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Loading ...Jobseekers Allowance: the Scandal (A MUST READ FOR ALL JOBSEEKERS)
How many scandals can there possibly be?! Its becoming crazy now…
Jobseekers Allowance (JSA)
As described further here, when unemployment benefit began it was equal to 22% of average male earnings. By the 1980’s it was still 21% of average earnings. In 2008, Jobseekers Allowance became equal to 10.5% of average earnings.
Unemployment benefit has decreased!
Although, new taxes have been introduced and existing taxes have increased, beyond inflation, and the conditions behind Jobseekers Allowance have been introduced since the previous system, the equivalent amount has halved.
Jobseekers Allowance Conditions
There are numerous conditions that unemployed people who wish to claim benefit has to adhere to in order to receive it. I am generally in favour of this system – it has got rid of the “live on benefit” lifestyles – and makes it fairer.
The problem is not just the fact this amount has halved (and cost of living has significantly increased) BUT you now have to do activities to look for work (which cost money) out of that budget.
What is Jobseekers Allowance for?
Jobseekers Allowance is what the law says is the minimum amount of money you can live on. It covers food, bills, clothing, appliances (kettle, toaster, fridge etc.) and in some circumstances shelter.
Housing
Housing Allowance/Housing Benefit exists but not everyone can claim. If you rent (or pay contributions) to a place owned by a relative (regardless of how close and sometimes even with a friend), even if you have a tenancy agreement, rent book and evidence on your bank statement that you pay out a certain amount of money to them every month, you will not be able to claim. This means some people have to pay for their shelter too out of their Jobseekers Allowance (JSA).
The Cost of Seeking Employment
Of course, Jobseekers Allowance requires other deductions (and the bastards make it taxable income) such as costs of finding employment. We will work out the bare minimum that is expected of every Jobseeker.
Attendance
Of course you will need to attend the Jobcentre – travel costs are all claimable apart from attending labour market declarations (“signing on”) appointments – even though you need the money upfront before being reimbursed; for the purposes of this we will not include it.
(Location, Price one way, price both ways, cost per year, cost per month, cost per week)
Cardiff £1.50 £3.00 £81.00 £6.75 £1.56
Glasgow n/a £3.20 £86.40 £7.20 £1.66
Ipswich £1.70 £3.40 £91.80 £7.63 £1.77
London n/a £3.80 £102.60 £8.55 £1.97
Manchester n/a £4.00 £108.00 £9.00 £2.08
(may not be the cheapest fares, passes may get cheaper travel, includes weekly signing period too)
We will take an average of the weekly cost in this example: total travel is £1.81 per week.
Telephone or mobile
In order to be able to be contacted about a job you will need to be contacted by phone from the employer. You also require the use of a phone to ring up employers to apply for jobs. Public phone boxes are not included because you can’t be contacted back (unless you live in one).
(Type, line rental, cost of minimum calls (approx), total a year, total a week)
BT (British Telecom) (landline) £11.25 £5.00 £195 £3.75
NTL/Virgin Media (landline) £11.00 £5.00 £192 £3.69
Orange (mobile) £34.25 inc. £411 £7.90
Vodafone (mobile) £25.00 inc. £300 £5.77
(doesn’t include installation costs or additional services, mobiles are contract (PAYG has initial upfront payment of phone and also cost of credit top-ups) – includes some free credit – both types exclude personal calls)
We will take an average of the weekly cost in this example: cost of being contactable is £5.28 per week.
Writing to Employers
Jobseeker Agreements (JSAg) change depending on the person and so does what people do to look for work. A lot of applications are done online these days – either via a website or CV’s sent by email… (computers can sort applications out so humans are not required for short listing anymore, hence the popularity with them)
In this example, we will assume that 3 letters/CV’s are sent a week. For this example we will not include costs of making letters (i.e. electricity) and printing (paper, ink etc.) – but will include the envelopes.
Envelopes are expensive but we will use some from a cheap £1 store. Jobseeker will use around 3 packs costing £3 in total in an entire year. First class stamps cost 39p for small letters – works out as £60.84 a year (if prices not increase). You could use second class; application forms would be large letter and heavier so would cost more.
This works out at £1.23 per week – just for sending 3 CV’s.
This gives a grand total of £8.32 – almost £10 per week for the minimum, I will not covert it in to a percentage of the full weeks benefit money to soften the blow.
Further costs of finding employment
Of course, there is more to securing employment than the initial enquiry, sending a CV and sending an application form. You will need to attend interviews… You could have the clothes already but you may not. You will need some decent clothes to show you at your best. Then there is travel costs.
Catch 22
In order to claim unemployment welfare benefit (a lifeline of the minimum you need to live on – or as the law sees it) you have to seek work. Even when receiving that benefit, the benefit covers only the minimum costs to live on and applying for jobs isn’t about living, its not essentials to living, it is desirable.
So is this a defence for those that don’t bother looking for work?
Politicians continuously go on about people claiming who don’t bother looking for work: maybe they can’t afford it?
Requirements
An £10 a week additional allowance (similar to the £15 training allowance, idea) is required to fill this gap.
cont from before… don’t kow what happened to my PC.
Here is what you do. If you are waiting more than 10 minutes past youir appointment, you approach the floor manager and tell them you have been waiting more than 10 minutes and you ar not prepared to wait any longer, ask them to note on your records that you have attened the office to be seen but you now have to leave. They may rearrange your appiontment or magically fit you in, if not just go. On your return for your next appointment or sign on you may be asked to complete a from to go to a desicion maker to decide if they accept your reason for not being interviewed, you just state that you did attend and waitied longer than 10 minutes to be seen and you had to go. If this frequently happens it will reflect badly on the office and senior maangement will have to address it eventually.
A health warning with this, if jobcentre staff do not know the rules around this (as I said many stafff are not fully trained) your claim may be closed as if you Failed to attend in error and you may have a whole host of problems having to get your claim set back up and fighting not to loose that day’s money.
The other option is to write a letter of complaint to the manager about being kept waiting for appointments, although you are likely just to get a letter back appolgising that you have had a negative experience of the job centre, these letters of complaint are recorded and if there are many letters from the same reason (from different people)the problem has to be addressed eventually.
Hope you found this helpful.
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There is never a manager around at my local Jobcentre and if there is they are in their office or whatever and the security or staff will refuse to get him or her.
10 minutes?! I am waiting probably an average of 20 minutes although recently much longer… and it is literally…
(greetings…)
EO: What have you done to look for work?
ME: the response
EO: have you done any paid or unpaid work [...] ?
ME: No (or something like “I wish!” lol)
(signs the LM declaration)
EO: thats all for today
(good byes etc.)
Thats 2 minutes maximum.
Poorly trained staff… I agree, not all are though.
Complaints wont get anyone anywhere. Simple template letter response and it will happen again.
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the job centre is utter chaotic,when i sign you cannot get to the job points there are so many people crowded around using them,as for seeing a manager forget it,you will end up speaking to a member of staff some more approachable then others this no doubt keeps the official complaint figures down not that i think they care.
as far as i am concerned the quicker i am in and out the better.
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Yeah same at my local jobcentre. People standing waiting obstructing the entrance (also a fire exit/fire escape route) including out of the way around jobpoints. This is because there is no where else to stand. They used to allow people to go down the bottom to sit and wait to sign on… if there are too many people down there you just have to stand up… now they make everyone wait at the front and call people down to wait down the bottom like groups of 5-7 people at a time.
Yes, you arrive, show your signing on book, get told to wait standing, the slow staff or security staff takes ages to check that seats are free so you are standing at the front then they let you go down where you have to wait for another long time (sitting down if you are lucky)… The problem is in particular are those with prams or in wheelchairs which isn’t rare at all… they find it difficult to access the place and exit. It becomes a big task relying on everyones individual efforts of moving so a wheelchair or pram can get through.
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Why does the New Deal Advisor not contact you to see how things are going when you are on the 13 week course, even though they say they will? Im 6 weeks into the VSO course and haven’t had any contact with my Advisor.
It smacks of double standards, i keep my promises like looking for jobs, asking friends ect. and they cant even take 2 minutes to ask how the placement is going!
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i am so glad i have found this site. i have been on jsa for 13 weeks now and every time i go to sign on i am waiting on average 20 min, i have always been polite and respectful to my advisors and they talk to me like i am a crack dealer trying to avoid working. i have not signed on before,worked very hard all my life but where i worked closed down so needed job seekers.the staff are not trained properly and constantly give me wrong advice for example i was told i HAVE to look for work in manchester which is 4 hours away from where i live…or they will stop my jsa! they make endless rules up and i dont know what is true and what is lies…or sorry not lies just under trained staff? i find myself looking on sites like this every week to find out if my advisor is bulling me or not. i want a job so badly but cant afford to travel 4 hours to manchester for a min wage job ,but if i dont they will stop my jsa. i know that the job centre staff are there to “help” people back to work…so far i have not experience any “help” just bullying and lies.its getting to the point where i will be on sickness benefit due to the stress of constant lies and threats.
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these people break the rules and the law on a daily basis,as well as human rights,people who are covered under disability laws get the same “treatment”,none of this seems to deter them in the least.
i am surprised this wasnt picked up on.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167929/Unemployed-invited-humiliating-Easter-egg-hunt–win-job-application-forms.html
there is no end to their contempt and stupidity for the unemployed,its persecution against people for simply being out of work.
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Thanks for the link. Thats the first I have heard of that.
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That egg hunt story is totally disgraceful, JobCentre obviously haven’t heard of the words compassion or respect.
There are plenty of people on JSA who would do their job 100 times better.
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I am one of them!
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Me too! In fact, we could probably do the work of two PA’s, after all, they don’t seem to be doing much work when im signing on. Unless gossiping and twiddling your thumbs is part of the job description!
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My daughter was redundant from 10th September until 2nd December. She has had absolutely nothing in terms of JSA and today has a letter from them saying she is not going to get anything, because she missed a meeting that they had directed her too. She isn’t as articulate as me, and I would like to speak to them, but I can’t do that unless she is with me, because it is not allowed. The chances of us both being together nmow duiring their opening hours are small. The meeting she missed was because the advisor told her one date and put another in the letter handed to her, but clearly we can’t argue that because they must be right! That meeting was also after some weeks unemployed, but she is still not getting anything for that. We will be appealing, but she has to visit them to get the form that she needs as they don’t include it in the letter. Fortunately we have been able to subsidise her in seeking work and she now has something at least, but I feel very sorry for those that get little help or support from the system or anyone else. I’m just furious that someone who is genuinly out of work is treated so appalingly and there seems to be little anyone can do about it.
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Hi Derek
It was exactly the same in my situation – they never included an appeal form and I had to visit the Jobcentre to get one and even then they weren’t too happy to give me one, I had to jump through hoops just to appeal.
Now, I was told a wrong signing on date before and was signed off. I had all sorts of issues regarding that although my signing on book clearly mentioned the date I attended (where I found out my claim was closed).
All along they kept accusing me of missing the appointment and I continued arguing with the woman who wasn’t have any of it. She was negotiating to a compromise each time which then followed by an typical (I am right you are wrong attitude) “it was because you failed to turn up” etc.. and “to receive jobseekers allowance you have to sign declaration on the dates and time we give you, its not our fault if you cant make it, its the same rule for everyone” and my pleading of “I was told an incorrect signing on date so it wasnt my fault, I attended then”, she wouldnt get it in her thick skull. The signing on book wasn’t adequate proof. She refused to contact my New Deal adviser to who would have supported me as I todl her about it and she advised me how to get it sorted.
It wasn’t until I showed my signing on book to the Jobcentre Plus Manager and explained the situation where things actually started to get done and I was back dated monies owed – took a couple of weeks though. Getting to see the manager was a BIG task in its own.
Ironically, to sort the problem out I saw the same woman again, this time she was polite, very apologetic and helpful; too apologetic in fact, and now it was “Oh it was Catherine you saw, she is new” not like its my fault or that I had any choice who I saw.
So even with evidence of their mistake its difficult to prove. They will never admit their mistakes until they have to. In this case I think the Manager gave this employee a good talking to – I had been down every day that week to sort it out (costing me in travel – they only refunded two days when they invited me down (after I saw the manager) the other days Im liable for the cost) and I finally got it sorted out. This meant just over a month of having no money.
You only have a month to appeal! So try and get it sorted asap. Send a copy of the letter not the original as proof. If you need to write more don’t be put off by the small box – when I appealed I used 3 additional sheets. Ask for proof if handing it in (most Jobcentres refuse to though) – if you posting it, get proof of posting.
I hope you are successful but it will be along wait to get the money unless they decide to cough up and admit liability.
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