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Loading ...It has came to our attention that the Department for Work and Pensions’ Executive Agency Jobcentre Plus is trying to push as many people in to the New Deal courses before it ends and become replaced with Flexible New Deal.
This is NOT legit and you CAN get out of it. Read on.
If you are aged 18-24 you must have been claiming for 6 months before being stuck on New Deal.
If you are aged 25 and over, you must have been claiming for 18 months before being stuck on New Deal.
Opt in
If you have been claiming for under that amount you can ask to negotiate to be stuck on New Deal. You have to make sure that the Jobcentre doesn’t stick you on New Deal automatically and abuse their power. Once you have signed up then you will not be able to easily get out of it. Sanctions occur regardless if you opt in early or not.
Fast track
The New Deal scheme begins with something called Gateway which includes a Gateway 2 Work (GtW) which lasts up to 16 weeks. This is not possible to be completed before the New Deal scheme dies. They want to fast track you into Stage 2 – that is skipping stage 1 *and* ignoring the rules about minimum entry (which is law) – placing you on a 13 week course without training, learning or work placement opportunity.
Do not be a fool
Maybe you consider yourself as a liability, claiming benefits at taxpayers’ expense but simply can’t find work due to shortage of employment opportunities out there with more people applying for every job, but requiring benefits to live without other sources of income.
Training providers will get paid hundreds of pounds a week, which equates to thousands of pounds over the 13 weeks you are there doing 30 hours a week job search – basically be stuck in a room doing nothing much while they receive 2-3 times your benefit a week for doing nothing but accommodating you during office hours. Yes, that is per person!
The Jobcentre will advise you that you will gain new skills, receiving training and get allocated a work placement – nationally most New Deal participants have not experienced this: once you have signed out you can’t get out of it without dismissal and therefore likely benefits sanctions too and your claim terminated.
Sanctions
You are likely to be threatened with 26 week sanctions (thats 6 months!)
Do not, however, be intimidated by that. The maximum they can award you is 2 weeks for your first offence. If you already done an offence in the past year, it rises to 4 weeks. Only if you have already done two offences in the last year can they give you a 26 week sanction.
They are unlikely to be able to sanction you for refusing to be fast tracked in to a course which isn’t legit.
Taster sessions
If you are aged between 18 and 24, you are allowed a taster session before signing up to the course. You are allowed as many as you require and can attend as many “ref2″ interviews as possible.
Take advantage of these as those 25 years and older are not entitled to one.
Opt Out
So… you will be able to opt out! However, the Department for Work and Pensions will not give you an easy time. They will eventually accept that they can’t legally make you attend the New Deal course (under the timescales and skip to stage 2 without stage 1 Gateway first) but the corrupt officers will try to hold you as liable under not doing enough to find work or not doing enough to improve your chances of finding and securing employment.
You will need to show and prove to them that you are – and you should opt in to doing a Work Trial.
A Work Trial is up to a month working 5 days a week in an actual job – far better than the New Deal VSO 13 week option.
Guide for those being forced into New Deal
Ipswich Unemployed Action has published a guide to help you out of attending New Deal.
Summary of links contained in above New Deal Scandal post
Related posts
- New Deal Scandal & Welfare Reform: network snippet
- New Deal Scandal & Welfare Reform: network snippet
- Government keeps Ipswich Detention Centre open
- YMCA Training files Human Rights violation dismissal under Health & Safety
- YMCA Training traded without planning permission over 6 months
- Where is the Flexible New Deal Ombudsman?
Ermm, all traiing providers delivering the New Deal programme are NOT like you mention above. Although our provision is not perfect, every client is offered support with job search, interview skills, preparing to find work, workshops on drug and alcohol issues, first aid and health and safety, travel planning, CV and letter writing sessions,computer training (up to qualification) AND a valuable spell of work experience. Whilst I have no sympathy with those organisations in danger of losing their contract through fradululent activities, please don’t tar us all with the same brush!!
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Hi UpNorth!
I am all for a balanced debate, I have taken the points you have made in to account (though you don’t mention a provider so is of little help) and reading the above article mostly focuses on Jobcentre Plus (not the training provider) putting people on course that they aren’t legally obligated to attend therefore enabling consumer choice whether they feel the course would benefit them.
If someone decides to start a New Deal course under the criteria set by Jobcentre Plus and it helps them secure employment then good for them!
Unless you can provide details of your provision which is superior, within the last year of New Deal contracts nationally most providers have decided not to bother helping New Deal participants, thus the concern.
Please see the New Deal fraud techniques at the following link http://www.newdealscandal.co.uk/flexiblenewdeal/tag/new-deal-fraud/ I am not aware of a single New Deal prime contractor or sub contractor that hasn’t done even one of the fraud techniques mentioned.
Fraud doesn’t stop at forging signatures, I understand that windowing is unlikely to affect every training centre but for other fraudulent techniques used such as misrepresentation…
As for VSO no provider are required to give participants qualifications of any sort. Any certification are typically done through Gateway 2 Work and not VSO anyway.
You mention a good list of features, but for one workshops on drug and alcohol issues… what percentage of participants are hard drug users or alcoholics? Surely that tars every unemployed person with the same brush?
As a preventive measure, why should participants on an “employment course” be lectured of “drugs are bad” if that is the case the chances are they wouldn’t be taking any.
No addicted drug users or alcoholics are allowed on VSO anyway, so totally irrelevant.
CV and letter writing sessions are typically worksheet handouts – although I will not say additional support isn’t offered – it all depends on the training centre and provider. This said, most New Deal participants complain that providers claim they wrote their CV when they did it previously on Gateway 2 Work!
In fact, all the interview skills, work preparation and CV, letter and application form writing is done on the 2 week Gateway 2 Work course.
Instantly credibility is lost. Not reflecting on you as a provider but the silly New Deal system.
I don’t doubt the valuable work experience element at all – they are brilliant if you can get any! It pretty much is a post code lottery though, you either get a good placement from the start (real employer or voluntary work), get a placement towards the end in your 8th week etc. or not be offered one at all. Sadly, recently the 3rd option is very popular.
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I have just completed GTW and I am about to start a work placement. It seems to me that the majority of options available involve doing things that someone should be getting paid for, basically social sector work. I’m sure that if someone was to look back through the history of social sector redundancies they would find roles being filled by New Deal clients on work placements. I took a look at the most recently released budget and I got the impression from the information it gives on this subject that these placements are going to be increased to a period of six months. Although I must admit i found the information given vague and limited. But if that is the case then we might as well all move to China.
if anyone reading this has any information on this matter that they think might interest me then i would very much apreciate it if you could contact me at
animated_gif@hotmail.com
Regards
Rick (frustrated unemployed person)
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When i was last on new deal i had to be swopped to new deal 50plus as my birthday landed during the gateway period my nda was totally useless and only selected two jobs for me to apply for one was a driver for a building supplies firm despite my telling him that i had tried for jobs with this firm on 12 previous occasions and got 12 rejection letters but he insisted i apply guess what i got yet another rejection letter
the next job he got me to apply for was working in auchtermuchty soldering printed circuit boards for ph testers but at no time did he ask me was i colour blind nor was this on the job description trouble was it was min wage i had to get a bus at 730am to get there for 8 and the bus back wasnt for 45 minutes after i finished except for a friday and to cap it all it was min wage rate
i think he was getting all his clients to apply for it as the following week i had to sign on as he was on holiday and a young lad was asked why he had no proof of applying for the soldering job so it appears he was fobbing this job onto everyone
at the end of the iap he suddenly decided i had to do 26 weeks placement not 13 and threatened 26 weeks benefit sanctioning if i refused and would still have to do 26 weeks ndpp at the end of the benefit sanction period i immediately signed off thereby completetely spoiling his paperwork as i was due to go to the placement providers on the monday morning also he couldnt sanction my benefit either as it turned out i got a rejection letter about the soldering job but they said they would keep my details on file should a job arise in future i wrote back and asked for the return of my letter and cv stating that i had no interest in soldering pcb and was not interested in a job with their company they obliged me by returning the items requested but it shows how you can get sucked into the crap job market if the employer retains your details and suggest to anyone who gets a simlair letter for a crap job to write and ask for the letter and cv to be returned immediately as they the employer cant retain your details if you request them back
i got a job part time valeting caravans and motorhomes paying min wage its on an as and when required basis so its a bit hap hazard as regards work but at least i got the job through my own efforts and at 51 years of age suits me fine
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What If I come down with Swine Flu? would that get me out of New Deal? at least for a few weeks, I’m being forced on an unsuitable placement, every other employer just turned their nose up at me because of my long term unemployed status.
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J: If you do become ill for a few weeks or get a temporary job, it is more than likely that you will be told to do a balance of time.
If you leave ND 3 weeks into the 13 week course you’ll be required to do a balance of time of 10 weeks – basically make up the time you have left to fulfil.
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I wonder if anyone here can give their views on my situation. It’s as follows -
I’m around 6 weeks in to the Gateway but am already under pressure to go on a 13 week (Sencia) course ! I thought the Gateway period lasted up to 16 weeks. So I’m very unhappy about this. Last time I signed on the advisor said some really silly things like, ‘Why haven’t you written the reference numbers of the jobs you’ve applied for in the last two weeks’ (Something they never asked me to do before). She also said ‘ next time you come to see me we can talk about you going on a 13 week (Sencia) course’. This shocked me. It seems they are trying to find an excuse to force me on that course early. Any suggestions ? Thanks for any advice or information.
Robert
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the whole idea of this new deal is to have you as a yes man,”compliant”.that is why they bully and continue to raise issues continually all the time,you will here threats to your benefit for no reason,references to past warnings that were never received,its all your fault you got turned down for a vacancy and general abuse and bullying “bitching”is common amongst staff on new deal,although it can be encountered on signing days where usually one who decides to pick on you will then criticize your jobsearch as not being to their taste and not laid out to their liking.
its important to realise that the interview will end and just get up and walk away,the whole tone of new deal is the same from start to finish.the job centre has no depths in the way it continues to treat people,terms such as “customer service” “job seekers charter” are all for their office environment,across the desk its a different story and another way of life,you know the realities of day to day job searching and the difficulties faced.raise above it,ignore them.
although this had an effect on peoples health the next stop is the doctors surgery,pointing out the cause of the problem,this proves that this conduct can and does effect peoples health and well being,a form of torture is not a wrong term,driving chances of employment further away because of health grounds,it doesnt look good on applications when this occurs.
its a nasty business with serious underlying government tones to a group in society it dislikes and fears “the unemployed”.they know unemployment damages them politically they dont like it even though its never going to go away,trying to make the “welfare state” dirty words is only a part of the tactic of trying to cover up the realities and failures in society.
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i have just been pushed into this new deal bull, first they required me to attend twice a week for 2 hrs a sesion, i refused and got that to 4 hrs once a week which in my opinion is still a waste of my time , i have been unemplyed for 12 months , oreviously i was working for 15 years solid as a hgv driver , but down to climate and opening the gateway to eastern europeans , this has totally destroyed the industry, i keep getting thrown my way agency addresses to apply to i mean why the hell would i want to sign on an agency, thats how i ended in this mess in the first place, i have missed twice now once i broke my ankle , second my girl had swine flu , now they are threatening sanctions , to me this scheme is not teaching me or doing anything i was not doing in the first place , close the gates and send all europeans back home and problem solved m dont and im afraid ile be unemployed for a dam site longer .
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