On 22/06/15 at 10:34 (my laptop had to be repaired, hence the delay in reporting this) I saw a Job Centre advisor tell a “customer” (as the DWP calls those forced to attend the Job Centre) that he was now “banned from this Job Centre” for making a complaint against one of the staff. She informed him that the ban would be in effect “while the investigation into [his] allegations” is processed and he would have to sign on at another Job Centre approximately 20 miles away. When I asked my advisor about it, she just said she didn’t know and couldn’t discuss it. She didn’t deny that the Job Centre would do that or find the idea ridiculous or slanderous.
This is deeply concerning. It’s an attempt at censorship- exercise your right to complain and you’ll have to be inconvenienced. The complainant is punished by being banned, instead of the staff member who is the alleged perpetrator. Punishing people for engaging with the DWP (which helps to improve the quality of the services) and exercising their rights is completely unethical and possibly illegal. Even if he’d been banned as a result of the incident that caused the complaint, and not for complaining, surely the ban should be stopped until the investigation is over and he’s proved to be in the wrong and deserve the ban.
After my advisor interview I left the Job Centre and then went back to get more information. My advisor told me that even if a JSA claimant has applied for enough jobs per week, they can still be sanctioned if they didn’t apply for a job that they could do. (I saw this happen when I was undercover in another Job Centre but I never thought the problem was so widespread). The only reason I wasn’t sanctioned today is because the jobs I hadn’t applied for hadn’t closed yet. Whether a job has closed or not is a ridiculois way to determine whether or not to sanction somebody. It’s also unclear if this involves just local jobs; if I regularly apply to jobs far from my local area, it would actually make sense to sanction me for not applying to jobs all over the UK. And why stop there? I’ve applied to jobs abroad; why not sanction people for not applying for every job in the world that they can do?
Tagged: austerity, benefits sanctions, Department for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, Job Centre, Job Centre Covert Recording
The actions of staff at JobCentres is becoming more erratic by the day, maybe it’s them that need the pseudo-CBT?
Why are we not in open revolt yet? I’m sure if the French government tried this approach people would be dusting off the guillotines even as we speak…
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