the Work Programme, published in December 2012, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), said those with young children would have their benefits protected. The leaflet said: "Reforms of benefits and tax credits are designed to improve work incentives for all, and make financial support much simpler and more transparent.



On the same blog there is evidence that a senior DWP manager is congratulating staff for reaching their targets for sanctions.

http://samedifference1.com/2014/12/10/senior-dwp-manager-congratulates-staff-for-hitting-sanctions-targets/