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Loading ...So it has been a hot topic in the recent week…. Benefit Busters at A4e Doncaster.
I have already expressed disappointment regarding the low outcome by A4e the largest welfare provider in the UK that also has business interests overseas.
Since the Benefit Busters show, I have been reviewing feedback across the internet. The comments are shocking!
I wasn’t expecting so many people to side with the single mums. There were only a handful against.
Hayley Taylor
I wasn’t the only one who thought it. Cheeky TV off Digital Spy also claims Hayley Taylor is a dominatrix.
Pointless Activities
You may have recalled a couple of featured activities which are rather pointless and very like New Deal.
There was a worksheet like:
EMPLOYMENT V UNEMPLOYMENT
“TO WORK OR NOT TO WORK”
PLEASE COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES:
…
What on Earth is that about? Why is the worksheet done in uppercase?
The Alcoholic
There was a lot of discussion about Hayley presuming that one of the participants had been drinking while on the course. This was because the woman in question was shaking – a common tell tell sign of being drunk. This is also a common sign of being nervous, frightened or a characteristic of a medical condition. I think (without knowing further details) and I assume that this woman was an ex-alcoholic and it was the case of 2 +2 = …
Even after having a discussion, Hayley was unable to determine that she had been drinking – it would have been obvious by her breath and her eyes. Neither was raised and she remained on the course (alcohol = dismissal; drugs = dismissal; guns and knifes = dismissal). If she had been drinking she would have definitely been exited.
Surprise Surprise, she came to hand in a document but had some alcohol before. A big deal was made by it. She had a bereavement. A lot of people assumed now that she had been drinking previously on the course (the previous incident) but no evidence existed to prove that.
Better on Benefits
A lot of people were confused about one of the women not being better off working than on benefits – I disagree!
If the figures are correct that is shown on TV then she is around £100 better off… thats approx £5 ph…not BAD!
Current Circumstances
Income
Income Support = £60.50
Child Tax Credit = £170.66
Housing Benefit = £58
Council Tax Benefit = £11.59
Child Benefit = £56.45
TOTAL: £357.20
Outgoings
Housing = £58
Council Tax = £11.59
TOTAL: £69.59
GRAND TOTAL: £287.61
Job (20 hours a week £112.21)
Income
Child Tax Credit = £170.66
Working Tax Credit = £108.53
Housing Benefit = £6.53
Earnings = £112.21
Child Benefit = £56.45
TOTAL: £454.38
Outgoings
Housing = £58
Council Tax = £11.59
TOTAL: £69.59
GRAND TOTAL: £384.79
Better off Calculation
Extra £97.18 per week
Please Note: She is below the tax threshold. Pays small amount of N.I (25p per week). Earnings above are net.
Under normal circumstances she would have had her “Income Support” revoked for turning down the job. Quite right too. After receiving all that benefit and doing pretty much a part time job (20 hours) for almost up to 2 times more than other single unemployed people receive a week in unemployment benefit.
Hayley Taylor was disgusting
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Benefit busters can be watched on channel 4 on demand free
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefit-busters/4od
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Can you clarify these figures – where did they come from?
Btw, Housing Benefit is done on a pro-rata on income, so it is unlikely that there would be any.
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The figures come from the show, the piece of paper she was holding.
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I am confused then – I assume this is the woman with 4 children who turned down the job at Poundland. Why would Hayley have not pounced on this benefit and highlighted this woman as a scrounger. These can’t be quite right can they?
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Well…
I am quoting the figures displayed in Episode 1 via On Demand (I paused it and jotted it down).
If the figures are incorrect either: a) A4e have done so deliberately or via error, or b) I made a mistake (however the totals add up – I jotted that down too not worked it out)
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It’s (only just) occured to me that there was no mention of child support from the fathers of the children the lone parents are bringing up, or did I miss that?
As far as I know, child support is not counted in respect of working tax credits – in fact there is a cash bonus from the government when a lone parent who goes into paid employment receives, which lone parents who are not in reciept of child support do not. Unbelievably unfair!
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I was sent to the job centre in Doncaster last October to talk about my entitlements ,income support etc. as I had split up with my baby’s dad and was going at it alone. I was asked if I wanted to go back to work even though my son was barely one yet, and i felt very enclined to go so I said I did want to. She asked me what I was interested in and I said Admin, and she said she could send me on a course to do this for 13 week (baring in mind at this point, I am thinking I’ll be able to get some qualifications from this and be studying administration – that’s what you would think when you’re told this!). So…I was really excited and went to
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Your son not even one and they want you to go back in to work?
It is the Government trying to meet targets which they are failing to do so hence why they want to force every single parent in to work. I am surprised they haven’t gone as far as to maternity wards and trying to get those who have just given birth into agency work.
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A4E the same place on the first series, and it was full of working class people. Straight away, I knew I didn’t belong there. Being from a nice family it was strange that being a single mother I indirectly was being labelled as “scum of the earth” at least how i thought of it. I had 10 Gcse’s, – and A in Maths, 5 Alevels, and I just happened to fall pregnant before university and decided at 18 I would have my baby boy. So, I am at a4e (i didn’t see that Hayley – she must of been sacked! ha) and I make friends with everyone as you do, and it was absolute hell. They spoke to us with such venom and like children, it was so awful. I felt I was too intellectual, and felt the “Hawthorne Effect” in some ways because we were led to believe we were like the worse people in the world (and don’t get me wrong, many do abuse the system, and I am sure more do than don’t – but I am NOT one of those people) . My tutor thought I was lying when I told him I had those GCSE’S AND Alevels, and I wasn’t allowed to do the next advanced maths test because he thought I wouldn’t be able to do it even though I wanted to and told him so! This really annoyed me. They weren’t all evil though, just the support worker, the receptionist, the “progress to work” team leader, other team leader guy, another head officer and the manager. They all had a chip on their shoulder, patronising me all the time. One of the support workers even told one of my friends there to “Not hang around with me cos i am bad news!” I couldnt believe it! I am from cusworth, and my friend was from balby now who’s more rough?? No offence to my friend, but I am just trying to say that I was an angel compared to the rest of them ! How two faced though of a “social worker” – she just wanted to know the gossip, she didn’t genuinely care at all. You could see it in her eyes. We always used to get accused of stealing! But if tobacco went “missing” (in inverted commas because some people lyed so that A4E would buy them a new pouch of tobacco or cigarettes!) we used to get it in the neck and be punished even though we knew the person was making it up to get them to pay for something! I mean buying tobacco with the governments money for the benefit people – come on !! If more people knew that it would be outrage! There is so much more I could say, i wish I could have been on the programme because I would have explained very in detail how they manipulate you into getting any old job like McDonalds, and Poundland – fair enough it might some like a “job” to some people, but would that Hayley have swapped her job to work at Buger KIng? I dont think so, there is pride and a bit of dignity for some people, and i think convincing them to go to college would be a much better option. Then they could go for something at least they enjoy, and are confident with, rather than a miserable job that they have to drag themselves out of bed for! They never mentioned a thing about college to me, and they were getting desperate asking me to go with agencies where they just lay you off whenever they feel like it and are damn right unfair (experienced this myself) or temporary jobs (they get a juicy bonus if they get someone back to work (and if its temporary then after the jobs finished then the person goes back to A4E and they get yet another bonus for making that persons life miserable)and the person has to through all the messing about of sorting their benefits back out all over again even though your circumstances are still the same and you have no money for a few weeks, but they don’t care). Its corrupt! I could go on forever but I will just say a couple more things. I was told off for having an off the shoulder top on by a woman, but yet she had a huge pair of breasts that she liked to put on show and always wore skirts (which i didn’t have a problem with) and she was the one at work and I wasn’t! but I was younger and prettier and slimmer lol. So she must of just been jealous. Anyway, it was a dreadful experience, it’s just commission and brownie points if they get someone back into work and i really believe half of them , at least, don’t give a toss about any of those people. I am going back to college next month to do accountancy and i can’t wait to go back there in a few years time and just go in and stick two fingers up! Hope people can see my point of view, and I am not on benefits side, just people aren’t always lucky in life, not always brought up perhaps as good as they could have been, and it’s not always their fault that they’ve ended up on benfits. I think that the people trying to scam the system being on sick, claiming benfit when they’re with a partner etc. is absolutely shameful and they should have serious consequences. The tax payer is fed up for paying for losers who purposely defy the system. Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer!
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Hi Danielle
Bringing a child in the world is the best thing EVER! So well done. So whatever anyone tells you or associates you with by being a single mum try not to let it get to you too much (I know it isn’t easy). I just don’t want you to let them break you and try to reprogram you in to believing you are “scum of the earth” – when you are absolutely not! This applies to all jobseekers in general and not just single parents although this group of people are normally a target like you have proven.
I am not surprised about them accusing you of lying about your qualifications. I am currently writing an A-Z of New Deal which I have done A-Z but currently writing stuff for each letter. A is for Abuse, P is for Presumptions.
You may have heard about “one size fits all” and not anything about tailoring delivery to the individual and their circumstances – along with their single track mind they deliver induction and it is assumed that you fall in the stereotypical description of an unemployed person, such as:
- Wakes up extremely late every day and can’t be bother to get up: as a single parent you probably have been woken up a few times in the night ^o) and have to wake up in the morning to meet the needs of your son. I am not a single parent but I also don’t fall under this stereotype as I am always awake by 8am, typically 5.45am to 6.10am.
- Doesn’t want to work, doesn’t see the point in it (likes living on small money per week: a career of benefits): so they then have to try and persuade you that getting a job is a good idea from delivering pathetic nursery like activities to being shouted at – when over the last 6 months everyone has been searching for jobs.
- Avoids agency jobs as they are easier to secure than sustainable jobs and the person doesn’t want to work: Jobseekers are clever to agency jobs, zero-hour contracts and unsustainable jobs and they don’t want to take them just so A4e etc. can get bonuses and claim another success story.
etc.
I am the opposite side of the country to you and people have also been advised not to talk with me. It is commonplace. They pick out the clever ones or those that seem to rebel the New Deal system because it is those people who explain to the other jobseekers how it works. It is those people who advise the others not to take zero-hour contracts as after a month you will be out of work. It is them who tell the jobseekers that A4e etc. are not to help you but looking to meet their targets to get money from the Government to get you in to any job. It is those people who make their job more difficult and slashes their targets. This is why they do this. If they can make the others not trust you then they are more likely not to believe the truth and adhere to the plans of A4e etc.
Do you have any hard evidence about them buying participants tobacco products? That would be the final nail in their coffin.
Good luck with studying the accountancy! Please see another success story at the (sister site to this one) New Deal Complaints site… http://newdealcomplaints.co.uk/a4e/sugar-daddy-employee-targets-vulnerable-debt-victim/ An interesting read and she got through it all and went to University to of a social care degree (if I recall correctly).
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adminsitration course? No, reading newspapers from 9.30 til 3.30 mon to friday. wandering the streets of doncaster looking for imaginary jobs. Did nothing as such in Admin, so boring! The difference was though, I had chosen to come to this place to be talked to like scum, and the rest hadn’t chosen! They was made to go though most of them because they were on income support or job seekers. It was an absolute waste of time. Also, when we were told to take any old job just so it looks good on your CV, then it wouldnt look too good if you put you were only working there for a couple of months tops! Employers tend to prefer more long-term then that! and if they realize you were from A4E, THEN i doubt they would employ you! It’s basically helping you job search – which is ok if you haven’t got the internet and that or money for newspapers but crap for me because i just didn’t belong there. One of them even tried making me travel to Meadowhall and back every day to work in retail ! WHAT?! To earn less money and less time with my son! He was desperate for me to get any old job wasn’t he? let me know what you think peeps! A money making scam ! It should be axed ! You see the chair woman? She’s rolling in it, taking advantage of a corrupt country for her wealth! Angers me !!!
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These courses don’t help.
There clearly is two elements to this:
Short Term/Temporary Employment Vs Unemployment.
Unemployment:
Periods of Unemployment doesn’t look good.
You are lucky for your circumstances – I don’t see any employer that would discredit you as instead of living to the typical stereotypes of unemployed people (most unemployed people don’t) you were bringing up a child.
Some people will argue saying the child is the excuse to be idle or there is nothing stopping you working as you can get childcare but the financial stuff out of the way, the first 5 years are critically vital to your childs upbringing and constant use of childcare in my eyes isn’t a good idea.
Short Term Jobs:
The only advantage these unsustainable jobs will have is being a “quality” of you as a person, saying you are keen to be employed etc. – The problem with this is it hardly shows up for “experience” and the other qualities it shows is settling for second best and not looking for a career (unless all jobs are in same industry, unlikely).
Employers typically are not interested whether you might not appear to be an active jobseeker – they will use your references to see whether you are lazy or not at your job.
Added problems are “get out issues” i.e. sanctions up to 6 months for being sacked or leaving, whether you can afford to take the job and whether it is a zero-hour contract/unsustainable job.
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