TV Channel

 It would be good to see something similar to The Fairy JobMother The series had a value that adds to encouraging others
or Anne Widdecombe

There is a strong message here that needs to be a regular series
To encourage and motivate the job seeker and remind them even reteach the skills

Get back to work featuring Mick Philpott

This video covers immigration as well as Youth Unemployment plus Mick Philpott the child killer 

The concept that George Osbourne raised of the Welfare system being involved is an insult to the many Job seekers out there

There are many job seekers that may currently feel stigmatized with the Mick label and that is incorrect
Yes there may be some that are not looking for work. But at most UK Job centres the majority of claiments would like to work. The minimum wage is a lot less than their last job. Indeed, many apply for the Jobs that they can afford to live off...They wish they could land the job that they get the rejection letter off...
Many would love to have a Anne Widdecombe moment or regular encourgagment but thats not whats on offer. The training provided for future jobs doesn't meet the real business needs of tomorrow


I feel we should have a national tv programme for job seekers...A TV show that has A Fairy Job Mother or a Anne Widdecombe encouraging others.....funded by the Department of Enterprise

Ian Duncan Smith challenge and the welfare changes...church comment

The Welfare reform and can Ian Duncan Smith live at the figures himself?
The timetable for change

The 4 churches challenge the reforms about the real truth about the sitution There are a lot of changes and the question is how effective the support mechanisms are. If people cannot downsize easily who are in areas where there is great need for accomodation and limited capacity there is an issue there. The additional factor is advice has to be clear to those needing the information. The Appeals process alone could prove to be interesting. Many of these changes occured on the 1st April. Do you know if the affect you???

Social Media and Job Search

The Government Poverty developers

The government has launched an inquiry after it was forced to admit that jobcentres have been setting targets and league tables to sanction benefit claimants despite assurances to parliament this week that no such targets were being set.

A leaked email shows staff being warned by managers that they will be disciplined unless they increase the number of claimants referred to a tougher benefit regime.

Ruth King, a jobcentre adviser manager, discloses in the email that she has received "the stricter benefit regime" figures for her area, adding: "As you can see Walthamstow are 95th in the league table out of only 109" – the number of jobcentres in London and the home counties. The employment minister, Mark Hoban, had assured MPs on Tuesday: "There are no league tables in place. We do not set targets for sanctions. I have made that point in previous discussions."

The league table could only have been drawn up through information provided by senior managers in the Department for Work and Pensions.

Hoban had told MPs that decisions on sanctioning claimants "need to be based on whether people have breached the agreements they have set out with the jobcentre, and there are no targets in place".

Faced with the email, the DWP said: "We are urgently investigating what happened in this case. If a manager has set a local target for applying sanctions this is against DWP policy and we will be taking steps to ensure these targets are removed immediately."

King says in her email: "Our district manager is not pleased … because senior managers are under pressure to improve our office output and move up the league he has to apply some pressure downwards." She continues: "Guys, we really need to up the game here. The 5% target is one thing – the fact that we are seeing over 300 people a week and only submitting six of them for possible doubts is simply not quite credible."

The email reveals that along with other area team managers King had until 15 February to show an improvement, adding that if she does not do so she will be subject to a performance improvement plan, the first stage of disciplinary action.

She says if she is threatened with disciplinary action to improve performance, she will have to threaten her own staff in the same way. She writes: "Obviously if I am on a PIP [performance improvement plan] to improve my team's Stricter Benefit Regime referral rate I will not have a choice but to consider implementing PIPs for those individuals who are clearly not delivering SBR within the team."

She also discloses that the jobcentre customers manager is looking for about 25 referrals a week. "We made six last week and so far this week have made four. There is a shortfall here."

The shadow work and pensions secretary, Liam Byrne, is due to raise the matter in parliament on Friday. He said: "This explosive letter lays bare the climate of fear in jobcentres as league tables and threats of disciplinary action are used to perpetrate a culture of sanctioning innocent people to hit targets. That is just plain wrong and must be stopped now. Either ministers have no grip on their department or they misled parliament. Either way they must now face the consequences."

The Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, said: "We have to get to the bottom of this. It is quite horrible that jobcentre staff feel they have to set people up to fail."

The DWP maintained that this was an isolated case. Hoban said: "I'm clear there should be no chasing of targets because I believe we should be making the right and fair decisions."

In the email King sets out ways jobcentre staff can catch out claimants, saying: "You should consider every doubt – if you are unsure then please conference with me." Her advice includes: "Do not accept the same job search every week, do not accept 'I dropped off CV to shops like Asda or Sainsbury's', listen for telltale phrases 'I pick up the kids', 'I look after my neighbours children/my grandchildren' or just 'I am busy' – all of which suggest that the customer may not be fully available for work, even cases where a parent shares custody can be considered."

She says someone can be deemed not to be actively seeking employment, and therefore subject to sanction "if someone is going away from home, but is not willing to return to take up employment, not willing to leave details of how they can be contacted should a job become available or not looking for work whilst away".

If you have a team working to put a spanner in the works then there can only be issues. If the political head lies we can have little respect.

Whistle blowing shouldnt be needed.

Instead of this negativity proper support and motivation is required. This is urgently needed

Political Negativity

Is it acceptable for the U.K government to label a jsa claiment a scrounger?
The vast majority o job seekers would like to be in work. Not taking a pay cut to take on work. They have stiff competition as they apply for the jobs in what ever position they seek.
The Government has no monthly national encouragement programme why? Surely that an essential aspect of support that all Job seekers need to be able to tap into.
I am fed up of hearing why job seekers are lazy rather than seeing dwp managers the play politics of negativity. I doubt if any other nation treats the unemployed in the same way.

Cameron and exemptions on Bedroom Tax

David Cameron has defended controversial changes to welfare payments including cuts to housing benefit for some tenants.

Speaking at the Commons Liaison Committee the prime minister said: "My argument is if welfare is one in three pounds the government spends it's impossible to deal with the problems of excessive public spending without looking at welfare."

It follows an announcement by ministers that foster carers and families of armed services personnel will be exempt from the changes to housing benefit.

Foster carers and families of armed services personnel will be exempt from controversial changes to housing benefit, ministers have said.

They will not face deductions in rental support as part of plans to clamp down on under-occupied properties.

Support will also be available on a discretionary basis for others, such as those with long-term medical problems.

Ministers say the housing benefit bill must be curbed. Labour says the plans amount to a tax on the vulnerable.

Changes to benefits for tenants in council houses and social housing will come into force next month, with families deemed to have too much living space seeing their rental payments reduced.

David Cameron and Ed Miliband have been involved in a fierce war of words over the issue for weeks, with the Labour leader characterising the policy as a "bedroom tax".

The prime minister has insisted the proposals are not a tax and will, instead, see curbs on what he has called existing "spare room subsidies".

'Clarification'
Amid a dispute about who will be affected by the changes, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has said the government will introduce new regulations to "clarify" the impact on two groups.

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HOW WILL THE CHANGES WORK

The new rules will affect housing benefit, which is paid to less well-off tenants to help with rent. Typically claimants receive between £50 and £100 a week.
From next month, families deemed to have too much living space by their local authorities will receive a reduced payment.
Under the government's so-called "size criteria", families will be assessed for the number of bedrooms they actually need.
If tenants are deemed to have one spare room, the amount of rent eligible for housing benefit will be cut by 14%. If they have two or more spare rooms, the cut will be 25%.
The government estimates that 660,000 households will have their benefit cut, roughly a third of social sector claimants. Only those of working age will see reduced payments.
He said the 5,000 approved foster carers in the UK would continue to receive rent payments towards an "additional room" as long as they have fostered a child or become an approved foster carer in the previous 12 months.

This would apply irrespective of whether a child has been placed with them or they are between placements.

Families with adult children serving in the armed forces will also be exempt from the changes, even when on overseas deployment. They will be treated as if they were continuing to live at home.

Mr Duncan Smith said protections were being put in place for these two groups which were now "beyond doubt".

He also said he would advise local authorities that discretionary support should remain in place for other "priority groups" such as disabled people whose homes have had to be significantly adapted and those with long-term medical conditions which create difficulties in sharing a bedroom.

'Under control'
He said he would monitor how the policy was implemented and make changes if necessary. The Institute for Fiscal Studies is to carry out an evaluation of the policy in conjunction with the Cambridge Centre for Housing and polling firm Ipsos Mori.

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We have another rushed U-turn which offers nothing more and no protection for disabled children”

Liam Byrne
Shadow work and pensions secretary
But he added: "This policy focuses on the key aim of bringing housing benefit expenditure under control.

"Under the previous government, housing benefit almost doubled in 10 years to £20bn, with households living in homes which are too big for them while there are two million households in England on waiting lists and 250,000 families living in over-crowded accommodation."

The announcement was welcomed by the Lib Dems, MP Greg Mulholland saying he was "delighted" by the exemption for the specified groups.

But Labour described the move as "shallow nonsense" and said it did not address concerns about the position of reservists or others - including households with a disabled person - who were set to lose up to £700 a year from the changes.

"We have another rushed U-turn which offers nothing more and no protection for disabled children," shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne said.

Rent arrears
No 10 defended the policy as a whole, saying it was important to address pressure on social housing waiting lists and growing overcrowding.

Asked if the government had bowed to Lib Dem pressure on the matter, a Downing Street spokesman said: "There has always been a very clear policy intention around exemptions. What has happened today is the issuing of guidance that removes any doubt."

In a separate development, the BBC has learned that a government pilot project that pays housing benefit directly to recipients has seen rent arrears amongst tenants increase.

Paying housing benefit directly to recipients, rather than their landlords, will form a key part of the planned new Universal Credit. The government says lessons will be learned from the pilot projects.

It wants to pay recipients directly as they think it will increase their sense of responsibility over their own lives and make them better able to cope should they move into a job.

The reality is that many will be affected. DWP is high. But , where are the countries leading those that are searching for work
How is Ian Duncan Smith or David Cameron do not encourage the Job seekers...They focus on "the Scrounger " rather than encouraging the Job seeker in a competitive market